I've been trying to be acutely aware of God's hand on my life. In trying to keep that perspective daily, I've realized a few things.
1. We do A LOT to ruin God's plans for our lives.
2. Satan plays a part in all this. Read Job 1:1-12
3. God has His hands on a lot more than we give Him credit for.
So I've come up with a great question that we need to ask ourselves if we are trying to see God's hand in our lives. That question is "Me, God or Satan?"
First we need to look to see if we are the ones causing the problems. For example, if I were speeding in my car and I got pulled over by a police officer. Satan did not cause the police officer to give me a ticket, I DID. Right?
How often would we like to blame things going wrong on Satan? I'd love to say that Satan is the cause of every time I lose my temper and yell at my kids. But that is really just my fault.
Another situation in which we would like to blame Satan is when things break. My car broke last week and the first thing I did was blame Satan. See, I had just gotten done with a whole day of learning how to be a great leader at my church. I got the opportunity to worship God and make plans to start a new ministry at our church for our community. So my first reaction was to blame Satan when my car broke. He was trying to ruin this wonderful day for me. But then I stopped and thought, did I have anything to do with this? The answer was yes. I ignored the rattling sound in my car. To be honest, even the check engine light was on. So was it really Satan trying to steal my joy or me not taking care of the maintenance of my vehicle?
On the other hand, there was one evening when my family was sitting down to dinner. I had been praying for God to help show Himself to me and an amazing thing happened. At dinner each night we go around the table and each say a prayer. Youngest to oldest. Most of the time my 3 year old just says the word "amen" and then we move on to my 5 year old. But this night, my 3 year old started to thank God clearly and correctly for several things. Then it was my 5 year old's turn. That boy usually has such sweet prayers that melt my heart but tonight it was even sweeter. He was praising God! It went on for a few minutes and then my 6 year old daughter who's prayers mostly consist of "Thank you Lord for this food, amen" started to praise God also. I was already in tears by the time it was my turn and how could I do anything but thank our Creator for this moment and everything else? It continued with my husband. While he was saying his prayer I strongly felt the Holy Spirit there with us. God answered my prayers to see Him that night. Absolutely. Right after dinner, however, our freezer and refrigerator broke. It was not our fault, It definitely wasn't God's fault. I truly believe that Satan tried to ruin our special family moment. But my husband and I were aware of that and praised God out loud while rushing around trying to save our frozen and refrigerated food.
I believe that every good thing is from God. But, sometimes I believe that God does things that seem bad to us which turn out to be blessings. Take for example the other day. My husband leaves town for several days often. So it was not a big surprise that he had to leave town this week. But we still didn't have my car or refrigerator completely fixed (yup, both my fridge and car broke the same week). My husband is great at fixing things so he tried to fix both. He thought he had the car running enough to drive it to his uncle's car shop where they could finish the job that week while he was gone. He decided to take the greyhound bus to save money (and leave me with his truck) so we could buy the part for the fridge that we needed. That morning, the car wouldn't start again. So I had to load the kids and his stuff into the truck and drive him to the bus station which was suppose to be right around the corner from his uncle's shop. But the station was closed down. If he had driven to his uncle's shop and then walked (in 100 degree heat) to the bus station only to find out that it was shut down, he wouldn't have made the bus in time. I believe that God made sure that my car did not start that morning, knowing that my husband wouldn't have made it in time to get to the new location (even if I drove down to pick him up and drive him there). Because I drove him to the station and then to the new location, he made it in plently of time to depart. By the way, he said he loved taking the bus. He slept half the way and then played traveling games with the other passengers. How great is God?!
God DOES take care of us. He has provided us with a friend who stored my freezer food until another friend of ours could lend us his extra refrigerator. He provided us with friends who will trailer my car down to our uncle's shop where they will fix it. Everything will be taken care of and most importantly, God will be glorified for what He did for us.
Lord, I pray that you open our eyes to see every little detail that you do for us daily. I pray that we remember to praise you in every situation. Help us to cry out to you when we need to. And to take responsibility for our wrongs when we are the cause. Help us to clearly see Satan's tricks to steal our joy. Thank you Lord for this day. Amen.
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