Re: God chastising you
Submitted by Dakota on December 3 2001 21:32:10
In reply to God chastising you submitted by Tigris on December 3 2001 17:20:40
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First, I'd like to clarify that I don't believe God is sitting in heaven just waiting for us to mess up so He can chastise us. But I have found, at least in my own life, that God will let me walk along a wrong path for a time waiting for me to choose the right path on my own. But eventually He will find a way to get my attention back on what is really important and back on the right path. He did this in a major way several years ago, but I can't post about the specific details here because of certain constraints on what should and should not be posted. I don't mean to tease anyone, and if you really want the details, you can e-mail me. But one of the ways I think God can chastise a believer is simply by having them get caught sinning by someone you would much prefer not to know. Yes, this can happen without God's help, but sometimes the way I have gotten discovered has been quite unusual, to the point of wondering if it was God's way of putting his signature on the event. :-) One minor example is when I was giving in to the temptation of going to an adult bookstore and watching the peep shows and buying some magazines from time to time. Just a small sin of lust, right? Nothing to get all uptight over, right? Well, the place I worked used temporary workers occasionally, and who should walk in one day as temp help? A guy that used to work at that adult bookstore, and yes, he recognized me. Keep in mind that everyone I worked with knew me as an upstanding churchgoing Christian. Fortunately, he never said to anyone where he knew me from. I think an example from a Christian friend shows what I mean. He was in college and his girlfriend was at a Christian womens's college a few hours away. He would go to visit her on the weekends. One of his convictions was that he didn't want to have sex before he married, but he often went as far as one can go with his girlfriend without actually calling it sex. One weekend night, a girl in the dorm got very ill and one of the floor monitors was called to her room. But she transposed 2 of the numbers so the monitor ended up walking in on my friend and his girlfriend sleeping naked in bed together. At this college that was an expulsion offense. Without going into all the details, she was allowed to stay at school with severe restrictions but it taught them both a lesson. Now I know we all sin. And I'm not sure why God will sometimes let us know that He doesn't want us doing something anymore. And why He would do something about one believer sinning and not another believer who has the same sin is also a mystery. But I believe it happens and we should be sensitive enough to see when it is God giving us a nudge. (or a whack to the back of the head, depending on the situation) I don't want anyone to interpret this to mean I believe that anything bad that happens to a Christian is punishment from God. Sometimes things just happen. And I know there are Christians that don't believe God chastises us at all since we are under grace. But I think He cares for us enough not to let us get too far offtrack, unless we stubbornly refuse to listen, which is our free will to do. That's just how I see it. Dakota |
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