Life lessons

I think I may have posted before about raising some Muscovy ducklings who were orphaned. Our family took in eleven babies and built them a large enclosure, added a gate leading to a plastic baby pool that we converted to a duckling habitat, and generally gave them all the luxuries they could stand until they were grown -- had their adult feathers. Our huge Great Pyranees watched over them with loving care, alerted them to the cries of the hawk overhead, and patiently endured their inquisitive pecks on her black nose.

When they are tiny, they are covered with down -- fluffy and cute, but terrible at shedding water. If they ventured out from under their shelter in a rainstorm, they ended up bedraggled and soaked. However, once they gained their adult feathers, they could cruise around in the rain and the drops simply scooted right off of them! You know the saying, "like water off the duck's back"!

All of this to say, the life that God blesses is NOT free from trials, some of them pretty extreme. Psalm 34 talks several times about close escapes from death. Just check out verses six and seven, and also seventeen and nineteen! In fact, verse nineteen makes it pretty plain that this life will not be trouble-free:

The righteous person may have many troubles,
    but the Lord delivers him from them all; (V. 19)

I've posted this before - why do I bring it up again? Because there are some Christians who think, "I've trusted in Christ as my Savior and I'm trying to follow Him. Then why am I having all these trials?" They are mistaken when they think that following Christ means that he puts up a protective force field. He doesn't put up a shield around us so that the trials simply glance off, like the drops of water hitting those ducks' backs. (Grin)

Paul told the converts in Acts:

strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. (Acts 14:22)

And Peter told a suffering congregation:

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. (I Peter 4:12)

Now, as we have studied before, and as we saw in our back-story, some trials are of our own making! Our own sins and failures can cause buckets of trouble - we saw this with David. He probably fled to Achish without pausing to seek the Lord. Later, he experienced trials when his and his men's families were taken - a direct result of  David's own wrong choices.  Also, David's own family fell apart and his kingdom endured Absalom's rebellion; this was a direct result of David's sin with Bathsheba. Even later, many in his kingdom died as a consequence of his sin (II Samuel 24).

David had no shortage of mistakes. We make plenty of them, too. The most important lesson that we can learn is how to respond when God brings consequences into our lives.  Oh, it's easy to minimize our own responsibility. 
We can blame others.

We can excuse ourselves.

Then we can get all mad and pouty at God.

Or we can follow David's example and humble ourselves before God, with a contrite, repentant spirit. As difficult as it may be, we can submit to God's dealings with us, learn from our mistakes, and determine to follow His Spirit and not repeat our mistakes. (At least, not too often....)

Total transparency here, folks, in the hope that others may be blessed in some way . . . I have looked at some circumstances in our lives and the lives of our family members. I've lashed out in sadness and anger, and I've blamed others. I've made excuses for myself. And then, in prayer, I've needed to humble myself before God. I've accepted my part in the "yesterday" causes of today's consequences. It's not easy. It even hurts. Bad. But this is what David is telling us: the life that God blesses is not free from problems or trials. And sometimes we need to realize that the problems or trials are of our own making.

Some trials are due to the sins of others against us. David was in a jam with Achish and the Philistines because Saul was crazy-jealous and wanted to kill him. We may find ourselves in that situation. Someone may have sinned against us in a terrible way. As David did, we must take refuge in the Lord and pray for those who sin against us. After all, if God had not been merciful to us, we might be acting as they did - or worse. We need to guard ourselves from acting sinfully in reacting to others.

Lastly, when we do seek the Lord in our trials, he can use even our past sins, or the sins of others, for His holy purposes. 

Don't get me wrong here! I'm not saying "hey, let's sin more and then grace and mercy will increase!" (Romans 6:1) No, I'm saying we can recognize that God is the God of second (and third and fourth and fifth) chances. The Bible is full of stories of people whose disobedience (or the sins of others against them) was used by God to teach us. Stories that say, "God meant it for good." (Genesis 50:20)  David's story, and Jacob's too, teach us not to use deception. Jonah's story teaches us about second chances. Joseph's story tells us God can use anything to accomplish His holy purposes.

So, whether our trials are due to our own sin, or to the sin of others, or due to living in a fallen world, don't let them push us away from the Lord. Let them push us to the Lord for deliverance and grace. That's step one in the life that God blesses. It's a foundation for enjoying God and His blessings.