Six months ago I devoured John Steinbeck’s mythic tale, East of Eden. Steinbeck creates fantastic and believable characters in a larger than life sort of way. He even gives one of his characters a horse named Doxology. Doxology is only the most amazing name for a horse ever. I really must buy a horse just to name it Doxology. Anyway, some of you may remember Liza Hamilton. If not, allow me to introduce you to her. Liza is a small, strict woman with a rigid set of moral standards. Life is black and white for Liza Hamilton. On one occasion, in the book, Liza’s husband Samuel stays out all night hanging out with some neighbors. Now, Samuel was not out doing anything scandalous but was just out later than Liza deemed appropriate. The next morning Liza disapprovingly chides Samuel, saying, “Maybe you can find it healthy to rove all night, but the Lord God will do what He sees fit about that.” Now I am not interested in discussing whether or not the fictional Liza was justified in her conviction. What I am most interested in discussing is the narrator’s comment immediately after her rebuke:
“It was well known that Liza Hamilton and the Lord God held similar convictions on nearly every subject.” (Penguin Books, East of Eden, 178)
The narrator’s quip is both amusing and illuminating, don’t you think?
I have all too often discovered myself assuming that God thinks similarly to me on a variety of subjects. If I am in a fight with Colin, I might say something like, “Well, why don’t you pray about that?” Hmmm, I’m pretty sure that what I really mean is, “I’m going to give you a couple of minutes to testify that you fully agree with me that God is on my side in this argument and not yours.”
Sometimes we get so overconfident in our understanding and knowledge of God that we simply assume all of our opinions are synonymous with His heart. We seem to think that if only we knew Scripture word for word then all of our thoughts and opinions would be in continuity with God’s own. There are so many problems with this assumption, not least of which is the sin in our hearts that causes us to, at times, misunderstand or misappropriate the Scripture that we have so impeccably memorized. Now, this is not about disparaging knowing the Bible or memorizing Scripture. This is about resisting the assumption that if we know the Bible well we can co-judge with God.
The other day as I was scrolling down my twitter feed I read a tweet by one of our siestas, Fran Thomas. She typed the following:
“Just because you have the gift of discernment doesn’t make you right all the time.” And then she wrote in parentheses: “talking to myself.”
Her tweet was a gorgeous reminder and it took me back to the Liza Hamilton in myself. Thanks for that word, Fran, if you are out here in these interwebs today.
The LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. Deuteronomy 10:17
And we don’t just assume that God thinks like us, we make the assumption that everyone else does, or if they were living “rightly” should.
Assumptions are so easily made but can get us in so much trouble.
Can I say God’s Timing is so very Perfect!
He taught me this lesson this particular weekend! Thru a interesting venue.
It is very necessary to come to a place of submitting each moment to Him, so that I do not walk in anything but humility.
Trying very hard to resist the evil one! and not walk in any disgrace that would harm my testimony.
To GOD be all the glory 🙂
May I not be an example of Liza!
What a good reminder to constantly humble myself before the Lord, lest I think that He is on my side all the time! Thank you for such a gracefully written post.
Melissa, I am always blessed and challenged by your thoughts. This post reminds me too that, sometimes, there’s more than one “right,” and that’s difficult for smugness to handle. I’m talking about choices aside from absolutes, of course.
Sadly, I admit that there are times when I inwardly cringe both at my own tendency to decide things about people and also at Christians’ unsolicited assessment/ judgement of fellow believers and unbelievers. Melissa, what an eloquent reminder to us to be SLOW to speak and to see people through God’s eyes, not through our own.
I agree with Anastasia, today’s body of believers will do well to not not muddy what God calls black and white. We need to be innocent but WISE, always asking God for wisdom and discernment!!
A very good word here…thanks Melissa (and Fran)!
Trying to get to the Living Proof Ministries website, and it is not working right now (Monday morning, 2/28/11, 6:30 pm Pacific)
Thank you for this. I needed this today.
Great point expressed beautifully! Thanks for giving me something to mull over today. I tend to know I’m right…often, and have been known to “joke” around that everything would be ok if only I was running the world, hehe.
I am an avid reader but somehow never picked this one up. I’ll have to pick it up on my next library trip. Doxology…that’s a pretty perfect name if ever there was one 🙂
Sharon San Diego 1 John 5:3 JKJV
For this is the love of GOD, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
Great verse!
Thanks for that word today, Melissa. I needed it!! Just sayin’!
Appreciate you “Moore” gals!
Great Post Melissa! Thanks for stirring my heart today.
This caught my attention because I’m on page 372 of this gigantic book. Part of the time I’m making myself read it, and the other part I can’t wait to get to the next page. I love that quote from Liza and your thoughts are spot-on. We have to be so careful and remember that His ways and thoughts are not our own — even when we think they are. 🙂
Melissa, I read this over the weekend, and for lack of a better term, it stuck in my head. Just had to take a second to come back and say thank you for allowing the Lord to speak through you with these words.
How narcissistic is our society that we ASSUME the Lord agrees with all of OUR man-made beliefs and ideas!?! Thank you for always sharing insight, and as I have realized after reading some of your recommendations, your taste in literature is impeccable, as is your analysis.
Blessings today!
kristi
thanks for the truth in this Melissa, a great admonition to my Monday morning….asking for forgiveness now! Goes right along with your mom’s admonition about our tongues last week. Also lines up with not solving my own problems and asking Him to then bless them. Argh…help me Jesus!
I take comfort in knowing that there is only one lawgiver and judge…and I’m not Him!
Feb.1st NIV Isaiah 40:28-29
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary,and increases power for the weak.
Feb. 15th NIV Isaiah 41:10
So do not fear for I am with you,do not be dismayed for I am your God.I will strengthen you and help you.I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
What a great reminder, Melissa! And this one didn’t even hurt my brain *grin*!Hopefully, I’ll manage to get on here tomorrow to post my verse! It will be the first time I got it done on time! I’m still not memorizing well. My daughter, Chloe, is, and she doesn’t even say them as often as I do!!! Oh, to have an eight year old brain! Yes, she’s starting memorizing the verses with me. After we read them together last night, she went and hid in our new vacuum cleaner box (as if I couldn’t hear her) and said our latest verse over and over again. I listened in hope that it would help me get it memorized too!
Hmmm. Another blog I follow was about self-righteousness today. Think God may be trying to tell me something?
Jennifer, Avon Park, FL
In God I trust I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?
Psalm 56:11 NIV
Very well written! I for one am always assuming all of my opinions are synonymous with His heart, because Jesus and I go way back ya know! We’re tight! Ugh! I’m sure I can be so annoying sometimes.
Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord have never forsaken those who seek you.
I really needed to hear this today. Just one of those days. Only in Ohio can you be snowed in on Friday with 7 inches of snow and flooded out on Monday because of a massive rainstorm. My basement is flooded, I still have to get ready for lecture tomorrow (I teach nursing students) and get my lesson ready for youth group on Wednesday night; AND I am teaching the young men this week…talking about dating and relationships and I am a tad nervous. All of this the week after I graduated from my Master’s program and I assumed I would be overjoyed and totally relaxed because I would have no homework due. It’s quite funny that God lead me to this blog tonight because I have been praying for the mind of Christ so that I could learn the lesson from this particular season of life and have wisdom as a teacher. I believe He is telling me that I am not skilled to understand, what God has willed what God has planned and all I need to know is that at His right hand stands one who is my Savior. (That’s a song by the way, I “borrowed” the words) Thank you Lord Jesus, through You I can do all things.
A while back I read in Charles Stanley’s In Touch devotion where he suggested that we pray for God to expand our minds to embrace His thoughts. Definitely food for thought, don’t you think?
Karen from Kentucky, John 16:12 NIV I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.
Ouch! But thank you – I needed that 🙂
Amen, sister!! Melissa … such a reminder that no matter how much we think we know … how righteous we think we are … we so need Jesus! Bend the knee. Get off our high horse (pun intended!). And you are precious. Thank you.
What a humbling post. I so often get haughty and impatient with the world, but that’s not my role. God is the sovereign creator, I’m the recipient of His grace. My job is to show His mercy to my fellow creatures.
Melissa,
If you liked East of Eden, you would probably like The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. It’s actually a true story!
Matthew 18:21-22
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
Melissa,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. . . it’s amazing to me how often Satan turns what God intends for good to be evil. And we have this ugly character flaw (sin) called “pride” that helps him do his dirty work. I look at my own life and am amazed how God could redeem me, yet often my response to that mercy is to piously pass judgment on someone else, thinking I’m God’s “right hand (wo)man” and am justified to act so legalistically. Lord, forgive my self-rightousness. Your analogy hit a little close to home.
Ouch. Point taken and well put.
I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Psalm 27:13 NASB
You should post this on other blogs too.
Very good Melissa & Fran. Your mom’s quote “God didn’t come to take sides, He came to take over” has come to my mind several times over the past few days. 🙂
Thanks so much!
This was an excellent post.
I may remind myself that I am “doing a Lisa Hamilton” when, in the future I catch myself co-judging.
I am a co-heir with Christ and that is truly a liberating, beautiful thing but that doesn’t make me God nor does is give me permission to assume that my thoughts are God’s thoughts.
The Christian journey is one that requires such vigilance
to stay in the Word and to know that without the Holy Spirit I am incapable of walking in the will of God.
Blessings!
Jo Ann / Lincoln,NE
A thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, but
I came to give life – life in all its fullness.
John 10:10 NCV
“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds. Casting down vain imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. And bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”
2 Corinth. 10: 4-5
Cherise, Cheyenne, WY: ” You will keep him in perfect peace the mind that is dependent on You, for it is trusting in You.” Isaiah 26:3 HCSB
Melissa, Thank you for this post, how often I think I know exactly how God thinks in a situation with my husband and the fact is it could be me He is dealing with. Lord keep me in humility. Have that book on the shelf thanks for reminding me to get it down.
Melissa, this is something to think about, I’m glad you shared with us. It reminds me again of the state of our natural hearts. It makes me want to be filled with the Spirit at all times, so I won’t be fulfilling that flesh…
Ha! I have had the revelation over and over lately that I tend to be a Martha. I never wanted to be a Martha because my mom is one, but I’ll find myself ‘slaving’ away at something and huffing to myself about how my husband isn’t helping, then I’ll catch myself, AHA! Reminds me a bit of Liza Hamilton, as do the verses of a contentious woman. Thankfully my husband and my God are patient and loving.
Preach it sister! Thank you
“whatever you do to the least of these, you’ve done also to me” comes to mind, except i tended to think of myself as “the least” one- so humbling it is to come to see that it is I whom judge falsely sometimes, too., it is me that has also told someone to go pray on that! only To Know when i am back in my cubby hole that it is I whom feel less worthy to be “preachin” what I cant even do,and more than likely it some insecurity within that feels threatened somehow, more than anything really, and i know that however much I may run my mouth and talk it big with all my theories and things i think i know at the time, -i am still and even more, in need of my savior whom reaches in and simply loves me, even when i havent been too loving to someone whom i’d miss if they were gone.
Leslie. Missoula. “Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you. Isaiah 54:10
You reminded me of something … the “Doxology” in our hymn book (Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow). I love that hymn, but it kind of scared me when I was a little girl. I remember being at my first VBS in Tyler, TX, a sanctuary full of kids … and I was a big scaredy-cat. Must have been five years old or so. The organist seemed to milk out that last “A ….. men” in such a deep note … and maybe because it had the word “Ghost” in it (had no idea at that time what that word meant in reference to God)… had seen too much Scooby Doo by then, too! Oh goodness, girl!
Loved this post so much, Melissa.
Thanks for sharing this! There are times I feel “led” to speak to someone concerning something I think is wrong and needs to be corrected. Thankfully, God in His great mercy shows me when I’m not thinking correctly before I utter a word. Oh, how many times He has saved me from embarrassing situations!
Isaiah 40:28 NIV
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.