Leaping Our First Barrier to God

Every one of us has an individual barrier set up by God, one which He intends us to climb and overcome. This barrier is personal and handcrafted by the Lord to maximize our experience of Him. This barrier functions as a stop-limit so to speak. We have to climb it in order to experience His Abundant Life and without that work, we will never launch but rather we’ll languish.

This barrier is intended to be a “limitation” that leads us to His limitlessness. And while all of us has this barrier in place, each barrier is fashioned for us uniquely. As personalized as our destiny, each of us has to engage, embrace, and overcome this barrier to God. It is not intended to be a cap on our experience, rather it is purposed to be an assistant into our destiny. So what could this barrier possibly be? Well, amazingly it’s His choice of our parents. God has designed perfectly that which will be the making or breaking of us. Those who engage their barrier and receive it from Him will win and those who don’t will never leave the starting block. It is the first work we all have to undertake.

Barrier to God

You might say, “Why would God purposely place an impediment in my way? Why would a loving God hinder my path to Him?” These are good questions, and I have a great answer. Our parents are the first landmark where we have to bow to His sovereign Will and Way. None of us are exempt from this work. Our parents are the first place we will have to bow to His sovereign choice and Lordship. Not one of us accidentally has the parents we were given. Each of them were sovereignly designed by God Himself. Whether our parents were neglectful or attentive, abusive or doting, religious or degenerate, combative or compliant, invasive or absent, they were made for us perfectly to come to know God. He set our stage with a path intended to lead us to Himself.

Some may think this is unfair! You might say, “Hey, my father was a drunk and abusive, while that guy’s over there gave him every material thing even though they were absent…I’ll take yours over mine, thank you!” But this statement misses the point altogether. Both scenarios were set up to bring the individuals to God. One child may have received physical abuse, while the other emotional neglect, but both situations were laid out to bring us to God.

The Sovereign Leap

So, am I saying God perpetrated the abuse of a child? No, but I am saying that our God is SO sovereign that even His choice of our parents and their actions towards us can work together to lead us to Him. This is a huge work and we all are intended to wrestle it out, but most don’t. The long and short of this is unless we do the work of surrender, forgiveness, acceptance, and receiving, our paths will never lead to the true Abundant Life for which we were created. As I said, our parents are set up to make us and are in place for our yielding to the Lordship of Christ.

We can argue the legitimacy of this all day long but the fact still remains, we each have been set up through His divine choice of our parents. It is our first opportunity to rebel or yield to the God who Authored our lives. Does this make me unsympathetic to the abuses of a child? Certainly not!  Matthew 18 says, “But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in Me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

So the consequences of our sin against children is great, but this post is not about dealing with the sins of the parents. This is about my response to God’s choice of my parents. The Father set up a path for my dependence and my needing of Him through whoever raised me.

Though They May Forget, HE WON’T

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands; your walls are ever before Me.”
Isaiah 49:15-16

Let me finish this Thursday, this is a big pill to swallow.