Friday, July 18, 2008

Set Apart

"Instead of being special, they wanted to be similar."

1 Samuel 8

I read this from a commentary on 1 Samuel the other day. It was referring to the Israelites wanting a king after God had delivered them from the Philistines. All the other nations had a king. They wanted to be similar, to be like them, to "fit in". How many times do we as Christians forget that God has called us to be set apart, to be special, to be different from the ways of this world. We fight it... from the moment we are born we want to be liked, to fit in, to have what others have. I wonder if it's because we don't trust Him. His plans for us may be scary, may not be exactly what we had planned or envisioned... so we settle for what we think looks good. We try to convince God that our ideas are best... "everyone else is married with 2.5 kids, a good job, and a white picket fence" None of these things are bad or unGodly, but when we lose perspective on what our goal (God's plan for us) is , we stop looking like children of the king, and start becoming like anyone else.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

At first when I read this:
"His plans for us may be scary..."

I thought you said, "He plans for us to be scary..." and I thought, "Ooooooooo."

Both are true. His plans are startling to us, because our ways are not his ways (Isaiah 55.6-11). He also plans to make us "scary" or startling to others. As Henry Blackaby says, "You cannot stay where you are and go with God."

Shelley said...

I hope you will keep us updated on your "walk" with Christ! Best of luck back in NM!

Jenny Sipes said...

Just wanted to say hello!! Did you guys move back to NM?? Just saw that Shelley mentioned "back in NM"

Hope you all are doing great.....miss ya