Friday, May 14: Don’t be one of the frozen chosen!

Sometimes in my walk, there’s a song by Keith Green that can hit me right between the eyes. “My eyes are dry, my faith is old, my heart is hard, my prayers are cold. And I know how I ought to be alive to You and dead to me.” Though God has given us peace that passes understanding in the midst of the greatest trial, we have to trust Him for that peace to occur. When we fail to trust in His promises, we become Christian popsicles, cold and hard. Soft and pliable are better attributes as Christians.

“The same sun that softens the butter hardens the clay.”

Though the Jews are God’s chosen people, each one of us who walks with the Lord has been chosen by God, too. He doesn’t hang us out to dry as believers, but goes before us in all we do:


29 “Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified, or afraid of them. 30 The LORD your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31 and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.’
Deuteronomy 1:29-30


After the Jews disobeyed God when He told them to conquer the people in the Land of Canaan due to their enormous size, He punished them. While being punished, the Jews opted to try and fix it their own way, but God’s hand wasn’t in their attempt. He warned the disobedient Jews that He was not with them in the endeavor, but they went anyway, and were defeated:


41 “Then you answered and said to me, ‘We have sinned against the LORD; we will go up and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded us.’ And when everyone of you had girded on his weapons of war, you were ready to go up into the mountain.
42 “And the LORD said to me, ‘Tell them, “Do not go up nor fight, for I am not among you; lest you be defeated before your enemies.” ’ 43 So I spoke to you; yet you would not listen, but rebelled against the command of the LORD, and presumptuously went up into the mountain.
 Deuteronomy 1:41-43


We can find ourselves in similar circumstances when we choose to disregard God’s Word and walk in sinful practices. Yet remember that God does not punish us to destroy us. He only chastises the ones He loves! One of God’s greatest promises, and reminders, comes in a subsequent verse:


7 “For the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He knows your trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.” ’
Deuteronomy 2:7


If you are His and He is yours, God will bless ALL the work of your hand! You will lack nothing! This is not the prosperity gospel, preaching wealth and earthly gains. Yet your needs will certainly be fulfilled by the God who loves you so much that He cannot take His eyes off you! If you find yourself enduring a cold streak in your walk as a Christian, come back to the cross and that place of trust. Let God soften your heart. If He shapes it while it is frozen, it will shatter! Even at the hands of the Master Potter, the clay needs to be warm and soft to sculpt!


And by the way, Happy Birthday, Dad!