Stumbling… Have you ever found yourself stumbling around, unable to walk without bumping into something, loosing balance, or even falling down…?
God is often a ‘stone for stumbling’. (Isa. 8:14)
That is hard to swallow at first. But at further study, it makes perfect sense.
When God is not my sanctuary, not placed in the highest place, not calling the shots…then He becomes a stone for my stumbling.
He is to be the center of my existence, I am created (by Him) for that to be so.
When I look to possessions or pleasure, or work, or distractions in activities, or power…or whatever else…then I will find myself contining to stumble over Him!
What is created can never fill the place of God in our lives. No person can do that. No relationship other than the relationship with Him can fill that God-shaped hole.
And when we continue in endeavors to find that satisfaction, we continue to find out that satisfaction is short lived. And we stumble. Over God.
Of all the people in the world, those of us in these United States should wake up to the truth about physical and material wealth. It is never enough. There is always one more thing. More. Bigger. Better. More expensive.
That continuing search is really a stumbling. We are falling right over the God of the universe, the God Who created us and wants to fulfill us in the way He meant for it to be.
I am thankful that He is so long-suffering, that He continues to make attempts to communicate to us how empty our pursuits are. How gracious He is to continue to love us and extend His love and mercy to us. How long will He wait? How far will we fall before we get it? That question is very unsettling to me. Our nation is so much like the situations that Isaiah wrote about.
We are familiar with 2 Ch. 7:14... ‘ If My people who are called by My Name, will humble themselves….’ but what about the verse before it? ‘WHEN I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land, or send a plague among my people…’ What is He shuts up the heavens to us, or causes our land to be devoured, or allows a plague? Or has that happened…or is that happening?
The displeasure of our God is something to think about. He continues to make us stumble over Him, but for how long? It seems to me He has let us have what we have insisted upon, and it is eroding and consuming us.
