Four Hundred Feet and You Reap What You Sow

 To be certain I'm not who I was.  Aside from it being one of my favorite Christian songs, it's a truth about me.  I've changed.  I needed to and that change is not something I can take credit for.  I didn't change me.  God changed me.  He started doing it even before I started walking with Christ.  My story goes back to a Sunday drive from a place I should never have been.  As I was getting on the on-ramp back to Ogden, I just kind of felt like something was speaking to my soul and asked me what I was doing.  I now know that to be the Holy Spirit of God and by the time I hit the end of the on-ramp and merged onto I-15 North, I had made my mind up to go home and ask for some forgiveness.  My life changed course in the span of about 400 feet.

I was thinking about that today.  Mostly because a phone call I missed (probably spam) came from a number in Beaver, Utah.  I was in Southern Utah the day my life started changing and it reminded me of something else.  

Some of y'all know the thing I'm going through right now.  And it occurred to me that I deserve this because I'd done the same thing to someone else once.  I forgot though that there was a 4th person that got hurt from the selfish choices I made ten years ago but when I saw the word Beaver on the internet search, I realized just how much I really do deserve this.

It hurts.  It hurts to know how much hurt I caused other people. Even though it was ten years ago, I finally reaped that which I'd sown.  As I said, though, I deserve it and one thing I never forget is that God does more than one thing at a time and in whatever He does, He doesn't change.  You can see the attributes of a Just God by allowing me to experience something I caused someone else a long time ago.  

You reap what you sow.  God told me a long, long time ago that He wasn't gonna let me escape the consequences of a bad decision I made about seven years ago and this is just the latest in the long line of painful consequences of a bad and hastily arrived at decision.   But in that, there's peace.  I know I deserve it and somehow understanding that makes things OK.  I see God at work.  Yes my sins are forgiven but that doesn't mean there aren't consequences for them.  Sometimes they show up a decade later in some unrelated circumstances that God proves Himself who He says He is.  

And one of the things He says is that "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay", says the Lord.  While the other people in this story from ten years ago won't know it, I do.  God repaid and it's OK.  It reminds me to be a lot better about how I treat people and not to do stuff I ought not.  As hurt as I am, it would be tempting to go looking for someone as hurt as I am and try to heal each other rather than let God heal my wounds and do what He told me to do, which is wait.

God is good.  And when He chastises me or I reap what I sowed, it's part of His character.  I'm still very blessed.  I had a great day today.  I finally saw a ship coming into port here in Coos Bay.  I'd been wanting to see that.  I saw a train under its' own power down by the bay as well.  I love trains.  I found a penny.  And I found some solace in a lesson learned about behaving myself.

So that's why two titles for today's post.  I had to tell you one story to tell you another story.  I do that a lot.  The moral of both stories is that God is very much in control of His creation and is always working, even when we don't quite know it.  And, like I used to tell people, you really don't need to get even...you just need to live long enough to see God do it for you.

I'll learn this lesson.  I can apply it to whenever a temptation comes my way to do something I ought not.  And I'm thankful ever so much to God for what He did for me in four hundred feet.