CRISIS REACTION
Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. Luke 22:31.
My brother and I were at grandma's house. We were playing out back near the woodshed. We both looked and acted the same--quiet and calm--until a yellow jacket stung my brother. He began to carry on in away that I thought was foolish--until the yellow jacket's brother stung me! And what looked at first to be foolishness turned out to be the first duet that my brother and I ever sang!
Our reaction in a crisis does not represent any kind of change. It merely reveals what was there, inside, all along. Usually a crisis will speed a person in the direction in which he was already headed. If you are walking up a mountain, and trip and fall, when you rise again you are usually a step or two beyond where you fell. And if you are going down the mountain, and you fall, when you rise again you are usually several steps below where you fell. The crisis of falling simply puts you further along the path on which you were already headed.
God wants us to clearly understand when we are headed in the wrong direction. When a crisis comes and not only reveals our direction but even increases our momentum in that direction, we can be brought up short by the mercy of God and seek for His power to change our direction. Any change that comes will come after the crisis is over.
This is why death-bed repentances are seldom, if ever, genuine. If there is anything that is a crisis, it's death, when time and eternity somehow meet. And if a crisis simply reveals what you are, but does not change you, and if there is no time afterward for change, then how could you allow for death-bed repentances, save in the extreme exception?
"Courage, fortitude, faith, and implicit trust in God's power to save, do not come in a moment. These heavenly graces are acquired by the experiences of years."--Christian Experience and Teachings, p. 188. It takes time to transform the human into the divine. This shows us another picture of the love of God, that He allows the smaller winds to blow, that we may see ourselves and have opportunity to prepare for the greater winds to come, seeking a relationship with Him that is not based on fear but rather on love.
Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. Luke 22:31.
My brother and I were at grandma's house. We were playing out back near the woodshed. We both looked and acted the same--quiet and calm--until a yellow jacket stung my brother. He began to carry on in away that I thought was foolish--until the yellow jacket's brother stung me! And what looked at first to be foolishness turned out to be the first duet that my brother and I ever sang!
Our reaction in a crisis does not represent any kind of change. It merely reveals what was there, inside, all along. Usually a crisis will speed a person in the direction in which he was already headed. If you are walking up a mountain, and trip and fall, when you rise again you are usually a step or two beyond where you fell. And if you are going down the mountain, and you fall, when you rise again you are usually several steps below where you fell. The crisis of falling simply puts you further along the path on which you were already headed.
God wants us to clearly understand when we are headed in the wrong direction. When a crisis comes and not only reveals our direction but even increases our momentum in that direction, we can be brought up short by the mercy of God and seek for His power to change our direction. Any change that comes will come after the crisis is over.
This is why death-bed repentances are seldom, if ever, genuine. If there is anything that is a crisis, it's death, when time and eternity somehow meet. And if a crisis simply reveals what you are, but does not change you, and if there is no time afterward for change, then how could you allow for death-bed repentances, save in the extreme exception?
"Courage, fortitude, faith, and implicit trust in God's power to save, do not come in a moment. These heavenly graces are acquired by the experiences of years."--Christian Experience and Teachings, p. 188. It takes time to transform the human into the divine. This shows us another picture of the love of God, that He allows the smaller winds to blow, that we may see ourselves and have opportunity to prepare for the greater winds to come, seeking a relationship with Him that is not based on fear but rather on love.
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