For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. ~ Romans 8:6
When we began looking more deeply into this verse, we understood that KatieLyn, the runaway bride, lost her peace about the marriage when she stopped being spiritually minded and began to set her mind on things of the natural world. The more that she considered her mother's arguments, the more carnally minded she became. Eventually, the fleshly seed of discomfit grew until she could no longer trust what God had told her. Pressured into believing that if she had even the slightest doubt then it would be wrong to get married, she suicided her engagement—she brought death to it.
It was a self-destructive act. She was not 'just in love with the idea of being married' as her mother told me, (but if that were true, then it would compound the problem because marriage for the sake of marriage is also superficial carnal-minded thinking). For God had placed the desire for marriage in her heart long ago, (which is another reason that I doubt her mom's explanation). God had told KatieLyn that Joe was the man she was to marry, and she chose to think thoughts that were hostile to God. She chose to doubt God. As a consequence, she lost her joy and her peace. It is that simple. It is that complex.
Romans 8:7 teaches us that the mind that focuses on human nature is hostile toward God. It refuses to place itself under the authority of God; in fact, it cannot because it is in "a state of enmity to God" (Weymouth New Testament). The devil tricked KatieLyn into thinking that she had lost her peace about the marriage because the marriage was wrong; But KatieLyn lost her peace about the marriage because she stopped believing the Lord as a spiritually-minded daughter of Abraham and began believing her mom as a carnally-minded daughter of Gwen. That is why I can say it is both simple and complex: She was half-right in that she knew she wasn't as closely connecting with God as she once did; that's the simple part. But she was also half-deceived about the reason for it; that is the complex part which the Lord has revealed to me in small steps and pieces as I sought for answers.
The reason that KatieLyn's explanation made no sense to Joe the night that she ran back home is because she did not know, specifically, why she was calling off the marriage. She only knew that she was uneasy. But she could not say why she was uneasy and she did not know where her doubts came from, so she couldn't give a reason that made sense.
Her doubts came from the pit of hell, and the devil had used her mother, the person whom she trusted most, to sow those seeds of doubt. And that's a fact. She grew her own doubts and when they produced fruit, she ran away from God's plan in wild rebellion and fear.
For to be carnally minded is death.
She chose to set her mind on the natural realm of the flesh and to dwell on thoughts that were hostile to God. To be
spiritually minded is life and peace; it increases hope and gladness. If she had been able to maintain what the Lord had dropped into her heart on New Year's Day, 2015, her peace, her hope, and her joy would have continued to increase. To
be carnally minded is death; it causes one to lose hope and grow weaker
and weaker, eventually resulting in either fear, or depression, or a twisted mix of both.
God often makes requests that are counter-intuitive, which also means that normal reasoning does not apply. Dipping in the muddy Jordan River seven times is not a rational cure for leprosy, but that is what it took for Naaman.
• Isaiah walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and Ethiopia. Isaiah 20:1-4
• Jeremiah was told not to wash his underwear but to go and bury it 300 miles away, further if he traveled the normal trade routes. then he had to go back and dig it up after it had rotted as a sign to evil people who refused to hear God's words and walked in the imagination of their own heart, Jeremiah 13:1-11
• Ezekiel was told to lie down on the left side for the sins of the house of Israel three hundred and ninety days. He had to lie down again on the right side, this time for forty days, for the iniquity of the house of Judah. But wait! There's more: He had to bake his own bread to eat during this time using wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and spelt (a heavy-hulled variety of wheat); and he had to bake it using human poop. Ezekiel 4:9-17
But then there was more: Ezekiel was also told to cut his hair, burn some, dice some, scatter some to the wind, and save a few strands to sew into his shirt for burning later. Ezekiel 5:1-5
KatieLyn may not have been sent as a prophet to the nations, but the point is that if God’s people don't have faith in His words, then they will never obey His voice. These prophets were given tasks that absurdly defied human reasoning—and were very public! KatieLyn's task of faith was not spectacular: "Trust Me, even though your mom doesn't think it's the logical thing to do."
If you've read the posts from last fall that described the codependency between KatieLyn and Gwen, then you will easily see God's wisdom in giving KatieLyn this sort of test of faith. She was given a very hard choice: Trust God's provision, or trust her mother's doubts. The Lord had provided a man who loved her deeply, but she opted to obey her mother's misgivings.
The marriage would not have been wrong. It was her inability to have faith in God's words that was wrong. As these prophets proved, it was obedience to the divine call that was important. Their obedience made them successful. If KatieLyn had obeyed God, she would have had a successful marriage.
but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
The prophets were great because they had learned to obey what they heard from God. They would go on to write about the coming of the Messiah, his sacrifice, his millennial reign, and the river of life flowing from the temple in Jerusalem. KatieLyn chose to run back home.
Peace, true peace, results from being in accord with the Lord. Much of what KatieLyn was claiming to be "peace" in the days after she ran back home was not real peace. It was just a mix of the absence of fights with her mother and the appeasement of friends who tried to console her. She succeeded in reducing her stress level, but stress reduction is not life and peace that comes from being spiritually minded; it is a this-world fleshly imitation.
The Lesson
KatieLyn lost the life that the Lord had planned for her when she decided to doubt Him. She lost a marriage and her rightful future. And yes, we know that God is an expert in picking up pieces and making new chances from blown opportunities, BUT...
She threw away her first love. Her next one will not get that same virginal intoxication. It can be good, but it will be different, and not without baggage. KatieLyn has baggage now.
One thing that disturbed me—a lot—was how carelessly her mother treated this. Gwen was cavalier, almost dismissive, with a "God can send Joe someone more suited" attitude. This indicated to me that Gwen does not really understand men at all. And that fact showed in the specious advice that she gave her daughter, advice that held the appearance of truth, but was actually horribly wrong.
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