Post details: Is God punishing me for breaking my promise?

02/24/09

Permalink 09:24:54 am, Categories: By Trent, GraceHead counseling
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Is God punishing me for breaking my promise?

From time to time, I get random questions from complete strangers in my inbox. This is the most recent:

when i was 13 yrs old, i just made a promise that i would become a nun if i win some competition, it was not intentionally but it just came to my mind, but i am married now, and i have lot of problems in my married life. Is it because of that promise. what should i do now?

Here is the answer that I gave through prayer and dependence.

Hello there.

I hope you are well as you read this long awaited reply.
As I type this out from a hotel room, I think to myself, this sure is ironic. My wife wants me out of the house because she is jealous of my relationship with the Lord. At the same time, I am offering marital advice to you. I chuckle to think of the crisis this puts you in: should you really take advice from someone whose marriage is on the rocks? Well, I'll leave that to you. So prayerfully consider my words today. Take the best, and ditch the rest.

There are alot of marriages under attack right now. I've seen it. It seems to me that a great war is building in the country where I live. I don't know what to make of it, except that I believe we are in the end of the age. The rapture is close at hand, and the falling away and birth pains of the Lord's coming are getting ever stronger. It is a season that takes extraordinary attention. It is a time to be awake and alert and not let these things catch you unawares. So, be on guard, okay? I'll do the same.

I've made little agreements with God as a child, too. I failed at my end of the bargain as you did. I guess it means that we are failures to some extent. But I don't want to be a failure, right? I want to do all I say that I will do and I want God to look down from heaven and say something like: "Whoa, we really have quite a specimen of a human here, don't we?" Its funny to see that typed out, isn't it?

Pride can seem "right" sometimes, but we read in scripture that pride comes before a fall, and that sure is the case in my life. I've often boasted of things only to have fallen in my boasts shortly there after. I'm learning not to bargain and boast so much anymore. It only leads to a fall.

I have a friend named Mike. He makes a practice of listening for little boasts like that. One day someone said, "Oh, I would never commit that sin." Mike dropped what he was doing, and stood up right in front of that man, and said: "Brother, we are going to pray right now together and release that boast you just made. You could easily do any awful thing that anyone else could do, so enough with the grandstanding. We are going to pray right now that the Lord's grace is on you to keep you from temptation and rely on Him, not yourself. I just don't want you to fall because of your boast, and I've seen it over and over." That is a good fella to have around.

Did you know that the good of your flesh is the worst of your flesh?!?

Whatever it is at which you excel is the last thing you will entrust to God. Compare the frequency of your prayers for help in the company of your enemies or harsh family members to how confident you are amongst people that don't give you problems ... yet where do you fall, and in whose company? The good of your flesh is the enemy of God's best.

Should a Christian avoid evil work?
Duh.

Should a Christian avoid good work?
Well, I won't be boasting about it.

If the law of the Spirit of life is operating in me in this moment, then it is setting me free from the law of sin and death. The written law is very useful, but in the moments that the Lord Jesus is living through me there is nothing (not even lonely, pious obedience to the simple moral law) that can compare. At those times, it is not me, but Christ living in me, and His strength will be manifest in my weakness to fulfill the law in me ... and even exceed it. All He is waiting for me to say is the two most precious words in His ears: "I can't." Then I don't have to get by with any less then His best.

After all, I am only as weak as my strongest link.

What is life teaching you, sister? Is it teaching you to be more self-reliant, or less? It is teaching you that you can do things on your own, or that where you are strong you are weak, and where you are weak and dependent on God, His strength is manifest in you?

Consider these things, and I think you will see that the real problems in your life is that you think you have something to offer God, when in-fact you don't. You are weak and needy and it is marvelous, because He wants you to rely upon and be filled by Him. He wants you to take each step in Him and turn to Him each moment to get by. It won't always look like things are going right in that case, but they are. You are learning patience and humility and softness that will pay off someday right when you need it. And all of heaven cheers when a humble servant learns the value of being yoked with the Lord Jesus and walking with Him step-by-step.

Well, I know I wasn't real specific, but I thought a question like yours could be answered in general terms. Maybe your next question will get a more direct answer from me. And I would like to welcome you to asking more questions if you want to.

Ripening for the harvest which is close at hand,
Trent

Comments:

Comment from: Timothy [Member] · http://www.TrumpetCallofGodOnline.com
Amen.
Permalink 02/24/09 @ 10:36

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