I’m the Captain Now

In my last post, I mentioned that maybe there had been three people who came to mind when I considered the offense still left in my heart. I guess it’s time for me to do some soul searching to see if this third person is still a true opponent.

An opponent is defined as a person who is on an opposing side in a game, contest, controversy, or the like. They are considered an adversary. Now the Word says that the devil is our adversary. The one who prowls around looking for someone to devour, someone to snuff out, and someone to take captive. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking of him as this opponent came to mind. I was thinking just the opposite. God.

How is it possible that God had become my opponent? My adversary? Well, I’ll tell you.

Picture a magnificent castle towering above sequoias, stately standing just below the clouds. You pace along chiseled cobblestone as you reach the great double doors that lead to a long corridor. Your steps quicken with anticipation as you admire the architectural details of the bronzed arched ceiling. You begin to make out the rich redness of the royal seat at the other end of the room. You expect for there to be a King sitting justly in His seat. As you take the final steps, your eyes stand in utter bewilderment and your heart aghast because in that seat is no King. It’s me.

The castle, my heart. The royal seat, a great throne. And the King usurped at my bequest.

I don’t think this role reversal happened in a moment. I believe I was the King’s servant who’d come at His request. Over time I stopped leaving so quickly to carry out what had been asked but lingered by His seat. I wanted to oversee things. You know to make sure they were going according to plan. My plan. And as I saw the slightest detour, I was there haggling the King about it. I’m not sure if He got up on His cognizance and let me have the seat or if I had asked Him to go. It must have been the former, though the second was being made clear and known.

Can you blame me though? I wanted the happy ending I had painted in my mind. And I wanted God to make everyone and everything fit nicely into my redemption story where I was the hero.

I wanted God to make everyone and everything fit nicely into my redemption story where I was the hero.

Now it took a long time to uncover my contemptuous posture. I didn’t see it like this. God was on my side. He was supposed to be anyways. But I wanted Him to be the puppet master in the play I was directing. I write the script. This is how this is supposed to go. Little did I know that I had become opposed to the Seat of God. And He in return opposed me.

It was for the best.

There were two specific things God revealed to me as to why I, The Offended, had now become The Offender. Pride and glory. I had become prideful in my stance towards people in my life and I began to want the glory that was alone God’s.

James 4:6b states, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” My pride and desire for exaltation were making me an adversary of my God just as the first adversary had set himself.

You know how God uncovered my eyes and got me to see my sin amid my blindness? The answer is at the end of the verse. He humbled me in so many different ways so that I would regain the right perspective of Him, others, and myself.

Philippians 2:3-4 was one of the passages he used to expose my inner deception: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

At the root of this battle I had waged against God’s rightful rule was my desire to look to my interests. And sure, I had a chorus of hype men telling me that I should. After all, everyone else had looked to their own. Why should I have to bow and consider others when I felt so unconsidered?

Through more humbling and pruning God brought me to my rightful position – low.

As I continue to grieve what isn’t and didn’t come to pass, I need to do another heart check. To make sure there isn’t any offense towards God for not writing the script as I wanted it. I don’t believe there is but there’s no harm in repenting and asking for forgiveness again. Perhaps there’s something I missed. Perhaps there’s something I still don’t see.

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*Definition from Dictionary.com.