Recently, as I was doing a study on insecurities, I ran across
something that has been on my mind so much, I finally decided it was time to
write. I want to share this thought with
others because I believe it is such a subtle and destructive tool of
satan. I have seen it at its ugliest and
I myself have been guilty of it at one time or another.
I read a passage in a book called “So Long Insecurities” by
Beth Moore. The passage described the
account of a young lady who was engaged to a guy and learned some things about
him that caused her to rethink her decision to marry him. She believed God brought this information to
her attention to protect her from making a life-long mistake. But though she had enough information to make
the right decision, she was driven to learn more. To her detriment, she went on a fact-finding
mission. The information she gathered
did nothing for her except to wound her more deeply and strip her further of
her security.
The lesson here is HUGE!
When God wants us to know something, He is able to reveal the matter
without our going to dig it up. And when
He is doing the revealing, no matter how upsetting or disappointing, He is also
supplying the grace and wisdom we need to deal with the
matter. Where we get into trouble is
when we get TOO MUCH INFORMATION. I’m
not talking about sticking our heads in the sand here…we don’t have to go to
one extreme or the other. I don’t know
all that motivates us to “dig up” stuff or continue to “gather” information God
never intends for us to know…I’m certain there are some people who are just
malicious and desire to destroy and some who are just plain nosey…but I think
in many cases it is motivated by the lie we believe from the enemy that we need
to protect ourselves. Some of us have
been wounded…deeply wounded. We find it
difficult to trust and feel we need to brace ourselves for the next hurt. We don’t want to be caught off guard and disappointed…we
don’t want to be “gullible”. We analyze
the apologies of another to decide whether it’s safe to accept it and say, “Fool
me once…shame on you! Fool me twice…shame
on me! The problems is…TMI without the
grace and wisdom of God does the opposite…it strips us of security, wounds us
and destroys relationships. I’ve
personally seen this mindset destroy a church body. It’s WRONG!!!
If you are tempted in this way, I implore you to consider what God’s
Word says in I Corinthians 13. I will
paraphrase verse 7…Love bears all things:
a good example of this is a parent whose child has made a mistake. Though the parent deals with the matter, they
do not share it with everyone because they do not want others to think badly of
their child. They cover the matter in
order to protect their character. We are
called to do this with our fellow Christians.
Love believes all things:
rather than being cynical, love believes the best of others. It hopes
that the best will come out of the mistakes of others. It endures
all the wrong doing of others because self has been sacrificed and the Spirit
of Love is in full control.
Our
hearts tell us it’s risky, our flesh says protect yourself, the world tells us
it’s being gullible…God calls it love…and says we’re nothing unless we’re
expressing it the way Christ did.
Let’s
trust God to do our protecting and to supply the information we NEED…let’s
reject TMI and get to the business of loving!
