I know that more clarity should come from reading, but I am just telling you where I am at right now. I promised to be honest. Here it is. It was convicting to hear Elihu speak because I know that I sound an awful lot like him. Acting like I am smarter than guys 40 and 50 years older than me. I do believe that God reveals things to the foolish (young) to confound the wise (old), but it is also obvious that arrogance is something that God hates. Honestly I struggle with that. I often feel like it is wrong of me to keep my mouth shut and let people go on thinking something that I don't think is true. So I don't know how the balance works with proclaiming the truth of Christ and not acting like I know everything. I do try to go to people humbly, because I know that anything I know is only by the grace of God. None of it is my own doing. But at the same time I know that I am acting like I am right and the person I'm talking to is wrong. Where is the balance?
The other thing that has been really frustrating is how I expected the Bible to work out. When I read the Law, it seemed to promise the retribution principal- God gives good to those who obey and He gives bad to those who disobey. I was fine with that because I figured that it all changed when Jesus came. My expectation was that His only promise was that He will be with us to the end of the age. Obviously that is better than any of His blessings. That's what I expected and I anticipated the glorious truth in that. The problem is that it's not working that way. First I saw David and now Job. Both rejoiced when bad things happen to them because they still had God. David rejoices in God and says that He is his strength. And God all but shot down the retribution principal about 20 books before I expected Him to. What's up with that? What does this mean for his promises at the end of Deuteronomy. Has he already negated blessings as a form of reward and put Himself in that position? I was talking to some friends about that the other day and I just don't get it. Unless I just passed over it without knowing, I don't remember God changing His promises of blessings and curses in Deuteronomy 28.
I'm not really looking for an answer. I'm just letting you all know what I'm feeling. Not that you would care, it's just sometimes comforting for someone to be in the same spot as you and maybe some of you are where I am. If any of you wise friends out there have some light to shed on any of this please do. You don't have to post it on here. You can facebook message me if you want. Thanks for listening to me, and if you think about it please be praying for that whole arrogance thing. I'm about to be around a lot of friends who are pretty good at calling me out on it and I don't want that to taint any good that God might say through me.
All for His glory,
Mitchell
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