The Difference Christ Makes
In Your Rebellions

If there is one among you who can honestly say she has no rebellions at all, certainly she has no need of reading further in this book.

   The periods of rebellion in a Christ-controlled life may be only seconds long. But I have yet to see anyone who does not live through times of adjustment. And the very necessity for adjustment proves the presence of at least fleeting moments of rebellion.

   I, for one, am a born rebel. And so, when I write that it makes all the difference in the world when Christ is in control of a naturally rebellious heart, I am speaking from my own personal experience. But I shall not stop with my experience. I am made aware daily, by mail and by conversation, that other women are rebels, too. They may not recognize themselves as such, but if we see the root of rebellion as stemming from our first mother, Eve, and if we accept rebellion as stemming from the self-protective part of our natures, we must all admit to being rebels.

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   Not long ago one woman told me she had grown rebellious at God because her pet prayers were not being answered. She was released from her rebellion only when she admitted she was "asking amiss."

   Another wrote "I have just discovered that my heart has been rebellious ever since the birth of my dear retarded child. I called it resignation. It is really rebellion! But I am through with self-pity now. My heartache is now clothed in glory, because I have stopped rebelling and have begun to cooperate with Christ."

   Another wrote: "My mother left me when I was a child. Although I had good care, I never stopped rebelling at the fact that my own mother didn't love me. But I have stopped now. Through your book Discoveries, I have discovered how much Christ loves me. His love melted me into being willing to see my mother again. Through talking to me, she came to know Christ, too, as her own Saviour. Mother died a few weeks ago, but our last weeks together were a miracle of love, where for so many years there was only rebellion and misunderstanding."

   A dear friend of mine recently said: "Ever since I became a Christian a few years ago, I have rebelled at the idea of having to serve Christ in the usual church ways. Finally, I let this nonsense go and took a Sunday school class. When I faced them to share Jesus Christ with them for the first time, their faces seemed suddenly to change before me! They seemed to glow with peace and quietness. But I know this was only true because, with my rebellion gone, He could get through me to transform them!"

   Last year this letter came. "You know, Genie, that I married my husband against my better judgment. You know that sometimes I have loathed him! Before I knew Christ, I just spent my days swimming through a sea of self-pity. I still am rebellious some of the time. Not long ago I decided

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it must be God's will for me to leave my husband and go into full-time Christian work. I fooled myself into a sense of peace about it. Then I bought your daily devotional book Share My Pleasant Stones. On page 311, the Lord showed me what I had rebelled against seeing. But He showed me so clearly this time that I had to look! You wrote, 'Remaining in prison can sometimes lead to a greater fulfilling of God's purpose than for us to go free.' I am still with my husband. And the bad times still come, but they are less bad now because I am no longer rebelling against my lot in life. I have accepted it and I am trusting Christ."

   A quiet, gentle lady handed me this note at a women's retreat: "I have been a missionary in Europe. Circumstances forced me to come back to America a year ago. I did not understand why I had to come back. I became rebellious and blamed everyone I could think of! Recently, the Lord has shown me that it is not the place where we serve that counts to Him. He is more concerned about my relationship to Him than about the place of my service."

   Every letter that comes is not a triumphant letter, with rebellions gone.

   "I am seventeen and I hate God and I hate Christians because they believe in Him. He let my mother desert me and He let my father get killed in an accident. I'm a rebel against God and I'm going to stay that way! I read in your book, Never a Dull Moment about a teenager named Sue who thank God for her heartaches. Believe me, I'll never thank Him for mine!"

   Rebellious natures are not limited to teenagers.

   "I am a woman 64 years old. My husband left me for another woman when I was forty. I have grown thin and old carrying my rebellion. I will have to see a bigger God than the One I see now ever to let it go!"

   Life seems to be good to some and cruel to others. But

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down deep inside most of us there is some human reason for rebellion. We are born with our rebellion faculties intact. Our part is to unlearn how to use them!

   This may seem strange to you, but the majority of the rebellion letters which I receive are not because of desertion, or unhappy marriages, or tragic accidents. They are from Christians who harbor unconscious rebellion in their hearts against heaven and mankind because they are not in so-called full-time Christian service.

   Here are just a few quotations from some of those letters:

   "I have read all your books, and I know I shouldn't say I envy you, but I do. My life would work, too, if I had a chance to serve Christ as my life's work!"

   "I am thirty-seven years old, am married and have a good husband and two children. But I am most miserable. God gave me an excellent singing voice and He has never given me ample opportunity to use it for His glory. I know it is a high calling to be a wife and mother, but I'm not cut out for it. I feel I am not in God's will at all. If He gave me this voice, doesn't He expect me to use it!"

   Women are not the only rebels. This letter came not long ago from a Christian man with a rebellious heart.

   "I have been pastor of a small church for thirteen years. The needs of my wife and son have been provided. Now, suddenly, I am positive that God is calling me into evangelism. My denomination headquarters is handling me like I'm a six-year-old. No one seems to take me seriously. I have given up my church because I felt I had to. Even the church members are complaining because they say I left them in the lurch. Everyone seems to be ganging up on me as I try to follow God's will. The utilities companies turned off our light and gas. My wife is acting like a spoiled brat because she has had to go to work to support us during this interim period when I am trying to find pulpits which will allow me to preach salvation

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to sinners in evangelistic meetings. I am not writing to you because of my own problems. I am writing to see if you could help me get some engagements. The more unreasonable my wife and son and friends become, the more I am determined to become an evangelist."

   There is a "spoiled brat" involved in this man's dilemma but it is not his wife! It is almost unbelievable that a minister could be so blind and self-deceived. He has obviously been carried away with the idea of the numbers of souls and the crowds involved in regular mass evangelism. He cannot give up the image he has built of himself as the center around which all this glamor revolves. His heart is rebellious, through and through, and the poor man is puzzled as to why God does not open doors for him. So puzzled that he wrote to ask me to push open a few!

   New converts frequently (and understandably) get carried away with the idea of serving God in some special capacity. Frankly, it was the last thing I thought He'd ever call me to do. The fact that He did proves nothing at all. We should all consider ourselves called into full-time service, but God alone knows exactly how He means to use us. And I'm afraid unconscious rebellion at not being in the limelight is at the basis of much of the fevered agitation to get into what is known as "the Lord's work." Every Christian is in the Lord's work. Or should be. Whether you earn your living that way or not is beside the point, as I see it.

   I am reasonably sure that I did not mistake His call in this way, because I am still having to surrender my public life into His Hands. Sometimes many times a day. If I were to rebel, my rebellion would go the other direction. I am utterly amazed that God should choose to place me in a public ministry. But apparently He did, and until I get the word from Him otherwise, there I will stay. However, if I had my way, I'd be alone most of the time in some well decorated

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secluded little house, with no telephone and a once a week mail delivery! There I would write books and play records and read books and eat thick steaks and sit by an open fire and read more books and play more records and write more books so I could, in turn, eat more steaks. As things are, I am only home about three months out of the year with no fireplace!

   The "ground on which you stand is holy ground" if you are His. And if He is in control of you, the place where He has put you now can be your scene of service. I believe it was Oswald Chambers who said our tendency is to "choose the scene of our sacrifice!" We choose what we think becomes us most. But God has already said that His ways are higher than ours and that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

   And they are.

   I am sure rebellion hammers at the hearts of mothers whose children are born imperfect in some way. Deformed or retarded, deaf or blind. My friend, Dale Evans Rogers (one of God's great women!), told me of the fight against rebellion in her own heart when her daughter, Robin, was born a mongoloid. But if you have read Dale's little book, Angel Unaware, you know that she exchanged rebellion for a shining acceptance of the heartbreak, and trusted God in a most amazing way to make creative use of it. You may be one of the thousands of women who have found the way out of rebellion by reading this lovely little book. If you are not one of those who have read it, I urge you to do so. As you read Angel Unaware, you will know that it is written by a mother who understands your inner rebellion if your child has been born with a deformity or physical challenge. I can tell you what God will do for you, but Dale has been in it with you.

   The truly Christ-centered personality may have to resist rebellion, but it need never fall all the way into it. We decide. In Lima, Ohio, last year, a deeply Christian woman waited

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for me after a meeting. Her face was filled with pain and anxiety. I sat down in a little side chapel alone with her. For a minute, she just swallowed her tears and then she said, "Genie, the doctors just told me today that my twelve-year-old daughter has leukemia."

   My father had just died from it. She knew I would be with her in it. Leukemia in adults does not always kill as quickly as it killed my father. It usually kills youngsters in a few months. She knew this. I knew it. I said nothing at all to her. I just took her hand and we sat there bearing it together for a few minutes. Then she looked at me.

   "Rebellion in my heart will do no good. I must keep my heart full of sweetness for her sake. I know this. I just thought maybe you could say something to me to help."

   The woman was smiling slightly. She felt sorry for me, too. She knew I didn't have any pat answer. And I thanked God in my heart as I sat there with her that she was His. That she was willing not to sink into rebellion. That she really wanted a hand up out of her shock and sorrow. I sat with her a moment longer and then these words came:

   "Whatever happens, I can promise you, He will be with you in it."

   Oddly enough the words didn't fall flat. They soared gloriously around the room and we both prayed with hearts bubbling over with thanksgiving that what I had said was true.

   He would be with her in it. As He was there in that little chapel with us then.

   Whether your rebellion times spring from work you don't like, a marriage you wish you hadn't made, disobedient children, a relative in the house, death, illness, accident, or just a general feeling that you're too precious for life to treat you this way, there is but one answer.

   Look at Jesus Christ. As He is.

   Did anyone who has ever lived on this earth have more reason

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to be rebellious than He, as they nailed Him to a Cross to crucify Him as a common criminal? He was God hanging there! How dare the very creatures whom He had created treat him in such a ghastly manner? How dare they?

   He, "the Holy One of Israel . . . high and lifted up."

   Didn't Jesus Christ have every plausible reason to feel rebellion in His heart?

   But what did He feel? He felt compassion! Tender, sensitive, creative, forgiving compassion.

   "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

   If this Jesus Christ is in control of our personalities, He will never guide them toward rebellion. He permits everything that happens in your life. Rebellion at life is rebellion at God. Rebellion at God is the heart of sin. And "Jesus Christ came to earth to save sinners" from their rebellious selves!

Chapter Fourteen  ||  Table of Contents