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Nothing Is Too Hard For You

           “Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you. (Jeremiah 32:17)

          Today’s verse brings up another of those claim/practice dilemmas. Nothing is too hard for God. Oh yes, if you ask me, I’ll say that’s true. God is omnipotent. He is sovereign. Yep, that’s true. But… the only way God can get through my thick skull and to my hard heart is by brute force. “Hit me between the eyes with a spiritual baseball bat, Lord, because otherwise I won’t get it.” And when I ask God for something, chances are as good as not that I will duck for cover (in my mind, at least.)

          Whether or not I am actually as stubborn, arrogant, thick skulled, hard-hearted, or whatever other terms someone cares to use is beside the point. I might in fact be the worst of the worst. I can’t say that I’m the best of the best and only think myself the worst of the worst because I stubbornly hold on to the view that God must use brute force to bludgeon me into shape, otherwise, I’ll never be made in the image of God.

          Scripture makes it clear that the only means of becoming conformed to the image of Christ is by death to self, but there is death and there is death. You can die at the hands of someone who visits you daily and brutalizes you, or you can die of cancer, or you can die in your sleep at a ripe old age. The same is true of death of self.  You may face a trauma, or you might not even notice.

          When we shine a bright light on the areas where the beliefs that we live don’t match up with the beliefs we claim to believe, it can be pretty silly. God can’t work in my life without a baseball bat or some other means of using force?  Most people, including me, would say that I don’t know the meaning of the word force. God has blessed me immeasurably. I would probably win the “World’s Greatest Wimps” contest. The tiniest bit of God’s power would destroy me utterly, but the only way God can get through to me is by the use of force?

          That’s my example of disbelieving what I believe or believing what I don’t. What’s yours today?

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