You've Got Another Thing CoMing?

“I called you so often, but you wouldn’t come. I reached out to you, but you paid no attention. You ignored my advice and rejected the correction I offered. So I will laugh when you are in trouble! I will mock you when disaster overtakes you—when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster engulfs you like a cyclone, and anguish and distress overwhelm you. When they cry for help, I will not answer. Though they anxiously search for me, they will not find me. For they hated knowledge and chose not to fear the LORD. They rejected my advice and paid no attention when I corrected them. Therefore, they must eat the bitter fruit of living their own way, choking on their own schemes.” - Proverbs 1:24-31
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"God hears us when we call" - We sing about this. We hear it in sermons. We read it in the Bible. We know this even though sometimes in the heat of the moment we may have our doubts. However, when you read Proverbs 1, you may go "Whoa, wait a minute! THAT's in the Bible?" Yes. It is. The idea that God would laugh at someone in their time of trouble, that He deliberately would not answer when we call out for Him is shocking!

And yet it's not. Think this through - when a kid takes for granted that "Daddy will cover it - I can go ahead and do what I want" its a case of  counting on "premeditated forgiveness" as in:

• I know he won't like this
• I know it might cause problems and have costs
• But I'm counting on somebody fixing my mess for me after I do what I want.

It's the counting on the promise of the other being a "pushover". If you are a parent you understand how viscerally this offends us. It's wrong for someone to take love for granted, to deliberately do wrong while counting on another's goodwill to come to the rescue. Here's the thing: GOD IS NOBODY'S "PUSHOVER".

Read the passage again and notice a couple things:

• God is consistently trying to correct and direct you to what's best 
• We don't get to pick and choose when we want God's help
• If we scheme to do our thing and expect Him to clean up the mess, we discover the costs are still there waiting for us!

Actions have consequences.  God shows mercy - unless you are trying to use it as your get-out-of-jail-free card. If you do wrong counting on Him coming to rescue (the "schemes" mentioned in Proverbs 1), you may find He's not going to be there to clean up your mess. 

Today, think it through. Listen when He offers direction and correction. If you push Him away thinking you can call on Him later after you've "done your thing" then as the old saying goes - "You've got another thing coming".

​Spark. Ouch.