Recovery Devotional 307 Left to Himself

JMD Devotional 307 2 Chronicles 32:24,25, 31 Left to Himself

24, 25 In those days Hezekiah was sick to the point of death; and he prayed to the Lord and He answered him and gave him a sign. But Hezekiah did not make return [to the Lord] according to the benefit done to him, for his heart became proud [at such a spectacular response to his prayer]; therefore there was wrath upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem…

31And so in the matter of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon who were sent to him to inquire about the wonder that was done in the land, God left him to himself to try him, that He might know all that was in his heart.(Detailed in Isaiah 39:1-7)

For most of my marriage, I still functioned as an individual though the decisions I made affected my spouse, and our children, our social and economic status, as well as reflecting on our faith. After years of counseling it dawned on me that my habit of making decisions in a vacuum was sin: I needed to give consideration to the helper God gave me (who often clearly saw my blind spots), and to heed Church counsel and brotherly accountability. We are relational beings, and pride isolated me and caused me to function independently of the souls around me. Having gone through Consumer Credit Counseling twice, I finally put a sign on the bill box on my desk that reads, “MY WIFE AND I MAKE DECISIONS TOGETHER.” Left to myself, I am an impulsive spender: I need accountability. Spiritually, the contrast is sharper. The essence of sin is living independently of God. Some people see their salvation in the very limited terms of a legal transaction with ‘the Judge”, and once made their ‘dependence’ upon Him sits in a cold safe-deposit box in their mind. But eternal life is an unbroken stream coming from the Life-Giver abiding in us; a constant communion. Left to ourselves, we are like potted houseplants dying from neglect. We need His constant care.

Dear God,

Left to myself, my cleverness quickly runs out, my well of inspiration becomes dry, my vision blurs and I forget who I am. When my pride needs to be checked, and You must ‘leave me to myself’, to remind me of what I am apart from You; please make it unsettling and obvious and BRIEF; so I am provoked to depend again on You. Like a fish out of water, I flop. You are right in not sharing Your glory with another; I acknowledge that You are the source of every good thing; both inside and outside of me. Glory to the God I depend on. Counsel me.

Amen

All (but*) quotes are from The Amplified Bible, published by

the Lockman Foundation. (AMP)

Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation

*New International Version (NIV)

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

**Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. (Eugene Peterson's easy-to-read, contemporary Scripture translation)

I originally produced these blogs between 2006 and 2007, which were then published in my book, JMD Recovery Devotionals. In 2010, I am sending these out to a few people as I review them and see if my point of view has changed.

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