Crumbs Under the Table

Prov. 16:9 A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps.

It seems that whenever we set out to do anything for God, we often immediately encounter circumstances that only serve to muddy the waters. What we previously saw clearly, now becomes hazy. We encounter situations and circumstances that we never imagined nor envisioned when we first planned our way.

The good news is that we are not alone. We have the written accounts of many great people who have endured similar confounding circumstances.

Joseph surely did not anticipate all of the twists and turns that God would take him through on the way to fulfilling the dream the He put in his heart. When Moses refused to be called Pharaoh’s son (Heb. 11:24), do you think that he knew that he would spend 40 years herding sheep in the desert? Paul “tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them.” (Acts 16:7)

One of the great challenges of life is to recognize change and respond properly to it. The more quickly that we recognize change, the more quickly we can respond to it.

Is this contrary circumstance that I am encountering actually the Lord trying to stop me or change my direction or is it simply an obstacle that He desires me to overcome?

Too many people live by the open door policy. If things are easy, then it must be because the Lord opened a door for them. If things are difficult, it is because the Lord hasn’t opened the door. But how do you reconcile what the Holy Spirit said through the apostle Paul:

1 Cor. 16:9 For a great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

The open door policy would say that the presence of may adversaries clearly indicates that God had not opened a door for the ministry of the Gospel. However, this was clearly not the case.

While we must always be aware of the ever changing circumstances in our lives, we should not allow them to be the primary factor in deciding our course of action. That position should belong to the Lord.

Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. Psalm 37:4-5 (NKJ)

Yesterday, we discussed that after God has placed His desires in our heart, we must commit to act on them. However, as our Lord told us, “difficult is the way that leads to life.” (Matt. 7:14)

Our friend was wavering in her decision to move to New Zealand because she had received no offers for her Honda SUV although it is competitively priced.

Is this the Lord’s hand guiding her? Definitely!

Does it mean that He does not want her to go? Perhaps…

One of the challenges that we face in trying to walk with God is that we frequently don’t KNOW exactly how we will get where the Lord wants us to go! To walk with God is to live with uncertainty. The apostle Paul expressed this when he wrote that “we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor. 5:7)

Every step forward is an expression of our trust that He will guide us.

Psalm 37:5  Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.

Back in December, a dear family friend came and worked with my oldest daughter and I to get the house ready to sell, After working all day together, the after dinner conversation centered on her future plans.

It had become apparent to me after talking with her over a course of a few years that she had a desire to return to New Zealand. She had originally traveled there on a short term missions trip.

That night, after much exhortation, she became persuaded that God had put that desire in her heart and decided to act on it this summer.

I saw her again this past weekend at a mutual friend’s wedding and asked her about the move. She lamented that she had no offers on her SUV and was beginning to wonder if it was God’s will for her to move.

If we believe that we live in a fallen world that is at enmity with God, then we should not be surprised that circumstances make it more difficult to carry out God’s wishes.

It is one thing to delight ourselves in Him and allow Him to put His desires into our hearts. It is quite another to act on that desire and enter into what He has for us. It is all too easy, even comforting, to shrink back in unbelief or fear when the time for action arrives. (Heb. 10:38)

Yet, you and I are not the first to face this temptation. The children of Israel were glad to learn of God’s desire to deliver them from the harsh life of slavery in Egypt. However, they were not willing to fight to take possession of the Promise Land.

Notice that the Holy Spirit follows “He shall give you the desires of your heart” with “commit your way to Him.” 

It takes faith to please God. (Heb. 11:6) Do we have the courage to launch out and do what God has put into our hearts? Are we willing to pack up our belongings and move, like Abraham? (Heb. 11:8) Are we willing to refuse the promotion at the big corporation so that we might start something new and unproven like Moses? (Heb. 11:24-25) Are we willing to commit to love one person in marriage? Are we willing to end the relationship that we are currently in because we know it is not right?

We inherently fear change. Frequently, we would rather remain miserable in the safety of our chains than to face the unpredictable vulnerabilities of risk and opportunity.

We are like infants. We want to explore and learn and live. However we can only crawl. God, the original father, is encouraging us to take our first steps.

Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.

When I was younger, I understood this to say “if I spend a great deal of time praying and reading the Scripture, He will give me what I want”.

This interpretation changes “delighting ourselves in the Lord” into a price to be paid, a means to get our way. In effect, prayer and devotion become tools to manipulate God. It conjures up a picture of a young person visiting their ‘doddering, old’ grandparents just to be able to borrow the car or get some money to do what they want.

How can we “delight ourselves in the Lord” while we secretly are desiring and delighting in something else? Do we imagine that God cannot see what is really in our hearts? Is He that easily fooled?

I think that many of God’s children start out this way. However, as we give ourselves to prayer and devotion, our desires begin to change. What we once “could not live without” begins to lose it luster as we behold Him through the Word and prayer.

The Hebrew word translated delight means to be soft or pliable; luxurious. In other words, malleable.

When we go out to eat, my wife and I will generally split one meal due to the exceedingly large portions that most restaurants now serve. However, I require that she chooses what we eat without my help! Why do I do that? I know that she enjoys eating out MUCH more than I do and if we are going to share a meal, it is much more enjoyable for me to eat what she wants rather than ordering on my own. Why? Because I delight in her. I want her to be happy!

Just as I delight in my wife’s happiness as she orders whatever she wants at the restaurant, so the Holy Spirit encourges us to delight in God. My life is His to do with as He pleases. “Lord, I want to make You happy.”

My delight in my wife’s happiness leads me to want what she wants. I want to share and partake of her choice with her! I want to know her. So the Holy Spirit encourages us to be soft and pliable before the Lord, waiting for Him to place His desires inside. “Lord, what would you have me do today? What do you want to order today?”

I believe that this Scripture should be read: “Because you love Him, be soft or pliable in His presence and He will lay or set in place His desires for your life in your heart.”

(Prov. 25:2) It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.

Why is it to God’s glory to conceal a matter?

To answer that question, we must first answer another one: Why does He conceal a matter?

The Scripture tells us that His greatness is unsearchable (Psa. 145:3); that His ways are past finding out (Rom. 11:33); that He does great things, and unsearchable, marvelous things without number (Job 5:9).

Yet we have trouble believing that He is real, that He actually cares for us, that He is watching over us. How can this be?

He conceals His greatness because of His great humility. As we behold His unsearchable greatness in eternity, we will begin to comprehend His great humility and will forever bow down and give Him glory.

I never really understood the difference between being grateful and being thankful. I often wondered why we have two words expressing the same thing. Not too long ago, I got a great idea: I LOOKED THEM UP! I was really surprised at what I found.

Gratitude is an agreeable emotion, consisting in or accompanied with good will to a benefactor, and a disposition to make a suitable return of benefits or services, or when no return can be made, with a desire to see the benefactor prosperous and happy.

Thanks is the expression of gratitude; an acknowledgment made to express a sense of favor or kindness received.

Did you catch that? Gratitude is the feeling or sentiment excited by kindness. Thanks are the expression of that sentiment.

It is not enough to have a grateful heart. That is a good beginning. However, if we do not express that gratitude with our lips, we have not been thankful, either to God or man. This includes our spouse, our children, our parents, our employers, etc.

The writer of Hebrews call thanks the fruit of our lips:

Hebrews 13:15 Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.

It is very easy to minimize God’s protection in our lives. How much doesn’t happen to us because He silently directs our steps? I believe that I was spared driving into a tornado this week. You can read the details here.

It is easy to look at the storm chasers and imagine that it isn’t that difficult to avoid a tornado. However, towing a car behind an old pickup with loose steering is difficult enough with the strong wind shifts from both oncoming and passing big rigs. Something as small as the slants or grooves in the road tended to redirect the truck in ways that I didn’t want. And, when towing a car, your reactions have to be measured and controlled lest you create a greater problem by whipping the towed vehicle behind you. With the winds generated in a tornado affected area, I would have had to pull over to the side of the road. I would have been a sitting duck.

Daily we are faced with small choices that form and mold our hearts. The fact is that God does actively protect His children. The only question is will we recognize it and be grateful or will we cynically explain everything away.

“How do you know that you would have been at that place when the tornado hit?”

I don’t. But, I do know that my plans would have had me driving through that very around the very time that the tornado touched down. And I also know that my plans were foiled by an unexpected event.

“It was your own negligence that caused the unexpected event, not God.”

That might be true. However, I would query back, “Why didn’t I tighten the lug nuts? I am not a careless man. In fact, I am very responsible. Why would I overlook something so crucial, especially on a long term project that is so close to being completed?”

I have chosen to believe that God really was watching out for me. I have chosen to give Him thanks. I am willing to look foolish. I am willing to be accused of being a little melodramatic. If that is the cost of maintaining a trusting, grateful heart, it is a small price to pay.

Deut. 29:29 The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Over the years I have been amazed at the wisdom and understanding that flows through me when I am counseling someone. These days I notice it when I talk to my children. I frequently find myself saying, “Wow! I need to write that down!”

In my younger days, I took that as proof that I was ‘gifted’, ‘called’ and ‘anointed’. It ‘proved’ that God loved me and that I was special. However, the truth is that it proved how much God loved the people I was trying to help.

It is similar to a gardener who wants to get water to his precious plants. The hose gets wet in the process. I am like the garden hose that delivers the water to the plants that need it. I just happened to be a willing vessel. He wanted to help them and I wanted to help them. So, I get the front row seat and get to both watch and participate while it happens.

So, when heavenly wisdom flows through my lips to my children, I now marvel at how much God loves them. I marvel at the plans that He has for them. And I get my pen and paper out, write down whatever I can remember (because it belongs to me as well as them) and thank Him for choosing to use and include me in the process.

This morning, the importance of obeying God in the smallest of things was reemphasized in my heart.

:1 And a man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi. :2 So the woman conceived and bore a son. And when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him three months. :3 But when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark of bulrushes for him, daubed it with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river’s bank. :4 And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him. :5 Then the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river. And her maidens walked along the river’s side; and when she saw the ark among the reeds, she sent her maid to get it. :6 And when she had opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby wept. So she had compassion on him, and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” :7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you?” :8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the maiden went and called the child’s mother. :9 Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him.  Exo. 2:1-5 (NKJV)

Here are some of A.W. Pink’s comments from Gleanings in Exodus:  

“Scripture informs us that it was neither affection nor infatuation but faith which was the mainspring of action. (Heb. 11:23) Faith “cometh by hearing” (Rom. 10:17): the parents of Moses must, therefore, have received a direct communication from God, informing them of what should happen and instructing them what to do. And they believed what God had told them and acted accordingly.”

“Should it be asked, Wherein is the faith of Moses’ parents to be seen? The answer is: In overcoming the fear of the king and in trusting God’s protection for the preservation of the child. And is not the strength of their faith evidenced by the selection of the place where the young child was put, after he could be no longer hid in the home? Surely the parents of Moses took him to the very last spot which carnal reasoning would have suggested. The mother laid him “in the flags by the river’s brink”! But that was the very place where the babies were drowned! Ah, is not that the last location we had chosen? Would not we have carried him as far away from the river as possible?”

“It was neither by chance nor accident that Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the river that day, for there are no accidents nor chance happenings in a world presided over by the living God. Whatsoever happens in time is but the outworking of His eternal decrees—’for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things’ (Heb. 2:10). God is behind the scenes, ordering everything for His own glory; hence our smallest actions are controlled by Him. It is because that whatsoever happens in time is the outworking of God’s eternal decrees, that ‘all things are working together (the verb is in the present tense) for good to them that love God, who are the called according to His purpose.’ ” (Rom. 8:28)

“Big doors often swing on small hinges. God not only directs the rise and fall of empires, but also rules the fall of a sparrow. It was God who put it into the heart of this Egyptian princess to go to the river to bathe, and to that particular spot where the ark lay amid the flags; as it was He who caused her to be moved with compassion (rather than with indignation at the defiance of her father’s authority) when she beheld the weeping child. And it was God who caused this daughter of the haughty monarch to yield submissively to the suggestion of Miriam, and made the princess willing for its own mother to care for the little child.”  

Frequently, it it the little things that are most important. “

He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.”  Luke 16:10

It is the “the little foxes that spoil the vines.” (Song 2:15)

I would recommend that you print the title of this post, frame it and hang in a place that you will regularly see it to encourage your heart that God is intimately involved with your life and that your choices and actions matter.