{"id":5507,"date":"2014-07-02T00:05:33","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T07:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5507"},"modified":"2014-07-01T15:02:39","modified_gmt":"2014-07-01T22:02:39","slug":"always-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/07\/02\/always-at-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Always At Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou have heard; look at all this.
\nAnd you, will you not declare it?
\nI proclaim to you new things from this time,
\nEven hidden things which you have not known.
\n\u201cThey are created now and not long ago;
\nAnd before today you have not heard them,
\nSo that you will not say, \u2018Behold, I knew them.\u2019
\n\u201cYou have not heard, you have not known.
\nEven from long ago your ear has not been open,
\nBecause I knew that you would deal very treacherously;
\nAnd you have been called a rebel from birth.
\n\u201cFor the sake of My name I delay My wrath,
\nAnd for My praise I restrain it for you,
\nIn order not to cut you off.
\n\u201cBehold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
\nI have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

\n\u201cFor My own sake, for My own sake, I will act;
\nFor how can My name be profaned?
\nAnd My glory I will not give to another. (Isaiah 48:6-11)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God hasn\u2019t gone anywhere. God didn\u2019t just work in the distant past. He didn\u2019t just intervene for other people somewhere else, wherever we aren\u2019t. God reassured his people that he was just as actively involved with them now as he had ever been. <\/p>\n

The ancient people of Israel often looked back to the glorious stories of their ancestors and compared them unfavorably with their current, often uncomfortable circumstances. They wondered why God couldn\u2019t act today like he used to. But such an attitude is actually a sort of \u201cgrass is greener on the other side of the fence\u201d sort of problem: a failure of perception and perspective.<\/p>\n

The stories in the Bible are truncated summaries that show the highlights of God, but sometimes fail to show the day to day grind. Readers don\u2019t get to witness Joseph in jail every day, getting up, eating, working, hour after endless hour for eighteen long years before he finally got out. The real work of God in life is punctuated, unexpected, and often only visible in hindsight. In the living of life, God\u2019s interventions, God\u2019s miracles, God\u2019s hand, tend to remain hidden in the shadows and soft thumps of the ordinary.<\/p>\n

God works slowly and gradually most of the time. Even the suffering is not like what silver goes through: flaming heat that in moments separates the dross from the precious metal. Instead, it is through the \u201cfurnace of affliction\u201d which takes days and months and years and is often times no more than ordinary days strung together like pearls on a string, with the annoyances and trials of ordinary existence. And he does it for his own purposes, and for his own glory. His treatment of his people is not dependent upon them, but upon himself.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou have heard; look at all this. And you, will you not declare it? I proclaim to you new things from this time, Even hidden things which you have not known. \u201cThey are created now and not long ago; And … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5507"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5509,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5507\/revisions\/5509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}