Pivot Points in Your Life
Pivot Points in Your Life
The serpent’s original strategy to defeat the first couple, a man and woman made according to the image of God, was to create doubt in their minds and hearts about the trustworthiness of the word of their Creator. The serpent’s first words, “Has God really said...” were programmatic and designed to plant seeds of doubt. At this point, humanity was at a pivotal juncture.
I would argue that the origin of all of humanity’s problems is the failure of faith at pivotal points, the failure to trust and obey the goodness of the Creator’s word at vital junctures in life. Two observations are worthy of our consideration.
First, when the married couple heard the sound of the Lord God in the Garden (3:8,10), they ran away from Him because they now—due to disobedience--feared the One who had spoken. Secondly, in the courtroom scene which followed, the Lord examined Adam in Gen 3:17, “Because you heard/obeyed the voice of your wife...” This statement is frequently misinterpreted because it is not viewed in context. The contextual point is not that he listened to his wife per se (see the wisdom David displayed when he listened to the voice of Abigail). The first man, Adam, at a pivotal point, heard/obeyed a person other than the voice of the Lord. He physically heard God’s voice, but in actuality, because he did not obey, he had not really heard the voice of the Lord. In biblical language, to hear is to obey.
This failure to trust and obey in the goodness of God’s Word at a pivotal juncture is the beginning of failure in virtually every character in biblical history. For example, in 1 Samuel 15, after Saul refused to obey the voice of the Lord at a pivotal point in his kingship, the prophet Samuel said:
Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord?... Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.”
See the pivot?
But, on the other hand, the act of trusting and obeying the voice of the Lord can be the beginning of success. The LORD God promised Abraham:
In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have heard/obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22:18; cf. also Gen 26:4-5).
Are you at one of life’s many junctures, a fork in the road? The beginning of marriage, parenting, schooling, employment, retirement, or a period of suffering? Are you trustfully listening to the voice of the Lord? Think over what path you choose to trod. Think about the pivotal moments of people in Scripture.
The origin of our successes or problems at pivot points in life is the nature of our response to the voice of the Lord.
Thank you for listening!