Wednesday, August 20, 2008

My Own Worst Enemy

"Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow bronze..." Isaiah 48:4

God anticipates our foolishness. He accounts for our arrogance, our vanity, our blindness, our disbelief; and through all of those things He still reaches to us. God will do whatever it takes to save us from ourselves (vs. 5-7).
It takes us a long time to realize that we are our own worst enemy. We may comprehend in a moment, but forget it the next. We have a strange combination of spiritual Alzheimer's and ADHD: we immediately forget what we have learned and are at once distracted by the same old ploys. It is the plight of James 1:22-24, and the cause is the same: we hear God say that we are our own greatest threat, but we do not allow His Spirit to do anything about it. God will let us trip over our own feet as many times as necessary until we finally grow tired of ourselves.
"...I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and was called a transgressor from the womb" (vs. 8). God is not fooled by human nature. Even after we are redeemed from sinners to saints, He is to unaware of our propensity to be lured by the enemy back to ourselves. Rest assured, if you are His, you will eventually grow weary of yourself.

"I grow tired of this weak and frail man;
Make a Son of God out of him..."

-Jon Vowell

No comments: