Sometimes God uses people to test our faith. Circumstances are difficult but nothing like the pure unadulterated face to face, heart to heart, psyche to psyche, flesh to flesh, hair raise. We need some skills, the main ones being; bullet biting, crow eating, cheek turning, appearance avoiding thereof, and downright Biblical longsuffering. Without these our faith shipwrecks quickly, truth fails, equity stands afar off.
On the more serious side, it’s the shed blood of Christ, a Lamb without spot, which does the essential cleansing needed. Why needed? That blood cleanses away defilement of sin, sins, and also the mere interaction with “world” as God understands it. This Cosmos, this whole earth, lies in the hands of the wicked one as conveyed in 1John 5:19. For this reason, we find that Jesus, dying for the sins of men, nevertheless, did not put His trust in men, John 2:24 We likewise must not esteem mere men more highly than we ought to.
In Jeremiah 17:4-5, we see these words, “cursed be the man who trusts in man, and maketh flesh his arm, whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.”
Friends, many do not discern God’s goodness because of a wrong attachment to the men and women of this earth. Often it is a certain one or two who cause the distraction, but the result is a solitude and dry separation from the rest. It may be a soul-powered thing or a personality thing out of desperation for friendship, but the results can be disastrous.
The man who puts His trust in the Lord, in contrast, becomes like the tree planted by a river of living water, his roots do not wither in time of drought, and he does not feel when the heat is on.
Did we hear what Jeremiah is saying? We will not feel when the heat comes. Folks, here lies a problem. Heat comes, yes heat is going to come and unfortunately undue reliance gets placed on the over-attached few, and they are not God. We want them to be iike God and they may try to be, but the relationship turns out to be a “trip,” because undue expectations produce unhealthy results.
Well, imaginations can take us into many potential scenarios but the bottom line; on whom are we trusting? Fellow humans, have we considered what a proper relationship entails? God supplies the example and it equals a laid down life. We cannot expect to gain something from a relationship that can never be possible.
We correctly view a friendship as an opportunity to love, to give, to care and even sacrifice for. Never do we enter with an expectation of getting needs met. Now, God may use that person in my need, but heaven is the source. Do we see it?