Frustration, website problems & the “Dark potatoes in the soil of my life”!

Yesterday I got into a right stew about the Bible Cartoons website! I discovered that the reason I haven’t had any sales lately was because the shopping cart on the website was broken...

My frustration level went from DefCon 5 to 4.

I read some articles on the PayPal website, which just confused me...

My frustration level went from DefCon 4 to 3.

I purchased a piece of software that promised to resolve the issue; I altered it to make it specific for Bible Cartoons, uploaded it & it made no difference...

My frustration level went from DefCon 3 to 2.

I prayed; I read some more; I tried to be reasonable; I tried to remain calm & to be philosophical about the issues, but nothing worked...

My frustration level went from DefCon 2 to 1.

Then I ranted at God saying “If you loved me you’d fix this!”

Doubting God’s love & goodness - an annual event?!
I’ve just been looking through last years journal & I came across an entry from 17/November/2012 outlining a very similar event in the life of the Bible Cartoons website, & a VERY similar “If you loved me you’d fix this!” response in me - unfortunately! It is nearly one year ago, to the day, that I was frustrated & doubting the love of God for me & my life... I even wondered if this could be an annual event!!!

It was interesting reading because I recorded God’s intervention & assistance, some days later. There was even a daily devotional entry in Word for Today entitled “Imagine being adopted by God!” which was very helpful at the time. The sentence that REALLY grabbed my attention was this one: “You don’t earn the Spirit of adoption, you receive it by faith. That’s important, because if you can’t gain it by your stellar efforts, YOU CAN’T LOOSE IT THROUGH YOUR POOR PERFORMANCE. How reassuring!” [emboldened by MY for emphasis]

If you love me.
“IF you love me...” is an old question. It’s a VERY old question. In fact it’s probably the first question. In Genesis chapter 3 the serpent (aka Satan, the Devil) casts doubt about God’s love in Adam & Eve’s minds by asking the question “Did God really say...?” [1] Satan’s tactic then was to CAST DOUBT in the minds of Adam & Eve about God’s love & goodness towards them. He knew that if he could get them to doubt God, then they would eat fruit from the tree & suffer the consequences.

The serpent was planting the idea in Adam & Eve’s minds that God WAS HOLDING OUT ON THEM. And they believed that. That’s why they ate the fruit. That’s why sin entered the world.
It’s interesting to note that when I was at my lowest ebb yesterday, deeply frustrated by the Bible Cartoons website & unable to fix the problem, it was THEN that the thought occurred to me “If you loved me you’d fix this!” In other words, Satan (the accuser of the brethren) had dropped the thought into my mind that God WAS HOLDING OUT ON ME. And I believed it. Satan’s tactics are the SAME as they were thousands of years ago, in the garden of Eden.

Since this outburst against God I have calmed down (back to DefCon 5!) & realised what was going on yesterday. I have repented of my outburst & asked for God’s forgiveness about doubting Him & His purposes in my life. I have received God’s forgiveness.

I have also realised that God ALLOWS these frustrating events to happen in my life for a purpose. It is not that He is being mean to me! It is not that He wants to put hoops up for me to jump through! He is not being deliberately difficult, or withholding his love &/or power from me.

So, why does God allow me to experience frustrating events? I believe it is in order to show me that I have some old thought patterns (doubts & unbelief) deep down inside my mind, & which now need to surface, in order that they can be EXAMINED, EVALUATED & RESOLVED. If that happens then these doubts & unbeliefs will loose their power to frustrate me, & ultimately Satan will loose his ability to cast doubt into my mind about the goodness of God. Once these doubts & unbeliefs are resolved then no longer will Satan’s thought “Did God really say...?” have any power over me. I will simply be able to say “Get out of here, I KNOW God loves me & wants the best for me!” & that will be that! No more DefCon1 verbal explosions at God thank you very much!

”Dark Potatoes”.
The process of UNCOVERING, EXAMINING, EVALUATING & RESOLVING my doubts about God’s love for me may take some time... quite a bit of time I suspect! I can be quite a stubborn persona after all! But God is very patient. I’ve had these doubts about the love of God for me for a very long time; most of my life in fact; they are deep-rooted... & these roots need pulling up!
Last night I referred to my doubts about the love of God as “DARK POTATOES IN THE SOIL OF MY LIFE” which seems quite an apt description. I think God allows me to experience frustration in life in order to “dig up” these doubts. The frustration of life actually causes these doubts to resurface in my mind. Of course, digging them up EXPOSES them to the light, which is rather painful for me! Nevertheless, I can see that God needs to uncover these “dark potatoes of doubt”, or else they will simply remain “in the soil of my life”, deeply buried & unresolved. Then, the next time I am frustrated by life they will re-emerge & plague me again, & again, & again.

God loves me FAR TOO MUCH to allow me to have deeply poisonous doubts & unbeliefs buried deep in my mind. He knows that, sooner or later, these “dark potatoes” will emerge to hurt my relationship with Him once more. All it takes is sufficient stress & frustration, then the “dark potatoes” of doubt about God’s love for me emerge again. And at that point Satan is effective at pointing to these deeply held (wrong) beliefs & accuses God TO ME, saying “God’s holding out on you again” & “God obviously doesn’t love you, or else he would fix that problem”, etc.
But this time I think Satan has “tipped his hand” a bit too much, because I’ve noticed his tactics & realised what is going on in my mind. At the same time I believe God is allowing me to experience these doubts & unbeliefs about his goodness in order that I finally UNCOVER, EXAMINE, EVALUATE & RESOLVE them.

As I said, I think the process of recovery may be a long one, but at least I’m ON the road to recovery! God is very, VERY patient with me, & sooner or later these nagging doubts about God’s love WILL be resolved. I look forward to that day.

If you’ve got any similar stories, please do write & let me know.


[1]
Genesis 3:1-7 (NLT)
The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”
“Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”
“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”
The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

Obedience even when the act seems a bit senseless!

2 Kings 13:14-19 (NLT)
When Elisha was in his last illness, King Jehoash of Israel visited him and wept over him. “My father! My father! I see the chariots and charioteers of Israel!” he cried. Elisha told him, “Get a bow and some arrows.” And the king did as he was told. Elisha told him, “Put your hand on the bow,” and Elisha laid his own hands on the king’s hands.
Then he commanded, “Open that eastern window,” and he opened it. Then he said, “Shoot!” So he shot an arrow. Elisha proclaimed, “This is the Lord’s arrow, an arrow of victory over Aram, for you will completely conquer the Arameans at Aphek.
Then he said, “Now pick up the other arrows and strike them against the ground.” So the king picked them up and struck the ground three times. But the man of God was angry with him. “You should have struck the ground five or six times!” he exclaimed. “Then you would have beaten Aram until it was entirely destroyed. Now you will be victorious only three times.”

Interpretation - The king KNEW that the arrow he shot out of the window had been proclaimed as the Lord’s arrow, & since Elisha told him to do something else with the remaining arrows perhaps he SHOULD have realise that Elisha’s prophecy wasn’t over yet! If the king had thought that then perhaps he would have paid more attention to what Elisha asked him to do: strike the ground with the remaining arrows.

The "obvious" thing for the King to do (in his own mind) might have been to strike the ground three times, but that wasn’t the SMART thing to do! To be fair to him, he didn't know what was "riding" on his actions - the number of times he would be able to defeat the Aramean army! But since he DID know that Elisha was in “prophecy mode”, perhaps he should have been more careful & thoughtful in his actions. And the king HAD JUST HEARD Elisha proclaim “This is the Lord’s arrow, an arrow of victory over Aram” so he should have realised that “victory over Aram” was in the offing!

Application - What can we learn from the kings error?
1) Don't ASSUME we know the importance of an apparently senseless or "small" act of obedience which we are asked to perform. There could be a LOT more "riding" on our act of obedience than we realise.

2) Don’t disregard a prophecy, even if it doesn’t SEEM to relate to us - it might turn out to be central to our lives, careers, future, etc in the end! King Jehoash discovered that... the hard way!

3) Actively look for, & pay close attention to, what the Lord God is “saying” to us. That might be through a reading of the Bible, or else by a thought in our minds, or a word someone says to us, or various other means.

4) If we believe God (through a prophet) has told us to do something, then it would be WISE & PRUDENT to do the thing, & keep doing it, until He tells us to stop! King Jehoash STOPPED doing the thing he’d been told to do, which was to strike the ground with arrows, after only doing that three times. We need to keep on “striking the ground with arrows” (I use that metaphorically here) over & over again JUST IN CASE an great deal more is at stake than we realise... better to be safe than sorry!

What do you think? How would you interpret the story of King Jehoash's visit with the prophet Elisha?