Choking on Smoke

“…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” Hebrews 12:1-3

Ask any firefighter and you will be told that when entering a burning building many times the greater hindrance is the smoke. The smoke chokes, blinds and disorients preventing them from the immediate fire. They must work through the smoke to tackle the fire. The same is with our spiritual life as we battle our own burning buildings. We cannot see God’s fire for all of the smoke for which we have created between us and His will. Our bitterness, resentment and self-will dizzies and disorients causing a barrier between our agenda and the will of God. We become entangled with our own sin of self, depleting our energy and losing sight of our faith. We claim that we believe that God is in control but we choke on our own smoke.

Whether our entanglement with sin is our own doing or the doing of another we are affected by its circumstances. Every one of us approaches our trials with our own agenda, past experiences and preconceived ideas for how we should respond. We build in our minds and hearts what should happen, what had better happen and how we will respond. We will face a crisis of belief when we stand at the crossroads of surrendering ‘what I think’ and picking up ‘what I believe God says.’ Our hearts must be open to all possibilities when approaching God instead of the resolution that we feel we must have. We must pray for God to reveal any stubbornness or tightly fisted power we are holding onto. We must be willing to hear and obey his decision even if it goes against everything we believe should happen. We must recite what we really believe about God.

‘A crisis of belief is not a calamity in your life but a turning point where you must make a decision. You must decide what you truly believe about God. The way you respond at this turning point will determine whether you become involved with God in something God-sized that only He can do or whether you will continue to go your own way and miss what He has purposed in your life…The way you live your life is a testimony of what you believe about God.’ Experiencing God, p. 134.

In the words of my grandmother, God is LORD of everything or LORD of nothing!