Corona Devo 935

It's a bit of a process....faith is. God's word, God's lessons, God's truth and the understanding of how it all applies to our lives...it's a process.  

At one point, we may be intimidated by God's law or His call/correction on our life, and we can also be downright angry sometimes about Him/or the Bible "calling us out" on sin or misdirected allegiance in our lives, but in time...in wisdom...and in submission to Him...something changes, and I dare say that it's us becoming more like Him.  

He changes us through the process of faith, which is like an (often reluctant) metamorphosis of us  growing out of an ill (spiritual) fit in our lives and developing into a more-beautiful/more Christ-like revealing of Him-in-us.

Sometimes it's easy and seamless but most times..it's a process. 

Take David for example.  His heart was right in wanting to serve the Lord.  But his "process" and his understanding-of-God's-holiness was a bit clumsy.  

A man (Uzzah) died while moving the Ark of the Covenant (a holy item representing God at that time) because Uzzah touched the Ark, which was against God's "rules" regarding His holiness. Uzzah had approached God too casually, and there is nothing casual about the holiness of God. 

But this angered David.  He even stepped back from God (and the Ark) for about three months while he processed/pouted/thought-about/and allowed God to "work" on him.

...Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the Ark. (10) Then the Lord’s anger was aroused against Uzzah, and he struck him dead because he had laid his hand on the Ark....

(11) David was angry because the Lord’s anger had burst out against Uzzah...  

(12) David was now afraid of God... (13) So David did not move the Ark into the City of David.... (14) ...for three months...  ~I Chronicles 13:9-14   

David had thought he was doing the right thing in moving the Ark, and when Uzzah died, he was mad.  Then he pouted.  But in the three months time, he did something else too: he processed the events in faith.

It's a bit of a process....faith is. God's word, God's lessons, God's truth and the understanding of how it all applies to our lives...it's a process.  But in time...in wisdom...and in submission to God...something changes, and I dare say that it's us becoming more like God.  

David changed his heart toward God.  In the process of faith, he submitted to the wisdom (God is holy) of what God had done that day with Uzzah, and after submitting--David was ready to move forward with God.

And God is always ready to move forward with us.    

The next verses that tell of "bursting" are not referring to God's anger, as we saw in I Chronicles 13:11, but instead, they speak of God's power and victory in union with David (once he "processed" things):

So David and his troops...defeated the Philistines there. “God did it!” David exclaimed. “He used me to burst through my enemies like a raging flood!”  ~I Chronicles 14:10-11 

It was a process.  The Lord had corrected David, and it hurt, but David grew wiser in God's ways from it, and thus his renewed unity with God was all the more powerful.  That's the process of faith.

And when the next time came to move the Ark of the Covenant, David was prepared to honor God's holiness as they moved it.  He had grown-in-God's-ways through the process of faith.  

Then David summoned the priests...and these Levite leaders... (12) He said to them, “You are the leaders of the Levite families. You must purify yourselves and all your fellow Levites, so you can bring the Ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, to the place I have prepared for it. (13) Because you Levites did not carry the Ark the first time, the anger of the Lord our God burst out against us. We failed to ask God how to move it properly.” (14) So the priests and the Levites purified themselves in order to bring the Ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, to Jerusalem. (15) Then the Levites carried the Ark of God on their shoulders with its carrying poles, just as the Lord had instructed Moses...

(25) Then David and the elders of Israel and the generals of the army went to the house of Obed-edom to bring the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant up to Jerusalem with a great celebration. (26) And because God was clearly helping the Levites as they carried the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant, they sacrificed seven bulls and seven rams.  ~I Chronicles 15:11-15, 25-26

When we submit to serving God and following His ways, He will clearly help us.

Faith is a process, but in time...in wisdom...and in submission to God...something changes, and I dare say that it's us becoming more like Him.


Blessings,

sarah

https://sarahsundy04.blogspot.com



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