Don't versus Do

I once saw a sign that read, "Obstacles are what you see when you take your eye off your goal." I think of it a bit differently: "Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off of your God." God says, "If righteous people turn away from their righteous behavior and ignore the obstacles I put in their way, they will die. And if you do not warn them, they will die in their sins. None of their righteous acts will be remembered..." (Ezekial 3:20)

Obstacles are part of life, but did you ever consider that they could be put there by God to keep us on a righteous path? Ignore them long enough and the path you take could be totally 'out of sync' with the path God has called us to walk. By definition, any obstacle is meant to act as a hindrance to going a certain way or doing a certain thing. It should present some form of 'disincentive' to choosing that route. 

Righteous people can ignore God's 'obstacles' - the things he clearly puts in our path that act as 'disincentives' for taking another path. Are all obstacles meant to keep us 'on the straight and narrow' then? I don't think the ones our enemy puts in our path are meant to do that, but the ones God puts there to help us make better choices are. How do we tell the difference between the two? This is where learning how God moves, acts, and what he desires comes in. We have to know his heart in order to clearly recognize the difference between an obstacle meant to help us and one meant to trap us or trip us up.

If we look closely at our passage today, we see that God loves us enough to give us 'roadblocks' against wrong behaviors. Instead of looking at every 'barrier' as a thing that interferes with our progress, we may begin to see them as the very things that help us make progress in the right direction. God's 'obstacles' don't lure us down a path - the clearly illuminate the path that should be taken and the one that should be avoided. What might some of these roadblocks or obstacles be? 

Perhaps it is a feeling that the path you are about to choose is 'just not right' - something just 'bugs' you when you consider choosing it. Maybe it is the words of a trusted companion in this walk who helps you see there are really two paths marked out - one much better than the other. Or could it be that a passage comes to mind from scripture, or a few words from a recent sermon, causing you to pause, consider, and choose wisely? Regardless of what God uses to help us choose the righteous path, the choice to follow it is ours. Just sayin!

Dry bones, a huge stone, and withered limb

Dry bones in the valley....the crippled and paralyzed by the roadside....the tomb - what do these three have in common?

God grabbed me. God’s Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them—a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain—dry bones, bleached by the sun. He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Master God, only you know that.” (Ezekial 37:1-3)

Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people—blind, crippled, paralyzed—were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, “Do you want to get well?” The sick man said, “Sir, when the water is stirred, I don’t have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in.” Jesus said, “Get up, take your bedroll, start walking.” The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off. (John 5:1-9)

After the Sabbath, as the first light of the new week dawned, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to keep vigil at the tomb. Suddenly the earth reeled and rocked under their feet as God’s angel came down from heaven, came right up to where they were standing. He rolled back the stone and then sat on it. Shafts of lightning blazed from him. His garments shimmered snow-white. The guards at the tomb were scared to death. They were so frightened, they couldn’t move. The angel spoke to the women: “There is nothing to fear here. I know you’re looking for Jesus, the One they nailed to the cross. He is not here. He was raised, just as he said. Come and look at the place where he was placed.(Matthew 28:1-6)

Dry bones - so many they fill the valley's floor - so dry there is no hope for them to reveal life again. Bleached by the sun, brittle, resembling nothing but death. Can these bones live? Blind, crippled, paralyzed - lined up day after day, all with a place that defines them as 'needy' and 'lame' - will they ever be well again? A tomb - rock solid - stone sealed into place. Can anything good come from the death sealed within? The answer to all these questions is YES! The one thing all these 'limiting things' have in common is God! Where he speaks - even the hardest of things are possible. He is so much more than the 'limitations' we see in our lives.

Dry places in our lives need not keep us dry - for life is as close as the very breath of God breathed into that place of dryness and barrenness. What seems hopeless in our mind is true potential in his. Crippled and discarded parts of our lives - made straight again, worth something of value - by the creative word of God. A stone blocking the way - sealing inside death and hopelessness - rolled away, no longer giving cover to death, but opening the way for life to come forth. These are the things God sees when he sees the very things we see as nothing more than hindrances or barriers in our lives.

Where the presence of God is - there is life. Where the word of God is - there is hope. Where the breath of God is - there is vision and purpose. We might see the barrier - God only sees what is just on the other side of that barrier. Maybe we need to change how we view the dry places - the mangled and maimed places of our character - the hugeness of the thing we think could never be removed from our lives. God is about to break forth in ways we might not have considered before. Why does God ask the questions? Maybe it is to find out what we see the most. If all we see is the barrier, we might never look beyond that barrier. The questions God brings aren't a challenge to our faith as much as they are a challenge to look beyond what we see as limitations and allow God to show us what is just beyond what we see as impossibilities. Just sayin!