faith unfaded

The chapter I was working on this morning is entitled “God Is Not a Pretzel” and it stemmed from a conversation I had recently with the founder of a performing arts troupe I’d been interviewing.

“It’s scary these days,” she’d said. “People are taking scriptures and twisting them to back their own agendas.”

She wasn’t wrong. Not only is this a common practice for individuals, the government was now perverting the gospel for gain. My next words came from the place where only the Holy Spirit resides.

“They can twist the Truth all they want but they can’t twist God.”

We both sat in silence for a moment as my words sank in. It’s true. God cannot be moved. (Psalm 144) People can be manipulated but the omniscient Lord cannot.

Ultimately nothing happens without God’s permission BUT NOT everything is God’s will. God doesn’t do evil nor tempt evil. (James 1:13)

But why is there evil in the first place? Because of man’s sin.

So we just need to worry about doing right in the eyes of the Lord? Yes!

Well, um, no actually….

My Bible study passage this morning opened my eyes to something I’d missed along the way. I do a lot of reading in the books of the prophets, knowing it is a spiritual gift I’ve received and using their words as a manual. Today I read Habbakuk 3.

The final verses of the Habbakuk’s prayer to the Lord lifted my spirit.

v. 18-19
I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights….

But I’d read something earlier in the chapter that grabbed my soul tightly.

v. 2
Lord, I have heard of your fame;
    I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.
Repeat them in our day,
    in our time make them known;
    in wrath remember mercy.

The prophet knows the people have turned away from the Lord. Yet He pleads with the Lord to be merciful and bless them anyway.

You saw this often in the Old Testament, prophets and men of God begging God to have mercy on a sinful nation.

Now we flippantly announce that others are going to hell in a hand basket. Worse yet, we take pleasure in the fact that our enemies will burn in an eternal fire.

What does that say about our own wickedness?

In 1918, Irving Berlin wrote the tune “God Bless America” in the battle-torn climate of WW1. It was a prayer. God BLESS America…stand beside her…and guide her…

We sing the same words now with our mouths but our prideful hearts are singing past tense. God blessed America. Stood beside her…

We rip each other to shreds with such hatred in our hearts there’s no room to ask God for genuine mercy. The “me” mentality of today’s society just wants to know that our own feet are on solid ground.

We’ve forgotten how to pray for our nation.

If we could all just stop and plead with the Lord to be merciful on our country, He could stop the division Satan causes with just one word.

We just have to get out of ourselves long enough to ask.