I read a couple of verses that really resonated with my soul in Isaiah 10 and wanted to share as I felt God was kind of shouting at me directly with these verses.
Isaiah 10: 12-13a - "But when the Lord finishes all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, 'I will punish the king of Assyria for his arrogant acts and the proud look in his eyes.' For he said: I have done this by my own strength and wisdom, for I am clever."
How often do we as believers forget to give glory and praise to God for all the things we're able to do and accomplish? I know I am immensely flawed in this. More often than not, I am so proud of myself or attribute my accomplishments and talents to my own hard work, that I forget that I could not do any of these things if God didn't bless me with those talents and abilities.
Although the answer to the question in the title of the blog post seems confusing, it's really not. I may have accomplished those things myself through education, hard work, training, and motivation. Yes, that is very true as it was my hands doing the work, my brain devising the plan and thoughts, and so on, but ask yourselves a few questions on this topic:
Who enabled us to have these abilities?
Who carefully crafted our DNA to be a specific way?
How do we know how to do the things we do?
Psalm 139: 13-16 - "For it was You who created my inward parts; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I will praise You because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and I know this very well. My bones were not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in Your book and planned before a single one of them began."
These verses pretty much answer every single one of those questions. Nothing we do is on our own, because God so carefully crafted us long before we were even a thought to our parents. All of our DNA, our talents, our skills, and what drives us was carefully crafted by God. Now, we may stray out of His will, as I so often have, but it doesn't mean that the talents and skills we're using while not aligned with His will aren't because of Him.
Even those that perform bad acts are still using the talents and skills granted to them by God, they're just misaligned on their purpose as a result of sin, fleshly desires, and worldly influence. The person who leads a successful war, as in Isaiah 10 above, is still using the talents and skills God so carefully crafted in them. Unfortunately, they are praising themselves through it all and relying on self instead of God being the focus and giving all glory to God. If Assyria would have praised God and relied on God's purpose and will throughout it all just like David, then the blessings likely would have been far greater than they could have imagined. Sadly, because they praised themselves, God's wrath was turned against them eventually after God was done using them as a tool for His will and His purpose. The last thing ANY of us wants is God's wrath to be turned against us.
Moral to the lesson I learned here is that I must give all glory and praise to God for EVERYTHING I accomplish because He is the one that blessed me with those abilities. If I keep God as my Spiritual compass, then I will use my talents for His will but also it will serve as a reminder to honor, glorify, and praise Him through all that I am able to accomplish. Have a blessed weekend everyone!
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