Getting it wrong... and fixing things

Wrong way, a photo by bobmendo on my Flickr site.

It happens to me, and I wonder what you do when you experience it. You are supposed to be at the event at 7, but things don't work the way they are supposed to work. The alarm didn't go off; the battery on the car...dead. The kids or grandkids are more demanding than you wish and well, the margin you gave yourself...it's gone.

The signs for 'wrong way' were visible to others, but you disregarded them. Alas.

She'll be right, mate, we say in Australia. Everything's going to be all right, so says Hollywood and most love songs of the 60s. But is that enough?

What do you do when you are convinced you are right, you go about it in the way you think is correct, only to be met with disappointment and rejection? Where is God on this one? What about your faith?

When you plan, decide, get a bunch of helpers and things don't work out... do you think God isn't listening?

Welcome to God's world, where He chooses you, and makes you part of His program. And you bungle it up, and you re-organize His assignments, and ...

I like reading the Bible, and seeing others getting into the same predicaments. Tonight at the #OneNewMan meeting I asked the folks about 'favorite' get-it-wrong people in the Bible. You would guess Moses, King David, the woman at the well (John 4), and some others. Moses struck a rock in anger and tossed the 10 Commandments down in the same rage. David committed sexual sin and lying and murder. Yipes, bad day to be on his bad side.

Consider Job whose friends told him he had messed up.
Consider the Apostle Peter who three times denied Y'shua and yet, God returned, and among other fixes, cleaned up that mess.
Consider a modern woman whose husband died, and she believed for a miracle, but had to bury him instead. She got it wrong.

Look at Daniel 3.16-18 (3 men, "Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

That's it. The three Jewish men were convinced that God would save them. and be delivered from the fiery furnace. But their hedging was not based on lack of faith, but on genuine faith.

When we think wrong, when we live wrong, when we even believe some things wrong... God allows us to get it right, if we trust Him in the depths of our soul. And that's real faith. That's honest faith. That's faith that gives us access to the King of the Universe.

And understand this. God is the One who gets to fix things. All He wants is for us to present ourselves, honestly, forthrightly, trusting Him.

That's the way to do the right way, and turn around from the wrong way. For Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-nego, and you, dear reader.