Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Does God deal with us all the same?

I was chatting on the phone this morning with a dear older lady. I have known her for many years. We began (as we always do :-) to talk about how God deals with us about different things. The question arose does God deal with us all the same? In some ways I would say yes He does. He deals with each of us fairly, justly, etc. But let's be specific. Here I don't think He does always deal with us the same way. Let me give you a for instance. (that is southern talk for example lol so our northerners understand, hi Terri! LOL) .

God dealt with Isaiah this way when he didn't want to speak:
Is 6:6 Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:

:7 and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

Yet look how God handled Moses not wanting to speak:

Ex 4: 10 And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto they servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.
:11 And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind: have not I the Lord?
:12 Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.
:13 And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.
:14 And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and He said, is not AAron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart.
:15 And thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do.
:16 And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth and thou shalt be to him instead of God.

So here we have two different men, both not wanting to speak and God dealt with each differently.

That tells me that if God is dealing with you about something, and me about the same thing, He may go about it a different way with each of us. Same God, same Holy Spirit. What is different? We are. God has made each of us unique. And because of that, He deals with each of us differently.

Take school for our children. (this came up in a group I am in LOL) We homeschool, and it works for our family. Others may not be called to homeschool for whatever reason. God has dealt with school for our children differently. Even with other homeschoolers. Some have school at home, some have a relaxed school situation, does that mean that if I do or don't homeschool I am missing God? Or if I do or don't (fill in the blank) I am missing God? Not necessarily. Though I might be in some instances. God made each of us unique and because we are all at different stages of our walk with God, He deals with us differently and at different times about different things. He is not a cookie cutter God. He didn't cut us each out of the same cutter. He wants us to be individuals.

Another thing (bonus here LOL) that we talked about is being careful that we are following God and not a man in a pulpit. We must be careful to follow Jesus. The pastor is put there to teach us, but he (the pastor) is a man and he can miss it just as we can. If we put him on a pedestal we can follow when he misses it and miss God ourselves. We must check everything out anyone tells us against the word of God.

I love my phone chats with this lady. She is definitely a blessing from God and we always make each other think. I hope I gave you something to think about today :-)

2 comments:

Mere said...

I loved this today. God is an AWESOME God and he has gotten us through so much!

~Mere

Cris said...

I absolutely agree. I think God does sometimes deal with us differently. Just like we don't always deal with our children differently because what may work for one child isn't always as effective for the other. Thanks for the brain challenge. Very good post!