Being Bound up in God.

I don’t know about you, but when someone tells me that I am wrong it makes me mad.  Sometimes they don’t even have to tell me I’m wrong all they have to do is suggest it even with a look, body language or tone of voice.  I don’t like that at all.  As a matter of fact, if it happens I often want to do whatever I can to prove that I am right and the other party is the one who is wrong.  I had one of those incidents yesterday that left me mad as a wet hen, as we say here in the country.  I was airing my grievances and issues to a trusted friend and that person let me know in no uncertain terms that my attitude just didn’t live up to God’s standards.  When I left that conversation, I vowed I was finished talking to that person.  What did they know, anyway?  They weren’t in my shoes.  They didn’t have to listen to and put up with what I was.  Whatever!  I stewed about it all evening.  I barely spoke to my family as I ran the earlier conversation over and over; vacillating between fury and shame.  I shot little darts of flaming prayer skyward asking sometimes for Him to reveal the truth, but really only if it proved I was right. This morning I went to www.d365.org and was confronted square on with how wrong I was!!  I read their first page and was thinking about what I was going to learn today. Looking forward to it.  This was the second page:

Deuteronomy 6: 4 – 9 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ^{[a] 5} Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Yes!  I agree whole heartedly.  These things all need to be done.  I am feeling good.  These are some of my favorite verses!  Trying to do all this.  Feeling pretty good about it too.  So then here is the third page of today’s devotional:

Whether you have heard these verses many times, just a few times, or never before, you should read them again right now and get lost in their beauty. It arises from simplicity. If you need help putting specific actions to the disciplines you are adding to your life, here are things you need to do. Love God with all you have, and bind that love in your heart. Since these words were spoken by Moses to the people of Israel they have been held as sacred; we should hold them sacred as well. But don’t be fooled into stopping there. Your hand, head, and home (3 H’s) give you the specific actions involved in loving God. And guess what! Those actions directly involve others. When you offer your hand to someone, if your love of God is bound to it, you will act in kindness. When you think of another, if your love of God is bound to your head, you will consider them as Jesus does – a child of God – and act accordingly. When your home displays your love of God, you open it more readily to strangers and those in need. Your mastery of the 3 H’s will provide the specifics for putting God first. – Allan Burton

OUCH!!  What do you mean, God, that my hand offered if it is bound in You will be given in kindness; that if You are bound to my head, I will see others, even those I disagree with and am angry with them, through Your eyes.  NO FAIR!  I don’t like it.  I want to feel good about myself.  I want to feel like I’m getting it right and even when I know I’m wrong, I want it to feel justified in my thoughts and actions.  OUCH!!!

I”m not sure I’m ready to thank Him for unequivocally showing me that I was wrong in my thoughts and words.  But, I’m working on it.  How about you?  Need to do some binding on of God in your head, heart and hands?  I KNOW I do.