Have You Ever Held On To Anything So Tight ...

that it hurt when God pried your fingers off?! 

After the flood of 1994 in Leesburg, GA, I saw two different reactions: 

• Falling on their knees in love, worship, faith, submission, provision and finding sheltering protection under God's wings.

  Matthew 6:21 Context

  ¹⁸That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. ¹⁹Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: ²⁰But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: ²¹For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. ²²The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. ²³But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! ²⁴No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. 

  
  

• Shaking their fist in anger at God for taking away their 'things' 

Ephesians 4:26 Context 

²³And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; ²⁴And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. ²⁵Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. ²⁶Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: ²⁷Neither give place to the devil. ²⁸Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. ²⁹Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.  

I was listening to a Thursday night teaching, and I appreciated what the pastor was saying when he made the analogy that it is almost as if God is making our Christian residence on this earth less appealing every day! Watching everything that is going on, it is easy to see how this could be! I am ready to leave and go HOME!

Maranatha,
Anna