Step 3 - Humbling yourself before God

God seems to have an interesting way of working. When his children are in “bondage,” He doesn’t just swoop down and rescue them. He waits until them become humble; until they “cry mightily” to Him. Then He lightens the burden but doesn’t take it away until some lesson is learned or some personality trait it refined. And then finally He removes the shackles.

It seems to be a recurring pattern that applied in both physical bondage and bondage of sin. I don’t know why we should be so surprised when our lives follow the same pattern.

Frankly, I hate it; but I’m trying to understand. I’ve been torn so many times between anger and frustration that I have a feeling this is a vitally important point for me. I’ve reached the point of crying mightily to God. I’ve spent many hours on my knees in tears. I have a tender spirit still that feels the pain and sorrow of my actions. It is only in the moment of rebellion that I have the problem – in the moment when anger and resentment win out and give me the excuses I need. But then it is followed by great sorrow and a harrowing up of my spirit in tears. But the shackles remain.

Perhaps, it is because I doubt. I know I have been here so many times in the past that I fear the Lord has given up on me and the repetition of my addiction heaps all my sins back upon my head – even those of which we have already repented.

If I could just believe! He commands us to forgive seven times seventy. Perhaps He too can forgive so often. I am trying to believe that He loves me – to believe my blessing that angels are bearing me up in times of danger. I am trying to believe that He sees farther than I do.

Above all, I’m trying to understand and get past my anger. Where were you when I was a child? I had a flash – a revelation a while back. It’s hard to explain. But for a brief moment I realized that He was protecting me in every way He could while not restraining the agency of another. I don’t remember because it is a protection He gave me; because He loves me; because He was there.

Satan tells me He abandoned me. That makes me feel like I’m in this all alone. I’ve felt that way most of my life, even with a loving family surrounding me. But in a way, isn’t that the height of arrogance – that I, among all of His children, am the only one He truly abandons; because I truly believe He is there for everyone else.

I’m finally coming to realize He has never abandoned me. But like with the rest of His children, He is patiently waiting for me to come to the point where He can help me. So here are some of the things I have found out – the dealings of a loving Father trying to get His children ready to listen.

• Even before nations existed, it seems God worked this humbling time into the pattern. Father Adam, after the fall, had many years of trial and sadness. He had his precious sons, Able and Cain, taken from him. One was murdered and the other was the murderer. He saw all his children turn from the Lord. It was one hundred and thirty years before Seth was born and more years before Adam knew for sure that Seth would be his righteous heir – before the fall produced hope.
  
  
• Abraham and Sarah desired children. At that time in the history of the world, to be childless was to be cut off from the generations – a stigma among all nations – a bondage and a curse. Yet after begin humbled Sarah bore a son to the hundred-year-old Abraham: Isaac, the children of the covenant. And then God told Abraham to take young Isaac, just as he was reaching the promise of manhood, and sacrifice him – an abomination to Abraham (who had nearly been sacrificed by his own father). What greater bondage could a loving father have been put into than to have to take the son he had prayed for, the son he had waited for a century to have, and sacrifice him? Yet the Lord did not stay his hand until the very last second.
  
  
• Abraham’s great-grandson Joseph became a ruler in Egypt but not before he was sold as a slave by his brothers, put through trials within the home of his master, thrown into prison, and nearly executed by a blanket sentence of death for the inability of the magicians to interpret the dreams of the pharaoh. The burdens of his suffering were never taken away, but the Lord made them bearable. Joseph made the best of a bad situation, knowing in whom he could trust.
  
  
• The children of Israel went from being guests in Egypt, favored because of Joseph, to being slaves under a grievous burden because they were perceived as a threat due to their vast number. Again, the Lord didn’t just step in with on behalf of His covenant people. They suffered terribly. They suffered until they accepted their suffering – until they turned to him instead of themselves. “And the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.” (Exodus 2: 23) And when they were finally sufficiently humble, He told Moses: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians” (Exodus 3: 7-8). Of course, they may not be the best examples, because they kept backsliding, but then so do most addicts. Maybe the fact that God continued patient with them is a cause for hope.
  
  
• Even the righteous were not exempt. The people who fled with Alma had formed a city in the wilderness. They lived in righteousness. Yet when they were discovered by the Lamanites, they were put under the rule of the wicked Amulon who hated Alma.

⁸ And now it came to pass that Amulon began to exercise authority over Alma and his brethren, and began to persecute him, and cause that his children should persecute their children.

¹⁰ And it came to pass that so great were their afflictions that they began to cry mightily to God.

¹³ And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.

¹⁴ And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

¹⁵ And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

(Mosiah 24: 8, 10, 13-15)

Finally the Lord did deliver them out of bondage by miraculous means, but He allowed them to go through humbling times even though they were already trying to live the gospel.

• In modern times, the Jews went through the nightmare we refer to as the Holocaust. Their prayers may have seemed unanswered but they were not. Once again, God seemed to have waited, using tools to help lighten the burden: Oscar Schindler, Miep Gies, Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman and Bep Voskuijl, and thousands of unnamed individuals, the allies, and the faith of those who refused to give in to despair. In the end, Hitler lost and the prisoners were freed.

I guess, in the end, it isn’t that we are waiting on the Lord to rescue us, but that He is waiting on us to be ready.