Samuel said to them, “Don’t be fearful. It’s true that you have done something very wrong. All the same, don’t turn your back on God. Worship and serve him heart and soul! Don’t chase after ghost-gods. There’s nothing to them. They can’t help you. They’re nothing but ghost-gods! God, simply because of who he is, is not going to walk off and leave his people. God took delight in making you into his very own people. ________ 1 Samuel 12:20-22 (MSG)
We mess up!
That is a fact.
We do a lot of crazy and shameful things as Christians sometimes. And many of us have lived with the mindset of hiding and running when we do things that are wrong. Right from a young age, we hide from our parents when we do wrong things, then we look for excuses or try to blame or rationalize our way out of the situation. We hardly ever go up to our parents willingly and confess our wrong and ask for forgiveness. We find it way easier to just hide, avoid it, hoping they won’t notice and just in case they do, we have an alibi ready.
I found that this attitude and habit didn’t start with us. Remember, Adam and Eve? Yeah! They did the same thing in Genesis 3. When they messed up and disobeyed God and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, their eyes became opened and they noticed that they were naked, so they tried covering themselves with leaves and when God came into the garden and called out to them, they hide and when He finally found them, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. It’s a vicious cycle.
This cycle, though common, it doesn’t produce any good fruit nor solves the problem.
Yeah, you messed up, it has already happened. But we can do something better about it that will help us grow and decrease the rate at which we mess up and eventually stop.
We’ve got to go to God. This may be the last place you wanna go, but you’ve got to. I am a Nigerian, precisely a Yoruba, and there’s this adage we say when someone messes up and doesn’t tell the elder or father about it, it says, “The situation you don’t want the father to know about, the father is eventually going to be the one to solve it.” The mess up we don’t want God to know about and we hide and run from him for, He will eventually find out and He’s the only one that can help us.
Recently, I called someone, “stupid” for something so irrelevant and uncalled for. First, I was shocked that the word, “Stupid” came out of my mouth but we know that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, so the Word of God tells us the guard our heart. I haven’t been guarding my heart lately. I have been spending time with people who casually use that word and it was becoming causal to me too.
Just a side note: Be careful who you spend time with and what you listen to. It all plants seeds in your heart and it will eventually grow unknown to you and the fruit will shock you. Bad company truly does corrupt good character. A little drop of water will eventually fill a bucket.
So back to my story, I was shocked and I was so disappointed in myself. And the enemy saw an opportunity to come into my head. He started telling me, how corrupt and bad I was, and made me start questioning if I was indeed a Christian and why I would ever call someone stupid, etc. I feel horrible and at that moment, I didn’t wanna face God.
But, thank God for my relationship with the Holy Spirit, we have a good time Y’all. Many times people see me talking to myself and they think I am crazy but I am not. I am either preaching to myself or having a conversation with the Holy Spirit. Make sure you spend time with the Holy Spirit and learn to hear his voice. So, honestly, Y’all I was about to just shrink back, hide, feel miserable for a while and ask for forgiveness later and hopefully, God isn’t mad at me anymore by then.
But I felt within my spirit the Holy Spirit raised a brow. I am not kidding Y’all. He was like, “Seriously girl, what you doing? You definitely did wrong, that is certain, but I don’t want you to turn from me. In fact, we need to talk more at times like this. I will let you know that you are growing. Because there was a time you would have said the word “stupid” and other worse words and you wouldn’t feel bad or remorseful. So that’s a growth and I am taking every little growth I see.”
And after that real conversation with the Holy Spirit, I realized that wow, God wants to talk to me about everything. He wants me to come to him with the good, bad and ugly situations. Is he happy when I mess up? No! But does he want me to run away from him? No!
Do you remember our opening Scripture?
Samuel said to them, “Don’t be fearful. It’s true that you have done something very wrong. All the same, don’t turn your back on God. Worship and serve him heart and soul! Don’t chase after ghost-gods. There’s nothing to them. They can’t help you. They’re nothing but ghost-gods! God, simply because of who he is, is not going to walk off and leave his people. God took delight in making you into his very own people. _______ 1 Samuel 12:20-22 (MSG)
A quick backstory about the scripture above. The Israelites had told God that they wanted a physical king like the other nations. They had God as their king but they wanted what other countries that they were supposed to be an example for had. They wanted what the world had. So, God felt bad about this and said, they had abandoned him in 1 Samuel 8. So, here in 1 Samuel 12: 20 -22 after God has chosen Saul to be their king (He gave them their wish), Samuel, is giving a speech and telling them, “YOU ALL MESSED UP! You all messed up big time by asking God for a king though he was already your king. BUT, DON’T TURN FROM GOD and go to smaller gods. Continue to serve and run to God.”
So, I am saying to us all, because we’ve also messed up at one point in time and we will probably still mess up in the nearest future. And when you do mess up, don’t run from God. Be real with God. “God, I cursed someone out today, I was mean today, I did something horrible today, I watched porn again today, I masturbated again, I gossiped, I was hateful, I was _____ I am so sorry. Please, God, continue to prune me and work on my heart.”
Be real with God.
When your parents eventually find out you messed up, do they kill you? No! They probably punished you and gave you “the talk.” Which is exactly what God will do too. He will reprove you, chastise you and prune you more like a lovely father that He is. He only reproves those he loves (Proverbs 3:12; Hebrews 12: 6).
He corrects us of our mess out of his love for us.
Don’t run back into the world when you mess up, Run to God!
God bless
Eternally Loved
Growing God's Eternal Family 