Page 66 - Evidence of Things Unseen

A Cutter of Grass

did not yet understand many of the ways in which God works when He leads people into
Itheir possession. A lot of the things I am sharing with you I learned in hindsight as I
looked back and meditated upon what God had done.
I understood the requirement for faith to be manifested before God’s provision would
be seen, but one of God’s ways that I had not yet discerned was that, when He takes a people
into the land, He will also remove all idolatry from their midst. I have shared about my
struggles with covetousness, and the repeated disobedience that I had engaged in. God
would have to break off this root of idolatry in my life in order to bring me into the land.
I did not fully appreciate this fact, and it caused me to have some false expectations
regarding what God would do for us. I thought my faith would be met with a perfect
provision on God’s part, and indeed it was, but God’s perfect provision was not anything
close to what I had anticipated. When I left my employer to pursue full-time ministry I had
a lot of debt. Just before embarking upon a life of trust in God’s financial provision for us
I had been offered a new job that paid significantly more than I had been making. I was
given a raise of about $15,000 a year.
As I viewed this windfall, I acted once more in disobedience. My wife had been
wanting a van for some time, and although I should have known clearly at this time that it
was not God’s will for me to incur more debt, I justified this purchase as I had done earlier
ones. The justification was somewhat different this time, for I truly had no interest in
buying a van. It was purchased to appease my wife who had not been very pleased with me
in recent months. I used a quotation from Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth as the
basis for my justification. Paul said:

I Corinthians 7:32-34
But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about
the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but one who is married is
concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and his
interests are divided.

I reasoned that I was not unmarried, so I had to give thought to pleasing my wife as
well as pleasing the Lord. This is actually a right understanding of Paul’s words, but my
application was all wrong. Husbands are to give thought to their wives, and they are to be
willing to subjugate their own wants and desires in order that they might bless their wives.
I reasoned that I did not really want a van, nor did I want any more debt, but I did want to
please my wife. My action was in this way cast as being very unselfish, and even sacrificial,
but God was not fooled.
The apostle Paul never intended to convey to men that they should disobey God in
order to please their wives. Yes, men were to lay aside their own personal preferences in
matters in which they had received no command from the Lord. They were to give
consideration to their wives in a multitude of ways, but they should never use a desire to
please their wife as a reason to disobey God. It was not God’s will that I should take on more
debt. This was a fact He had made known to me very well in prior days. God did not buy
into my justification, and this was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I had
now crossed a line where God would have to chastise me severely. God would make sure