Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house. – Micah 7:5-6
Most of us are more familiar with this passage from Matthew
chapter 10 as quoted in part by Jesus after He said that He had “not come to bring peace, but a sword”
(v. 34). Those early Christians were
often seen as troublemakers and people who upset the right order of things, as
described in the book of Acts. For
example, Acts 17:6 says, “These men who
have turned the world upside down have come here also …” -- that is what the
truth does. It puts the world on its
head, uprooting and thus restoring the divine order.
It isn’t just the outside world that finds this
disturbing. In dreams the house usually
represents the dreamer’s life. When the
Lord is at work in our hearts, we may find ourselves in disarray, at odds with
those close to us while at the same time dealing with internal conflicts. The house is divided against itself, and a
choice has to be made. Are we going to
sink back into our normal state of complacency and try to restore peace with
all the elements of our old life by either partially or completely rejecting
God? To do so is to die. As the man said, only the dead have seen the
end of war. It seems a hard way to obtain a false peace.
The alternative is to embrace God’s truth, to allow our
world to be stood on its head. The
battle will move out a circle, and we will find our internal turmoil soothed
and quiet. We may be still in the midst
of storm and war, but our hearts will be as still as a deep and sheltered pool.
There is one other thing that I have believed for a long
time and stated on occasion, though I was never able to give a good reason or a
Scripture reference as to why I believed it.
It may be that I picked it up from verse 5 above. Sometimes we have to be careful of whom we
ask prayer. Not all people have my best
interests at heart, but beyond that, not even all of those who love me (few
enough in my case as it is) are willing to accept what God wants to do for me. Many of us are confounded by this. Pride, envy, and jealousy are powerful. I’ve known fathers who were troubled by their
sons’ successes for fear that it might overshadow their own achievements, forgetting,
perhaps, that the sons’ accomplishments redound to the glory of the
fathers. How much more likely that the
prayers of other family members or of some friend might be chilled by an
envious frost?
Are there not mothers who fear that God’s will done in a
child’s life might loosen her own influence?
Some of those close to us may draw a slightly perverse pleasure from our
dependence on them. I have to watch that
tendency in myself with regard to family and friends. It’s a dangerous thing to play god, though it
can be thrilling. We should beware of polluting our good intentions toward others and likewise of their best intentions toward us being less than perfectly pure.
We don't even have to mean to do harm. Suppose a friend of modest means comes to me and asks that I pray with him for a car to replace his broken-down, unreliable vehicle. I should pray that God will bless him with the perfect car for him -- not the one he wants or the one he'll settle for or the one I think would be good enough for him. For all I know, the Lord may have a Lexus convertible for him while I'm envisioning a solid, low-mileage Toyota pickup. Would I feel bad if he got a better rig than I have?
Sadly, to know my enemies, I may not need to do as Patton did with Rommel and read his book. I may need look only to my own heart, my own impulses and inclinations.
There is One we may always fully trust and to
whom we may make known our deepest desires without fear. But as
for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my
God will hear me. (Micah 7:7)
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