The day I removed the terms "force" and "coercion" out and away from my image of God's character, and replaced them with "wooing" and "influence," so many things began to change for me spiritually.
I stopped viewing God as an omni-causative "control-freak," an obsessive cosmic puppeteer who pulls all the causative strings of His creation 24/7.
I stopped viewing God as a bipolar "reality rapist" who would capriciously force His will upon us to either execute His wrathful will or His coercive love whenever He "felt like it."
I stopped blaming God for my/our individual and corporate misuses of my/our creaturely freedom.
I stopped blaming God for the resultant evil which filled the vacuum caused by the angelic and human misuse of their creaturely freedoms.
In short, I stopped blaming God.
Instead, I began cultivating and esteeming "God's immutable and unchangeable will to all goodness." – William Law.
I became fully convinced that, "God is light and in Him is no darkness—at all." 1 John 1:5.
I resolved to never think, say, or insinuate that God has any causative connection to evil, or that He uses evil as a sculpting tool on us in any way, either passively or actively. James 1:13-17.
I began to realize that Jesus IS God's complete "disallowance of" and "deliverance from" all evil, a salvation which is being progressively unfurled across all time and space according to the maturity level of His church, bride, and body. The quicker we corporately mature, the quicker the unfurling openly manifests. The slower we corporately mature, the slower the unfurling manifests. This is what Peter means when he exhorts us to "hasten" the fullness of the Lord's coming-- i.e. we CAN "hasten the day of the Lord's fullness." 2 Peter 3:12. The two master ingredients in this are faith and patience. Hebrew 6:12.
I have concluded that God, for His part, always "hastens to the highest available good" in any and every situation, subject of course to all the various limiting dynamics which exist in a temporally free creation. Until Christ is fully and openly manifest though us as His body and bride upon the earth, the scorched sky of unbelief, misbelief, and disbelief will continue to hinder His will from fully manifesting on earth as it is in Heaven. The Bride's role is to continue to diligently punch holes in this scorched sky so that the Son's curative light can FULLY shine Heavens's will on all our circumstances. Paul tells us all creation is groaning for this scorched sky to be fully dispelled. Romans 8:19-22.
Love it! An attitude that is crucially needed for mankind. I think of God as a Papa, who is teaching us to ride our bike on our own. Sometimes we fall, but he picks us right back up, and is always concerned and healing towards our every pain. Trusting him allows his care to manifest. Only mankind interferes with this precious trust. God is capable of healing our relationship and trust in him and does all He can to make it so. Oh, that still small ever present voice <3 Always there <3
Posted by: Amy Yarbrough | May 01, 2018 at 09:23 AM