I have an on-line student this summer that has not turned in any assignments. He has not responded to my emails. He doesn’t answer his phone and will not return my voice mail messages. We have run out of time. If he will only respond to me perhaps we can work out something. Other than going to his house and waiting on his porch I don’t know what to do other than sadly decide the course is lost.
There is a poignant passage found in Luke 13. Jesus sits on the Mount of Olives looking over Jerusalem and sadly says, “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” There are things out of God’s hands. He has given us the power of choice. We, not He, are in control of our destiny. God can call us. He can email us. He can sit on our porch but if we don’t respond He has to allow us to reap the fruit of our decisions.
If God should force any of us He would violate His own ethic and lose the battle with Satan who has claimed God is a tyrant. He is anything but a tyrant. While it is true we are born with the preprogrammed characteristics of our parents and grandparents, that does not mean we are forced to behave in any particular way. While we have tendencies and biases toward certain actions we are still in control and can if need be call for divine help. II Peter 1:4 is very assuring. We have great and precious promises that we can participate in God’s divine nature. The power is given. It is ours!
Written by Roger Bothwell on August 11, 2014
Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org