Monday 9 Apr 2012

Monday Reading: Habakkuk 1:1-11

Key Verse: Habakkuk 1:5
5  Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you.

Devotion:
If we really don’t want to listen to the truth then there is not a lot that will get us to listen to the truth. But God is our Awesome God who does know exactly what will get our attention. Over all the years that He has watched us grow and fall there has been one overall plan from His side – to get us to listen to the truth even if He has to do something to get our attention first.

Right from when man first sinned we have been fighting things in our lives that we have thought were not nice and so many of those times men turn round and blame God for things when they go wrong. Why should we think that we can get away with anything when God is watching? Have we not learned from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? Obviously not because we have a whole string of events that show that man has not listened! And the words penned down from Habakkuk show us that God has had to go to extraordinary lengths to try to get us to take note of what we should be doing.

We do not have to look too far from our own front doors to see that God has continued to get our attention through things in our lives. He has continued to lay down a life in front of each of us that should be pointing us in the right direction – and yet we still continue to try to run things our own way just so that we can have a bit of pride! There is a major problem for us – pride! This was exactly what was facing the king of Babylon, even though they were the ones that would bring about ruin for the Israelites, God would still not let anyone get away with a sack-full of pride.

God continues to try to teach us about love so that we will lay aside that pride in our lives to live more for Him and less for our own devices. And yet when we are faced with trials and tribulations that should allow us to re-focus our lives, we continue to allow pride to drag us far away from His Word and from the truth. We look for all manner of signs in our lives, but when we see the signs clearly laid out by our God, we try to ignore them just because they do not fit in with our own ideals in life. We need to lose that pride in our lives and humble ourselves to our God who does know what is best for us – despite our best intentions!

Points to Ponder:
Do you always think you know best?

Are you willing to give God a chance?