Today’s Blog is Totally About You

You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.  Acts 7:51

I write from my life experiences. I write about my own struggles and failures and I write about what God is teaching me through them. I don’t think I’m the only one going through these things and hopefully, my blog resonates with those who struggle as I do. We’re not all in recovery from a drug addiction, but we’ve all got issues.

It’s not uncommon then, for a reader to tell me that it seems like I’m writing about him or her. I never am. I generally stick to my own life, but I consider it a compliment when my writing echoes your story. I write about what God has done through my flaws and failures in the hope that it helps others who have the same flaws and failures.

Today though, is an exception. Today’s blog actually is totally about you. At least, it seems, that is what Stephen would have said if he penned today’ blog. In the passage, Stephen was on trial before the religious leaders of his day for following Christ, when he stood and gave an overview of his people’s history. Starting with Abraham, he told the story up to Moses leading his people out of Egyptian slavery. He reminded his audience how, while in the wilderness, the Israelites abandoned Moses and God, made a golden idol, and returned to slavery in their hearts.

Then, Stephen sprung the trap on his accusers. This story is totally about you. You’re the ones who have abandoned God. You’re the ones who resist God’s work so you can follow your own destructive path (my paraphrase).

In his defense, Stephen described all of us. This is the human condition – to continually desire to go our way, instead of God’s. Stephen’s accusing finger points at all of us. We all naturally desire to follow our own plans instead of God’s will. This is our sin and it’s the cause of so much of our misery. In following our own gluttony, lust, greed, addiction, anger, jealousy, pride, and selfishness, we pursue, not life and faith, but misery and destruction.

No one likes to hear this. Stephen’s audience was enraged and stoned him to death. We, hopefully, can take his message a little more constructively. If we desire to experience the life for which God made us, then we must daily abandon our rebellious nature so that we may truly follow him.