[The LORD speaking] “For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:19
I was so mad. Details aren’t important for this. Let’s just say, all it takes for me sometimes to rocket from baseline to ballistic is to be ignored. Especially when I think what I’m saying is important. Sigh. Not that I would do anything with my anger except to go all silent and fuming. Yet, it still happens…after all these years, walking with the Lord. Getting angry because I didn’t get the consideration “deserved”.
Entitlement is such an indictment of our heart – our all-out absorption with self.
En·ti·tle·ment – the fact of having a right to something; the amount to which a person has a right; the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.
Thanks be to GOD, that He doesn’t leave His children wallowing in their muddled thoughts. Within minutes, the Holy Spirit’s kind reasoning broke through my anger. I came to my senses thinking of how GOD must deal with our ignoring Him. Nothing in what I’ve experienced of His character shows Him stewing in anger toward us. He is not surprised at our behavior. He knows our frailty when we stomp our feet and kick at the dust in whatever frustration we’ve allowed ourselves to focus on.
He does not retaliate. Even when He is silent, it never seems like the kind I perpetrated against my husband, for instance, in those early years of marriage. It would take me three days to return to normal conversation with him when he “made me mad”. How thankful I am that God has grown me well past those days. How thankful that He does not get angry at His children in ways that punish.
Now, in minutes, instead of days, God gently reminds me how to release the anger toward another, frail as me. He brings Himself to mind in the life and example of Jesus, who suffered long with those He loved. My entitlement falls in pieces at the foot of the Cross, where He died for me.
Bear and Bo Rinehart, brothers out of Seneca, South Carolina, wrote Multiplied. They, along with Seth Bolt, make up the band NEEDTOBREATHE. The song Multiplied came to mind yesterday as I recovered from my fit, remembering Whose I am. His love, not judgment, helped me clear my head. How amazing that He (like the song says) comes to find us, wherever we are and whatever condition we put ourselves.
We have such a small life…such a short one here…God, please take all our “hallelujahs” and multiply them to Your magnificent glory.
Worship with me.
Your love is
Like radiant diamonds
Bursting inside us
We cannot contain
Your love will
Surely come find us
Like blazing wildfires
Singing your name
God of mercy
Sweet love of mine
I have surrendered to your design
may this offering stretch across the sky
And these hallelujahs be multiplied.
Lyrics of Multiplied from the album Rivers in the Wasteland; written by Bear Rinehart and Bo Rinehart
YouTube Official Video of Multiplied
YouTube Unofficial Lyric Video of Multiplied
Story Behind the Song and the Band
Images – NeedToBreathe Website
