The Lord dwells with the humble of heart

Previously: The attitude of gratitude
The first Ten Commandments post

I was wanting to write the next post in the Ten Commandments series today; when I realized I already did without knowing it -- it is the Life in the pressure cooker post. We were talking about all the things which the Lord admonishes us not to forget, in order to guard our hearts and keep it knit into the Lord's heart to worship and serve Him only. And that the things He tells us not to forget, are designed to thwart the enemy's common traps which he employs to try to deceive even the elect, if possible.

The first common trap is forgetting to be grateful to the Lord for all He has done; then we often start complaining about whatever we perceive is wrong in our lives. The Israelites did the same thing, over and over again in the wilderness. They would get to someplace without water, and immediately start in about why did the Lord bring them out to the desert to kill them with thirst, and wouldn't it have been better if they stayed in Egypt (the land of slavery!), etc.

Of course the Lord knew there was no water there. But I bet He was hoping that instead of immediately starting to gripe about being thirsty, the Israelites would first say, "Lord, thank You for delivering us from the land of slavery, thank You for leading us by Your own presence through this wilderness, and thank You for giving us the hand- picked leader You have gifted us with in Moses. We are thirsty. You are a good God and a wonderful provider, please provide water for us to drink. We will patiently look to You in the meantime, for we know You will bless us abundantly as You have done so many times in the past." Now wouldn't that prayer have delighted His heart? I think it would have. (But He gave them water anyway, even though they did not ask for it nicely. He is a good and gracious God, after all.)

The spirit of complaint is really the spirit of coveteousness  - it is not being satisfied with what God has already provided for us. So, forgetting to be thankful is trap number one; and the heart attitude that defeats it is GRATITUDE.

The second is described in the Life in the pressure cooker post. It is allowing trial, suffering, and hard times to cause us to turn away from God, instead of allowing the trial to become a training ground to learn to submit to the Lord's will and become obedient to Him. Allowing an attitude of defeat, discouragement, and bitterness to take hold is probably one of the most successful traps the enemy uses against those who are called to be His. So forgetting that the Lord uses wilderness experiences to teach us obedience to Him is trap number two; and the heart attitude that defeats it is HUMILITY - not my will, but Thine be done, O Lord.

To be continued ...