Yesterday we ended with the thought that we are cracked yet bulging from the sheer amount of information that is at our fingertips but uselessly spilling out to no avail. The word from Isaiah that was posted yesterday said the wall would collapse suddenly. Let’s read on:

Isaiah 30:14 It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern.” 15 This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. 16 You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift! 17 A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.”

Beth Moore made a statement in one of her teachings that it was much better to allow God to break us rather than to snap. I believe this statement wholeheartedly. For we see, in this passage, that if we had come to repentance and rest, if we had stopped the murmuring and complaining and trusted God it would not be as it is today.

We thought, as children often do that our freedom bared no burden of responsibility. Ask any teenager with an allowance and they will tell you that they can buy whatever they want. Only whatever they want may not be good for them or fit into the family dynamic of what is acceptable and not. So the argument ensues as to what is appropriate and what is harmful. They believe their right trumps their father’s rules. So it is with our heavenly Father. We believe our freedom trumps His desires. Yet, the bible tells us that the Lord will prevail in the end. So we end up fighting a losing battle thinking we are somehow winning.

Better to be broken than to snap, just ask any economist today. Better to be broken than to snap, just ask anyone who signed an interest only home loan. Better to be broken than to snap, just ask any spouse who pushed the other just a little too far. Better to be broken than to snap, just ask any person who experimented with drugs and alcohol only to find themselves chained to their addiction. Better to be broken than to snap, just ask any of us who have demanded our own selfish desire over the will of the Father.

As mature of a believer as we want to seem to be, we are still children in many ways. We don’t take the time to cleanse ourselves, like every 10 year old in America others can smell the funk across the room. Just like children, we never learned to rest our desires in God’s hands and so we restlessly reach for the next adrenaline rush from whatever source it comes from. Just as toddlers who want to talk incessantly we are never quiet enough to access the still small voice that leads us to victory. Just as teenagers who think they can make it on their own, we never fully understood what it means to have our strength in Him.

We are going through a period of testing and proving and the lessons which could have been easy will be hard instead. For those whose desire is to wake from their slumber to attempt to serve the one they call Lord and Savior, it will mean some radical changes. Times are tough and will be getting tougher. The difference will be the children who decide to grow up and have the faith to see God provide. Then there will be the others who will continue to murmur and complain and decide that God is only as good as what He’s done for us lately.