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Better?
by Rose Murdock "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Genesis 1:31 Did you ever notice that God didn’t say He saw what He made and it was better? He said it was good. You might describe it as better because what was it before? It was full of darkness. It was without form and void. What God did was better wasn’t it? But He didn’t call it better. He didn’t compare. He called it good. When you describe something as better then in your mind there is something else that is worse. Whenever you want something better you’re saying that what you have now is not good enough. God says its good and you say its not good enough. People often are striving for something better in their lives and it’s causing them to lack the peace and contentment that God desires for them to live in every day. They have what I call a lack-mentality. They feel they need to get something that they don’t have. They feel they need to accomplish something they haven’t yet accomplished. With a lack-mentality you will look for things to get better in your life. You say things like, It will be so much better when I get this new job, move into this new house, buy a new outfit, get a new boss or a new president or a new pastor, or (God forbid), a new spouse. But by looking for something better you are saying what you have now is not good enough. You may argue that what you have now really isn’t good enough. Your job isn’t enough to pay your bills, your house isn’t big enough etc. But you think that way only because you are stuck in a certain pattern of thinking. Could it be that your problem is that you have too much debt rather than not enough money? Could it be that if you cleaned out your house and got rid of what you aren’t using that your house would be big enough? Could it be that your boss or your spouse may be right, even if just some of the time? Just a thought. The solution to your problems may not always be what you think they should be. We tend to want to compare, and we usually compare for the purpose of wanting something we don’t have (lust), rather than being thankful for what we do have. We can also think this way when it comes to what we do for the Lord. We may feel that God has called us into a ministry and we strive and push and become anxious for the ministry to grow. We want our ministry to be ‘better.’ And because we’re doing a work for the Lord we think that we are right in our pursuit of better. Of course it’s right to want to do what the Lord has called us to do but if we have this lack-mentality that tells us what we are doing right now is not good enough then we’re never going to get anything done. We’ll miss what God’s doing right in front of us. We won’t see what He wants to do today because we’re too busy thinking about ‘when.’ Better never comes. And one thing we need to be aware of is that this kind of ‘better’ and ‘success’ thinking can actually stem from an improper motive of pride or, carried to an extreme, even self-worship. Why do we want the glory of God in our lives? Is it really for His glory, so people will worship Him? Or is it because we want people to see God’s glory in us and think that we must have some kind of special connection to God? I’m being honest here. We need to have enough courage to take an honest look at our hearts and our motives. One time I was praying for God to bless my ministry and the Lord said this to me, "a desire for worship." I said, "Pardon me?" and He began to caution me that a desire to have a successful ministry can actually be a desire for self-worship. A desire for people to worship me rather than God. I was shocked and of course I told the Lord I didn’t want that to be my motivation at all and He said to me that I would have caught it before it got too far out of hand but that I had to be aware of what might be trying to influence me when I prayed for ‘success’ in my ministry. Remember that was the downfall of Lucifer. He wanted worship for himself rather than God. We would be naïve to think that he wouldn’t come and try and tempt us with the same thing. Why do we want the glory of God in our lives and even in our ministries? Do we really enjoy His presence, even if no one else is around? Do we love Him so much that we want everybody else to worship Him too? Are we so loyal to Him that we want to recruit others to recognize and speak of His goodness as well? We want to be sure that our motivation for ‘success’ is because we want Him to get glory not us. Do we ever enjoy it when people recognize an anointing on our lives? Do we ever feel that we are somehow responsible for what God does through us? Do we ever want to share in the credit just a little bit? Do we ever feel the pressure to ‘perform’ when we’re doing what God has called us to do? And do we feel we have a reputation that we have to uphold? If you see yourself yielding to any of these even just a little bit then there may be an influence there of self-promotion. Ask yourself these questions when you are alone and it’s just God and you. Ask Him to reveal any motives of your heart that is not pleasing to Him. The opposite side of self-promotion and pride is insecurity. To find out if insecurity is influencing us then we need to ask ourselves if we want people to see His glory on us because we then get some kind of reassurance that we must be O.K.? If we are insecure about our right standing with God or about His love for us then we can fall into the trap of looking to people to give us this reassurance. If we don’t go to God directly and communicate with Him then we will look to others for validation of our lives and ministry. Insecurity is the devil’s playground. It keeps us looking for acceptance and approval in all the wrong places instead of realizing that our righteousness or ‘right-ness’ comes only through Jesus Christ. Both of these influences of self-promotion and insecurity stem from the idea that things are not O.K. now the way they are. They come from looking to make things better. They come from not being content or at peace. Now of course this doesn’t mean we should quit looking to do anything for the Lord, but we need to be very aware of our motives and what is influencing us. If there are problems, then yes we need to seek to solve those problems and be more efficient when possible. But when we always look to make things ‘better’ then we may fall into a habit of looking at things with a critical eye. When we feel that we always want to make improvements and ‘fix’ things then we will be looking for all the faults. This is a habit we can fall into and we won’t even be aware of our critical thinking. The Lord was not very sympathetic towards criticism when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness. A critical attitude is not a habit we want to develop. Growing in discernment does not mean we grow in criticism! A person’s motives may start out right where they have a real desire to see a person live a fulfilling life, or to see a church or ministry blossom and grow, but when we feel the solution is to look at all the faults and short-comings and address those we may be over-stepping our bounds. We need to learn to look at people, church’s and ministries with the purpose of seeing the gifts the Lord has given them and encouraging them in those gifts. We need to focus on the value, not the faults, of others. When we are in a position of influence over someone because we have an established relationship with them, then the Lord might use us to address ‘faults’ in their life. But most of the time, if we see a fault in another person, it’s not for the purpose of telling them about it but rather to pray for them. And any time we feel we see a fault or sin in a person or a ministry or an organization then the first thing we need to do is make sure we have the beam out of our own eye and we’re not judging or being critical because of something interfering with our own perception. We can ask ourselves questions like, is there any reason why I would want to see a fault in them? Is there any reason why I would want them to have a fault or to fail? Have they hurt me in the past? Is there the least bit of competition or jealousy involved? Do I want to appear spiritual and ‘show off’ my gift of discernment? Do I recognize an anointing in them and by ‘ministering’ to them I feel I can take pride in the fact that God used me to minister to such an anointed person? If anger is our motivation, we might point out someone’s fault to them while banishing them from our life. We declare that they are wrong and at the same time exclude them from us. Now of course there are times the Bible tells us to separate ourselves from those who are in rebellion against the ways of God but we often do this for simple mistakes when we shouldn’t. I think this type of anger also comes from insecurity. If we become hostile towards someone it’s usually because we feel threatened by them. And if we are not secure in our understanding about what we believe to be true then when someone disagrees with us we attack them and want to alienate them from us. If we feel that way then we need to ask ourselves why we are so fearful of them being right? If they were right then what would that require of me? And why do I feel threatened by them? Do I fear that they are going to force me to believe like them or think like them? If so then I don’t understand that God has given me the authority over my own life and nobody else can come along and change my beliefs. My beliefs are my responsibility. The responsibility to seek the truth rests on me. We spend so much time and energy trying to prove people wrong or us right. But once we do then what? Do we gloat in our satisfaction of being right? Is it being right that we want so much or is it the truth? Do we sacrifice the truth and settle for being right instead? That’s what Jonah tried to do when he ran from Ninevah. He knew God’s mercy and he knew if he prophesied judgment and the people repented that God would have mercy and not destroy them. Then Jonah would look like he was wrong wouldn’t he? The people of Ninevah were their enemies and Jonah would have loved to gloat in he being ‘right’ and them being ‘wrong’ and suffering God’s judgment for their wrong. This may very well be a part of the ‘sign of the prophet Jonah’ that Jesus talked about. How much do we want the truth? Do we embrace it, even when it will make us look bad? Or do we only want the truth when it makes us look good? When we have anger, bitterness or resentment as a motivation then once we ‘prove’ somebody wrong what do we do? We mark them. We banish them from us. You know that God doesn’t do that. He did, and is still doing, everything possible to bring man back to Him. One time I was praying about a miracle that happened at a particular church. In my opinion, this church had some serious flaws in their basic doctrine. I asked the Lord why He did such a great miracle there when they had these flaws. He didn’t deny their faults but His response humbled me. He said that if He waited until people were perfect before He moved among them then nothing would ever happen. I felt pretty stupid because I immediately remembered that I wasn’t perfect either and that I probably had errors in my thinking that I didn’t even know about yet. I was happy that He didn’t wait until I was perfect before He moved among me. He’d never get a chance to do anything! We need to remember that the purpose of God’s miracles are not to put validity on the person performing them, but on the Word of God that they speak which exalts Jesus Christ and His way to the Father. Our challenge is to learn to accept people, flaws and all. Not that we condone sin or that we don’t judge what’s right and what’s wrong, we need to be able to discern right from wrong—really truth from error. But we don’t cast a person out because they made an error. There’s a difference between someone who continually and willfully disregards the Word of God and His Spirit and one who slips up but then repents. We need to be able to recognize those who are seeking the truth from those who are casual about it. And we also need to make sure we remain a people who continually look for His truth, not just to be right. Not just to make things better, calling what God says good, not good enough. In the Garden, it was God who said it was ‘not good’ for man to be alone. That was God’s judgment call. God didn’t make Eve because Adam complained about being alone. God is the judge of what is good, right and true. After Adam and Eve sinned then they began to make their own judgments about whether or not something was good, starting with themselves. And of course man’s judgment is not always right. It comes from a position of limited sight. I’m not trying to bring bondage on anyone through this message by squashing anyone’s hopes or dreams for a ‘better’ future. But I’m simply trying to point out that quite often our better future is right under our noses. It’s already here and we just don’t see it because of these things that are clouding our perception. Too much striving for things to get better wears us out. And when we’re tired we’ll close our eyes and miss what God is doing right in front of us. When that happens its time to seek Him out and ask Him to help us see the things we’ve been blinded to so we can see His path clearly before us once again. |
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