When we are certain of the way God is going to work, He will never work in that way any more…Wait on God and He will work, but don’t wait in spiritual sulks because you cannot see an inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our own spiritual hysterics to wait on God? To wait is not to sit with folded hands, but to learn to do what we are told. -Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, August 1.
Like “Be still,” doesn’t mean to sit and be idle, do nothing physically. Doing nothing = spiritual sulking, pouting.
I’m guilty. Even in my 40s I can pout and throw fits with the best of them. Just the other day the 8-year-old daughter gave me a look after I chastised/corrected her on something, and I cam unglued. “Don’t look at me that way! I’ve had that look for oh-so-much-longer than you!”
It’s not the look that is the problem. It’s the thought process going on behind it. Instead of being kind and loving, behind the look is resentment and pride. “I’ll show you; you don’t know.”
If I can save my children from the YEARS of that wrong attitude that I endured and somehow managed to survive, I’ll consider that a job well done! Please, God, help me! Lay on my children to change their attitude!
Isaiah 9:16
16 The leaders of the people mislead them,
and those they mislead are swallowed up.
Whether the followers knowingly are mislead, are conscious or just mislead because they blindly follow, they are swallowed up. “On purpose” has no bearing on consequences. Commit the sin, physically, in though, in heart–physical, mental, or spiritual–get swallowed up.