Warnings can be a Blessing in Disguise

Given a choice, what would you avoid.

Silly mistakes or major destruction.

Personally, I would prefer to stay alert and enjoy success and not loss.

I remember my first job ever.

I was supposed to learn a bit of accounting, but I did not take it too seriously. To facilitate my on-boarding the company arranged an experienced Chartered Accountant, a friend of the business owner from another city and sent him to train me to manage the accounts.

Youthful, with no prior experience I did not realise this individual’s expertise nor willingness to coach an inexperienced new employee and treated the incident with a matter-of-fact approach.

After the first lesson, I did not get what he explained because I obviously did not immerse myself into what was shared.

So, the expert tore the page from the accounting book on which he had done the explanation. He then went ahead to repeat the explanation, a little more slowly and deliberately this time.

I didn’t’ get it the second time either.

So, he tore out the page again, crumpled it and threw it aside.

The third time, before he began, he looked straight into my eyes and said sternly ‘If you don’t get it right this time I am not interested in wasting another page or my time. I am out of here.’

The warning woke me up.

It made me realise that there was a definite lack of intent from my side, a slothful spirit, a carelessness to realise the importance of what was being imparted and by who it was being done and this negligence was going to cost me big time.

As I pondered in those few moments, I deliberated the consequences of the outcome.
What if the trainer left in anger?
I would be left feeling humiliated. I would be termed unintelligent and dumb. I would be reprimanded that I could not get what an expert had taken the trouble and time to teach. And worse still, the incident threatened to destroy my confidence, my reputation and could make me lose a good job as well.

The warning needed attention if I did not wish anything negative to happen.
I decided to set myself up for the challenge. I had to tell my mind to get alert. I had to get everything inside to cooperate with me to win and not lose the opportunity that was presented.
No prizes for guessing what happened next. Yes, I got it right the third time around.
I had just avoided a potentially huge impending loss simply by asking my mind to get some sense and stay alert.

I believe we all have that special intuitive sense to respond to a warning and get alert, no matter how difficult the threat.
I learnt a valuable lesson that day. Sometimes it is not other people or circumstances but we ourselves who open the door for trouble, often with dumb, ignorant, silly, and careless mistakes we make.
Dumbness, ignorance and carelessness can cost us much.

In the book of Exodus, the Bible mentions about God spending time with Moses to personally write down the ten commandments. These were oracles for His people to live a more successful life. Here was God who had decided to come down on Mount Horeb, lowering down to man’s level, scripting a great destiny with His own Jehovah-Jireh-hands. However, the people were acting dumb. They never seemed to get the point. They were busy grumbling and murmuring against Moses. They were busy creating idols for themselves. Deceiving themselves that a man-made idol that cannot speak that cannot write their destiny that cannot move was going to be their God.
And why was God going out of His way? Not for Himself but for their good, to get them out of a slave mindset.
But what was stopping these folks from receiving a great blessing?
The fact that they cannot get themselves to stop grumbling about their present circumstances. The fact that they are refusing to shift their minds from the I-want-it-right-now mentality. That is what is stopping them from a great testimony that lies ahead.
Their attitude upset God so much that He wanted to finish them off.

Bible Reference:
Exodus 32:1-10

After the people saw that Moses had been on the mountain for a long time, they went to Aaron and said, “Make us an image of a god who will lead and protect us. Moses brought us out of Egypt, but nobody knows what has happened to him.”
Aaron told them, “Bring me the gold earrings that your wives and sons and daughters are wearing.” 3 Everybody took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron, 4 then he melted them and made an idol in the shape of a young bull.
All the people said to one another, “This is the god who brought us out of Egypt!”
The Lord said to Moses: Hurry back down! Those people you led out of Egypt are acting like fools. 8 They have already stopped obeying me and have made themselves an idol in the shape of a young bull. They have bowed down to it, offered sacrifices, and said that it is the god who brought them out of Egypt. 9 Moses, I have seen how stubborn these people are, 10 and I’m angry enough to destroy them, so don’t try to stop me. But I will make your descendants into a great nation.

But being a God of Justice, He decides to warn them first.
God gives them time to gather some sense and make corrections so He could still write a great destiny for them and see them blessed.

How do we apply the lesson from Exodus into our practical life today?

Some people have created idols for themselves. Idols that are placed above God, some literal and some not.

The reason they have gone after things apart from the Living God is to attempt to seek a shortcut to success, on their own.

In the bargain, many have forgotten or have been ignoring the fact that it is God who is more concerned about ensuring man enjoys success in everything pertaining to life and Godliness.

Just imagine!

Is there anything that can be greater than a destiny that is scripted by the very Hand of The Great I Am, the Savior of the World?