SETTLING IN...JUST BEING COMFORTABLE

What does being comfortable look like to you?  Maybe a recliner, feet propped up, a good book in Nook or Kindle or maybe a real book, and a cup of coffee or tea?  Chapter 5 of Daniel reads of  King Belshazzar who has become very comfortable, not in honoring the Lord and pleasing Him, but in ignoring lessons from the past which would have been most beneficial for him to recall.  He also had a very wise counselor in his kingdom that he did not bother to take consult, Daniel.  Daniel is in his 70's and seems to have a great recall.  He has been a man of prayer and well knows what is going on in his Babylonian nation where he has been since age fifteen or so.

Tonight is a big party for the king and his friends.  They were enjoying the food and wine and just praising the works of their hands, the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.  Out of nowhere, fingers of a human hand appear and began to write on the wall.  How about that for a show-stopper to a party?  The king is aghast and so very fearful, even his knees are knocking!  No one could read the writing and the queen appears on the scene and suggests Daniel as an interpreter.  She had paid attention to the stories of the past? ( A woman who hears!)

Daniel comes to the baffled party-goers and boldly speaks...he must not have heard about speaking the truth in love, but proceeds to pointedly recall the past when the MOST HIGH GOD called his father, Nebuchadnezzar, to give an account of his life.  Before he interprets the reading on the wall, his statement is very direct, "But you, his son,  O Belshazzar, have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this.  Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven....But you did not honor the God who holds in His hand your life and all your ways".  Daniel now translates:  God has numbered your days and your kingdom is ending.  Your life has been weighed on MY scales and found deficient. All that you have given priority will be given to the Medes and the Persians.  Scripture records that the very night, Belshazzar is slain and the Medes conquer the Babylonian kingdom.  How is that for a an immediate response from God?  (Thank you, Father, for the mercy and grace YOU have shown me.)

Oh my goodness, there are some hooks that I best hang my thoughts to be a willing learner.  Am I so settled in my comfort zone thinking about me, myself, I and maybe a few others that I am busy taking in and sucking up the air around me?  What the Lord has given to me, am I pouring into the lives of others?  Do I ignore the gentle nudges of the Holy Spirit, and then when the NCIS pop on the back of the head happens, then I respond?  Am I a learner and a discerner of the events in my family, my state, my nation, my world, or do I just lean back and settle in to thinking that because it is just me, what can one person do?  I can tell you the high cost of my pride:  time, money, peace of God, anxiety and loss of sleep, exacerbation of fears, and break down in relationships...these are but a few.  Am I prudent to learn from past mistakes?  Do I respond with obedience to Holy Spirit conviction?  Lastly, Holy Spirit prompt me to the whines and the grumblings of pride (all ABOUT ME).  I want to resist and confess when I see and feel pride began to settle in and try to get comfortable in me.  Ever learning!  In process!  #IHAVETHREESONS.