"...it was the way of his God to choose the insignificant, the overlooked, and the humble to overcome massive evil: Nazareth, a virgin, a manger, a cross. And so it was Paul's way. He understood evil's Goliath and persisted in asking us to be like youthful David and in faith use small stones (our simple gifts) to assault towering evil."
~ Matthew R. Ristuccia, Structural evil vs. simple good, WORLD, May 3/10, 2008
It doesn't take much looking to see that God is using this battle to change me. Our church camp theme this year was "Changing Lives". That's the business God is in. Most of the struggles in my life have revolved around that pivotal issue, my selfish desire for independence, the futile human clinging to the mistaken belief that our lives are under our control. There is a tightrope to walk, as a Christian: lean too far one way, and you forget that God holds the world and everything in it in His hand and we are all subject to His sovereignty; lean too far the other way, and you forget that you have a free will, and your actions and thoughts impact your life and the lives of those around you. It is the age-old debate surrounding predestination and free will. It is difficult for me to grasp how both can exist simultaneously, as they seem mutually exclusive using logic.
Here I am, on the tightrope. My various phone calls to and from the University of Chicago and UPenn today yielded some interesting results: no appointments available until November with the expert I need to see, and the pathologist is on vacation starting today and ending October 30. I have definitely sensed God leading me to these physicians; now they are unavailable to me! I have felt led to accept the radioactive iodine treatment, and now must step forward on that path without the further knowledge a second opinion might yield. I can't ascertain what God might be doing here (or perhaps allowing?). My will is involved: I must choose which path to take, and make constant choices to either continue along it or digress from it. Yet He has set my course, and I am looking for the faint impressions in the slippery sand beneath my feet that might indicate where He has gone before me. It is a foreign landscape, and one can't always be looking at one's feet in any case. I am still learning that lesson I was given as a child - trust Me, have faith, not sight, not sense, sometimes not even peace.
"But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are..." ~ I Corinthians 1:27-28
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