Bumps in the Road
Deuteronomy 13:1-5
In his book Me and the Model T, Roscoe Sheller tells the story of a farmer who, in the 1920’s, bought a Fordson Tractor to plow his farm. After plowing in a huge circle the farmer soon discovered that if he put the front wheel of the tractor in the furrow he had just plowed that the tractor would follow and so he set the throttle of the tractor and went off to do something else. Later he went back to see how the plowing was going but the tractor was nowhere in sight. He soon came to a place where a rock had been turned up with the plow. When the front wheel hit the rock the tractor came out of the furrow. The tractor went off without anything to guide it and it ended up in a pond.
Chapter 13 begins with the prophet or dreamer that can become a bump in our journey to freedom from dysfunction. Just like the rock that bumped the tractor off course so can the prophet or dreamer. It should be obvious to us that along our journey we may have to separate ourselves from old friends from our dysfunctional past. 1 Corinthians 15:33
But there will always be people who do not suffer from the same dysfunctional thinking we deal with and, therefore, do not understand that where they might have freedom in a certain area we may not. In some situations the best thing for us to do is separate ourselves from the old friends. But in some cases we must be strong and deal with temptations as they come.
I have found that temptations come often when my emotional energy is running low. It is here when the old dysfunctional thinking rears its ugly head. One of the characteristics of dysfunctional thinking is that truth has been lost. Dysfunction and lying go together. When things get tough we think we must lie to survive. The false prophet; you know the guy who is talking to us in our head, is trying to get us to trust in or believe the old lies. They didn’t work in the past and they’re not going to work now.
If we are going to rebuild our lives we must face the truth, believe the truth, and be truthful. When we do this we are building character that can be trusted. Truth must come before trust can grow. This may mean we have to face some pain and difficulty but that will pass. If we give in, we will ultimately experience more pain.
Again we need to remember that Jesus is with us no matter what we go through so we have One we can draw strength from. John 8:30-32.
Don't let the past derail the future!
Pastor Dave