In the aftermath of my God using a prophet in another country to contact my parents and tell them through visions that I was on a destructive path and needed to repent, last night’s sermon at midweek service spoke to me. It was about the Prodigal Son and God really worked on my heart about it. The preacher spoke about how the prodigal son was resentful of his inheritance and so he essentially told his father that he was dead to him so could he have his half of the inheritance NOW please, thank you very much. As I went to write more about this I realized that a text conversation I had with one of my “sisters” said it all:
S: Yeah, but you’re seeing it now which is good. Because we shouldn’t do those things with anyone but our husband. and he’s not even your boyfriend. and not only that, but you don’t even love him. So yeah, it’s a disconnect. but God can fix it. and if you give it all to Him, He will. He loves you more than anyone else. He is the love to seek. He will make you whole. 5:43 PM
Me: I guess the hardest part is that so many people say that… but everyone who says that to me usually can’t say that they themselves haven’t done that before 5:45 PM
Me: it’s like I was saying during prayer last night, I realized that I’ve been that resentful older sibling in the story of the prodigal son… I’m actually about to post it soon… why could everyone else have done all this stuff and be forgiven and parties are throw etc etc and yet I still have had no one 5:46 PM
Me: and yet… now I’m the prodigal son… and it’s a worse place to be… luckily I felt like God was saying that I didn’t squander my WHOLE inheritance, for His grace saved me from that, but I must be careful for sooo little is left and it will need to grow and multiply from what very little is left 5:47 PM
S: sigh. you’re right. it’s incredibly difficult to hold the standard of holiness that God has. and it’s become the norm in our society. and we have an enemy who wants to see us destroy ourselves this way. and our flesh fights against our spirituality just as much. There is something to be said for hormones. we have them. it’s really hard to fight that biology. but isn’t God worth it? 5:47 PM
Me: well… that and it just didn’t feel fair… look at all the people who have kids out of wedlock who are happy… look at everyone who has someone else and yet here I was, never even had held hands with a guy up until 2011, and I ended up with the guy that is repeatedly “the gang man” [as my first boyfriend] [in two separate prophecies by different people who never knew of the other person’s word from God a year apart from each other] 5:48 PM
S: I get it [Rebekah M]. I can’t tell you the tears I’ve shed over the fact that I am alone. still. for years on end. I’m almost [her age]. It’s incredibly hard. I think about doing crazy things like internet hookups sometimes just because I get so lonely. but I don’t do them because I love God too much. 5:49 PM
Me: it’s hard not to look around and feel like those people were so blessed and yet is it that I got nothing? (so it felt)… but God’s been showing me that the resentment is a sin… to be as grumbling as the Israelites who grumbled against God for the lack of food so He gave them manna and the quails, the manna in the ark being a testament to their grumbling and yet He gave them honey for their initial grumbling 5:50 PM
GS: yeah, it does seem really unfair. even people in church. had babies out of wedlock. and now getting married in the church. and you do start to wonder why God sends them an Isaac and doesn’t send us one. I know [Rebekah M]. I really really know. 5:51 PM
Me: He gives us honey flavored wafers for our grumblings… what an amazing God we serve! How awesome is He! How much we don’t deserve His love and grace and mercy! 5:51 PM
GS: Amen!! 5:52 PM
Me: It is such a humbling thing to realize the roots behind everything… I wanted to be like everyone else because I saw their sin almost as a success… when it was actually God’s grace and mercy… they did NOTHING to deserve it, just as I do nothing to deserve God’s love
After we had that part of the conversation I knew that it said more than I could in a post format for it was from my heart. I had been 100% pure until my first boyfriend in my mid-twenties. Never even held hands with a guy before. God had intended for me to be a completely untouched gift for my future husband and now I have given up much of that, but thank God for His mercy in waking me up before I gave it all away!!! Thank God for His wonderful ways in helping me realize that I need to TRULY, FULLY repent, in a way I never had before… to seek after Him like never before. To believe and trust in Him like never before. I need to stop being EITHER brother and realize that I need to be like THE Son… Jesus Christ. Willing to take whatever cup God wants to deal me and do it out of love.
Lord,
Help us not be resentful of others who seem to be blessed in their sinful ways. Help us not envy those who seem blessed despite having been resentful and despiteful to you. Help us to just rejoice when a sinner comes home and not be weary in well doing. Help us truly believe… help ME truly believe that I will reap if I faint not. Help me believe in Your goodness and that You not only are a just God who sees us when we do good and right, but also a MERCIFUL God who gives us second and third chances. Sometimes even more than that should we require it. Thank You for not allowing myself to be given over to a reprobate mind. Thank You that You see me in my hurt and resentment and love me anyhow. Thank You that You’re jarring me out of all of that- out of my insanity. I felt myself splintering- feeling like a bipolar saint. I have NEVER been given to living a double life and I started to feel like I was… for what I was doing outside of church was becoming that more and more. Forgive me my sins and give me a new heart- cleansed by Your blood. Give me a new mind. Lord… Your words says that if we humble ourselves and pray and TURN FROM OUR WICKED WAYS You will hear from heaven and heal my land. Heal me Lord, Heal me! Forgive me! Wash me white as snow! Thank You that I didn’t do THAT but forgive me for what I have done that was in that direction for even a “smaller sin” is still a sin. I love You Jesus. I thank You for Your mercy. Thank You Jesus.
Rebekah M.
Maybe what you might be missing is this: those of us in the world that are saved by His grace are not “blessed in our sinful ways” but instead blessed because He walked us out of our sinful ways. Those Believers living in sinful ways in a non-repentant manner are not blessed in them – what seems a blessing is in fact His ultimate plan non-related to their sin except to save them from it. Are they blessed in general as His children if they have given their life to Christ? You betcha. He gives us way better things in life then we could possibly even fathom to give our own children that we love deeply. But Him blessing the sinful ways is not the Just God of the Bible. So you used an appropriate word: “SEEM to be blessed in their sinful ways”. Rebekah, it is always perspective and choice. Many young Believers (by age or spiritual maturity) are ignorant to the knowledge of the Word – as I was – and believe the world around them UNTIL they do recognize they are the prodigal child and go after God’s knowledge and then He enlightens them. You have that knowledge. So for you … You must stop contemplating and make the only choice you know is right and pleasing to The Lord. And write about it as you have… Bravely and organically as you have … So that other young Believers can gain this knowledge. Waiting brings pain sometimes, but the joy of what is waiting inside His plan is ALWAYS worth the wait. God bless you Rebekah. 🙂
I am starting to see that now- but when you’re in the moment and before God opens your eyes, sometimes it’s all you can see. All my life I have wanted to become a doctor and to have a family like my parents have- a love that is a testimony to God’s love for the church and good children who follow after Christ. There are things within me that just scream “this is what you were created for” when I’m with a patient helping them. I see couples who serve God with everything they have and I say in my heart “that’s what I’m longing for.” It’s hard when people who have had kids out of wedlock are happily getting married off to people you know God has prepared for them. It’s hard when I see people who were so happy in their sin who have come home to God and now are so blessed with a love and cute healthy kids.
It’s been hard not to give up hope. Not to say “Lord, You’ve overlooked me, why should I keep holding on to hope that You even care?” But in His chastisement He has shown me that He sees, I had doubted that He even sees but clearly He does, and He loves me enough to show me that my resentment and jealousy are sins that will block me from my blessings from entering my life. Sin requires a price and although God takes the ultimate price for us, there are consequences to their actions that they have had to deal with. I haven’t had to live their life. I don’t know the price they have paid for their sins. The surface looks so shiny, but what has God had to do to make it such? I just need to take my eyes off everything else and zone in on God. Rejoice in other’s blessings. Realize that my time will come when God chooses. Know that He is good beyond measure. Focus on my blessings and not the few things that are coming down the road.
Perfectly stated: “I just need to take my eyes off everything else and zone in on God. Rejoice in other’s blessings. Realize that my time will come when God chooses. Know that He is good beyond measure..” That is exactly what I write about at http://40YearWanderer.wordpress.com because my experiences scream this! It is the mind that gets us so messed up. It can’t understand faith. It has to move from the head (trying to figure everything out) to the heart.
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