“He wants us to know Him so intimately that we recognize Him with our spirits, even when He doesn’t make sense – and even offends our natural minds.”
Kristen M. Smeltzer
Last week I wrote about my struggle with God not meeting my expectations. To my natural mind, it didn’t make sense for us to move us to Wichita and start all over in our early sixties. Even when you are obeying God, life doesn’t always turn out like we expect.
Herod imprisoned John the Baptist and in Matthew 11:2-6, John sent his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” John felt disillusioned and abandoned by Jesus. Why did He allow John to be imprisoned when John had been His forerunner?
Jesus answered John’s question with what they saw: people healed, the dead raised up and good news preached. And then in verse six, Jesus said this, “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of Me.” In other words, Blessed are the unoffendable.
I’ve been reading Who Do You Say I Am by Kristen Smeltzer and in it she explains why God pushes us into offense. I hope you’re encouraged by her reasons:
To reveal the places in our hearts where we don’t fully understand His character and His ways, so we can become more grounded in the truth of who He is.
To rid us of relying on our logic…and to listen to His Holy Spirit.
To expose weaknesses in our faith and make them our strengths.
To get us to seek out His mysteries of love…
To push us to a place of decision, where we must choose to believe in His goodness when we don’t understand, and trust Him when we don’t “approve” of what He allows in our lives.
To get us to push in for more…
To strengthen our spiritual muscle…
To make us unoffendable. The more unoffendable we are, the more peace we have regardless of our circumstances, and the more established we are in our faith and understanding of who God is.
To make us overcomers and to bring glory to Him.
…Our destiny is often found on the other side of the walls of our offenses!
“God is always developing our spiritual muscle through the resistance we encounter.”
Kristen M. Smeltzer
Relevant Reflection:
Describe a trial when one of those reasons listed above, came to fruition for you.