We first and foremost resist God willfully, by closing our hearts to what He may be saying to us…and do what we want instead of what He may want for us. Maybe God has not come through for us on our time line. We shrink back from what seems hard to us by fearing both the real and unreal difficulties that our minds present and picture before us. We resist Him by our unbelief.
Many people thwart God’s will and plans by simply neglecting to know it. They may think that as long as they don’t pursue to know it, then they will not be held accountable for it…. but in the end we will all be held accountable for neglecting to know and pursuing His will.
When we resist what we ought to know from God… we thwart what His will and way should be for us. The scripture gives us many stories about how the children of Israel thwarted God’s will for them time after time. It also tells of the great consequences that followed after they stubbornly disobeyed Him. There may have been times, after they had turned away from God, that they seemed to have prospered for a time…but in the end, their very prosperity led to their undoing.
In the times that they served God and walked in His ways, He provided them protection from their enemies, granted them deliverances and when they turned away from Him, they found themselves no longer under His umbrella of protection; therefore, their territories were laid waste, and they were brought into the greatest misery.
Many of the evils that came upon the children of Israel had their root in their refusal to obey God. In one account, had they followed God’s plan, the Israelites would have gone directly into the Promised Land; but, they resisted what God had told them, listened to the fearsome tales of the ten spies, disbelieving God, and refused to obey Him….. and consequently, they had to take the long, dangerous, and distressing route by way of the of Sinai… with its burning desert sand, blistering hot winds, the shortness of water, the feared serpents and scorpions and the constant dealing with sand in their water, their food, their belongings.
There was no other way for them to reach the Promised Land when they refused to go by the way God would have led them. Like the Hebrew Children, there are many people today in their own Sinai Deserts, because of their resisting the will of God, and unwillingness to be led in the shortest way to peace and happiness but have opted to go the directions of their own choosing. There are many people however, that looking back over their lives, can now see where by resisting God’s will they brought upon themselves unhappiness and weary toils, and had to travel in a desert way, when they might have had a fair and pleasant way had they been content to submit to God.
Many of the evils that came upon the children of Israel had their root in this one refusal... to obey God. Oddly we are all as the scriptures says we are....we are but sheep that have gone astray, each to his own way. As we go our own way, we need to remember this....we go without the protection of the Father. While God never forces His way on us....His absence alone will always drive us to our knees in the end.
So, it is far better that we obey at the beginning of what He may ask of us and not resist His will or direction for us. For the road through the dessert, is very dry, and holds no rest for us!Psalm 143:10 "Teach me to do Thy will; for thou art my God; Thy Spirit is good; lead me into the land of rightness."
Loving you and praying God will work in and through your life in a very REAL way today!
Bren
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