For Israel has behaved stubbornly, like a stubborn heifer. How then should he expect to be fed and treated by the Lord like a lamb in a large pasture?
Ephraim is joined [fast] to idols, [so] let him alone [to take the consequences].
(Hosea 4:16-17 Amp)
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One of the scariest things God could do to me is let me have my own way. Did you ever think about that? I can look back at some of the decisions God prevented me from taking, some of the mistakes He guarded me against and I cannot help but be grateful. I can look back at an ex and think now, "Thank God he got me out of that." But at the time I was thinking "God, what are you doing to me? How can you be so cruel?"
Am I the only one here? Has anyone else done the same? What about the opposite? I've also been in a situation where I felt God telling me no but I plowed right through anyways. Without fail I've come to regret it later. Is there anyone reading this who isn't yet thinking about the Carrie Underwood song:
Jesus take the wheel Take it from my hands Cause I can't do this on my own I'm letting go So give me one more chance Save me from this road I'm on
Jesus take the wheel.
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A younger father a couple centuries back was visiting with an older gentleman. They talked about many things and eventually the conversation worked its way around to this father's newborn child. The young man talked about how strict his parents were and how he felt they did not allow him the freedom he felt he deserved. Then he said, "I am going to strive not to make the same mistake. My son is a free and an independent spirit. I am going to let him grow and develop his own way without imposing on him the religious and physical boundaries that so limited me."
The older man simply smiled knowingly, made an innocuous reply and the conversation moved on to other things. After a while the older man began bragging about a garden he had been working on. This surprised the younger man who never imagined his older friend to have a green thumb and he insisted on seeing this garden. So the two of them left the house and walked about a block.
They came to a vacant and overgrown lot and the older man gestured proudly and said, "Here it is."
The younger man was taken aback and exclaimed, "But this is nothing more than an empty lot full of useless weeds."
The older man took offense at this and said, "My garden has a free and independent spirit. I have let it grow and develop in its own way without placing on it my own restrictive limitations of aesthetics and value."
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I thank God for parents who have disciplined me. I thank God he does the same. All too often I have behaved like a "stubborn heifer" and don't deserve the wide open freedom I have not earned. Even though I may cry and fight against it, please God, do not stop giving me limitations. Continue to hedge me in. I am still a young and growing seed. No matter how much it hurts, weed me, prune me, and uproot those things in my life that prevent me from growing into what You want me to be. Whatever You do, God, please don't let me be.
I feel now, at this time in my life, that although I have been cultivating my garden to make it look pretty with knowledge, new experiences, the development of my talent, etc., it has been largely without the remembrance of God. I do things right, I do things wrong, but I feel that I let God in only a few short times a day, usually before a meal, when I wake up, and when I go to sleep. I feel void without Him, yet I know that it is me that has pushed him away subconsciously - He did not walk away from me voluntarily.
I need you, Lord, please answer my cry and "please don't late me be!"
What makes person who knows the truth (God's Word), after carefully weighing the pros and cons of a decision they are going to make, realizing the consequences of this decision and how many lives they are going to ruin including their own relationship with God, choose to go against God's truth and do it anyway? It scares me. I think of Hebrews 6:4-6
"It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace".
Could you explain what Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?
