A few weeks ago I left us with a thought,
Don’t limit yourself in a limitless God
You can read the full post here.
God continues to put a spotlight on my thinking…
Am I trusting in myself or in Him?
This question is as old as the garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were faced with going God’s way or another option. This is what temptation is.
Until the tempter came, they weren’t focused
on meeting their own needs.
Enter advertising…
We don’t need a snake anymore. We have an entire culture built on selling us options to be independent of God.
People go to school for years to get a degree in “enticement.” We politely call it marketing.
There is tremendous power in words, for good purposes, or to draw us away from complete reliance on God.
What makes us vulnerable?
I am not telling you anything new here. We all know the warnings about temptation. Be careful what we listen to Mark 4:24 and what we look at Psalm 101:3a.
1 John 2:16 wraps it up – “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.”
We also need to look at what makes us vulnerable to Satan’s traps. Here is one we might overlook.
We have legitimate needs
We all agree that we need food, water, and protection from the elements. But we also have needs for things such as variety, belonging, freedom, and an ability to make a difference in the world.
We have needs and that is okay.
Yes, we have needs and that is okay. Let that sink in.
If we aren’t aware of these needs, we can get duped into attempting to meet them independent of God. Being unaware makes us vulnerable to deception.
The other day I was talking with a friend about the strong desire we both have to be useful. We can be tempted to deny this desire unless we realize it is a basic human need. When we are unaware, we unconsciously attempt to meet this need by our own efforts. We tend to over-work and strive to meet this need. It was helpful to have the spotlight come on in this area.
Door #3
We laughed about the different ways we try to meet this desire to be useful. We saw three options
#1 – work really hard at everything to feel useful. How is that working?
Great …in the short term that is. But it is never enough. We expect more, people expect more from us and it becomes a trap.
Our culture leads us to believe we can have anything we want… when we want it, the way we want it.
#2 – We can just try to distract ourselves and not think about this desire. How is that working?
Great… as long as I have a steady stream of Netflix programs, popcorn, and no one bothering me!!!
Our culture depends on the revenues from us believing in the power of distraction. Advertising works.
#3 – Trust God to bring the opportunities He has for us. How is that working?
Great … every time I trust God I have peace. But I tend to forget … I get more reminders (temptation traps) to use door #1 or #2.
So, How do I trust more?
To be continued…
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