I know from experience that if you harp on your opinions too much people get hurt. They will either begin to take it personally even if you don't mean it that way or you can wind up leading them astray or skewing their motives because they begin to see your opinion as biblical truth.
My opinion is that it is best to spend quiet time with God in the morning before anything else happens. However, on nights I can't sleep I get up and do my devotions then and sleep in the next morning. Am I far away from God because I did my devotions a lot earlier in the morning? Nope.
If in class I tell my girls all the time that they better start the day with devotions or they won't be well equipped to handle their days and walk close to God, I'll make them think that not getting up early and doing their devotions is a sin. Worse still I'll make them stressed out and worried because they can't get up early enough to spend enough time in the bible. Worse still is I have five girls going out and judging others for not doing their devotions in the morning.
Am I making sense?
We're not all the same person so God requires different things from each of us. Maybe nightly, afternoonly devotions is better and more edifying for others. All I know is that christians should spend time with God. WHEN and HOW they do it is between them and God.
I write this blog as a testament to what God is teaching me. Incidentally my favourite teaching on the bible comes from people who clearly have an ongoing, close, and growing relationship with God. Their wisdom is completely biblical and at the same time steeped in experience and organic learning. God is always teaching them something in their life and so they always have new examples of what God did for them, what He is teaching them, and the things they have recently discovered about Him.
Their wisdom comes from the Word going in and processed through their lives, experiences, and thoughts and it becomes this tangible thing that passes faith and becomes knowledge.
Knowledge that God is real and that He is guiding and teaching.
One of the thing that brings this to a halt is trying to control what you are learning.
I'm learning a particularly hard lesson right now and I feel like I'm going to burst into tears every minute. There are times when I just don't want to go on but a choice is set before me and I can either prove God by making the right choice according to the things He's brought me through thus far or I can sit down and not move because I'm tired and I can't do this.
The right choice is obviously to go on and prove God and learn and grow.
I was feeling particularly sad last week and there were things that were being said that were making me feel even worse. I was very cast down and I felt ashamed that I was sad and confused and had no where to turn.
On Sunday mornings while we get ready for church I tune in to Bible Believers Baptist Church's (of Jacksonville, Florida) live stream- they're three hours ahead of us- and that Sunday pastor Peacock was preaching about God's love and
Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my
tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy
book?
Psalm 56:8
It was a great comfort to me to hear that my tears are in a bottle up in heaven for a memorial because God loves us and Jesus understands. Pastor Peacock was talking about how God sees how hard things are and He knows how we worry and can be afraid despite the scripture that tells us we don't need to be.
I'm actually feeling even worse now than I did last week but I can give you many examples of the tender mercies God has showered on me this week. Just little kindnesses here and there, He made big decisions transparent, He lead me to the right places at the right time, He's given me little comforts that give me temporary relief. He is good.
He lifted me up and helped me go on. I think I was sad and heard that message to prepare me for greater sadness this week. Had I tried to control what God was teaching me, had I hardened myself against God because of the trouble, I would be sinking.
Another thing that stops biblical learning is our opinions.
There are things I've been noticing in my bible class that I do not like. It's nothing terrible, it's things I experienced when I was that age, and as an adult I don't like it.
As I was preparing my lesson for this week and I was pulling something out of scripture to teach the girls I noticed it was very similar to most of the other lessons I had taught.
There's two ways to look at it-
1) This is by God's design and He wants it repeated through different passages and different people in the bible
2) My opinion of the things I see and don't like is colouring what I intend to teach them no matter what the passage is about
In this case, option two is what is happening. I know it because God brought it up.
It is possible to have a biblical message that has to do with the passage you're teaching from that has nothing to do with what God wants you to teach.
I'm just realizing that not only is teaching my opinions harmful but allowing them to rule what I teach is equally if not more harmful.
I was going to start with this but I may as well end with it.
I have great respect for Peter Ruckman for a variety of reasons. I don't worship him or anything, nor do I run to Him to find out what a passage of scripture means.
I heard him tell this story once and it is something I always remember:
He became the pastor of a church where some of the women were wearing really short skirts and some men had long hair. He said he just preached the Word every Sunday. Some people came up to him and asked why he didn't address the skimpy clothes and all that. I'm not sure what he answered, if at all, but he said he just kept preaching the Word every Sunday without fail, never addressing the 'problems' the legalistic brethren were bringing up.
Slowly but surely the skirts got longer and the hair got shorter.
That's not to say that short skirts and long hair on men means they're not spiritual but the change is a testament to what God was doing.
Whatever I think is going on, whatever my opinion of it, I just need to teach the Word because
So shall my word be that goeth forth out
of my mouth: it shall not return unto me
void, but it shall accomplish that which I
please, and it shall prosper in the thing
whereto I sent it.
Isaiah 55:11
My teaching is not going to change anyone.
Is not my word like as a fire? saith the
LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the
rock in pieces?
Jeremiah 23:29
The Word will do His job. My interfering with it by inserting my opinions and letting myself be guided by what I see will only harm those I am trying to help. God knows what they need. I'll just be His instrument to teach what He wants, free from my interference.
No comments:
Post a Comment