{"id":24103,"date":"2020-03-14T23:13:58","date_gmt":"2020-03-14T23:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=24103"},"modified":"2020-03-14T23:13:58","modified_gmt":"2020-03-14T23:13:58","slug":"gods-mills-sometimes-grind-slowly-but-severely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=24103","title":{"rendered":"GOD\u2019S MILLS SOMETIMES GRIND SLOWLY, BUT SEVERELY."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>In this thought-provoking essay, Dr. John Akao captures the patience of God in His judgement process which gives ample opportunity for a potential victim to make a choice between two options; either to fill up the cup of Divine Wrath to over-flowing, or have a change of heart to avert Divine Visitation.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=19271&amp;ad_type=81&amp;rl=1800\" width=\"336\" height=\"280\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>When man finds<\/strong>\u00a0himself in a tight corner where no human solution works, or when the unusual happens which he can not logically explained, the next line of action is usually to ascribe everything to God who alone knows and can interpret all situations. The victim may not necessarily be an ardent believer in God, but finds himself in his circumstances; he is forced to submit to the Almightiness of God and His inscrutability because the given situation puts him at his wits end. In such and similar contexts. God is used to bridge the gaps and may invariably be lied against by ascribing to him what he may not be responsible for, although by implication, it is an eloquent acknowledgement of man\u2019s finite nature and a proclamation of the infinitude of God.<\/p>\n<p>The way God operates in His word and the parameters that inform the point of His Divine intervention in human affairs may not be comprehensible to man, but the way He unveils His mystery for man to interpret according to the measure of inspiration he is given portrays Him as a God who only performs when in His Divine Wisdom H deems it fit and proper to do so \u2013 at the fullness of time.<\/p>\n<p>What determines God\u2019s fullness of time may not be easily worked out in mathematical terms, not only because a \u201cthousand years in His sight is like evening gone\u201d but also because He operates at a level higher than what our human minds can fathom. For this reason, many in the process of rationalizing their existential situation have found themselves like the prophets of old \u2013 in a state of desperation, acusing God of a slow-motion operation:\u00a0<strong>\u201cO Lord, how long shall I cry for help and thou wilt not save.\u201d\u00a0Habakkuk the philosopher-prophet was agitated by the socio-political situation of his time and from his calculation, God was delaying action while the wicked were eating up, as it were, the righteous from the land. He expected instant justice but instead God mills ground slowly!<\/strong> In his waiting upon God, he got the answer to his puzzle when God made him realize that he can neither be stampeded into action by man\u2019s importunity nor by a situation adjudged by man to be ugly or ripe enough to call forth the wrath of God. Divine Intervention is sure, but it is outside the competence or ambit of man\u2019s intellectual power or perception to time!<\/p>\n<p>The patience of God in the process of his judgement gives ample opportunity for a potential victim to make a choice but out of two options; either to fill-up the cup of divine wrath to over-flowing, or have a constriction of heart to avert Divine Visitation. This is exemplified in the story of Abraham who after his call and extraction from his country and from among his kith and kin was not immediately settled in the land of Canaan.<\/p>\n<p>The respite which the wicked thus seem to enjoy as a result of God\u2019s apparent delay is meant to establish beyond an reasonable doubt the love of God for all irrespective of the strength of their moral character to provide an opportunity for a change of heart. \u201cAs I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live,\u201d says Ezekiel, Chapter 33, verse11.<\/p>\n<p>This forebearing love of God often lends itself to a misinterpretation by the wicked as he feels untouched by the long arm of retributive justice and comfortable in his nefarious\u00a0 activities, while his unfortunate victims sings their death throes to the sadistic joy of his heart. In the deep recesses of his being, he is bound to say, \u201cIs there wisdom or knowledge in the most high.\u201d (Psalm 73:11).<\/p>\n<p>To the righteous, the apparent prosperity of the wicked can be trying and worrisome when he reflects on the hardships that trail his bid to wash his hands in innocence. In his unguarded moments, he could be lured away from parts of rectitude into the bye-laws of it, by human reckoning; he mistakes God\u2019s delay in judgement for his approval for the wicked. The Psalmist once suffered this psychological torture in his reflection on the socio-political milieu of his time and said, \u201cBut as for me my feet had almost stumbled, my step had well nigh slipped, because I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The situation becomes compounded when various biblical instances of Divine Judgement are juxtaposed in a bid to ferret out from the matrix what can be regarded as working principle in determining the propriety of God\u2019s divine intervention in human affairs. God who allowed the Amorites a respite was the same God who performed instant justice on Ananiah and Saphirah or on Achan when they p[roved stumbling blocks to their respective communities. Similarly, at Mount Carmel, he vindicated without delay, his servants with a heavenly fire. The implication of this is that in spite of available data, a comprehensive understanding of the principles that inform the operative patterns of the, \u201cfullness of God\u2019s time,\u201d is beyond the grasp of the human mind. What God takes into consideration in one instance may not be applicable in the other.<\/p>\n<p>Even the agents used when at the \u201cfullness of time\u201d God decides to take action can often put the righteous in a state of bewilderment. For instance, when the Biblical Israel was to be reproved for breaking the terms of her convenantial relationship with Yahweh, a heathen King Cyprus, who from all indications was outside the \u201cpale of salvation\u201d was chosen as God\u2019s instrument of discipline. That God uses less than perfect agents to discipline His people may not however imply that the guilty is thereby discharged and acquitted from his Divine Court of justice. At the fullness of time, each will receive his recompense.<\/p>\n<p>In this understanding, the incarceration of the innocent can be a training ground or school for him to refine his moral tone, smoothen his rough edges or acquire a better understanding of God in preparation for future responsibility\u00a0 God intends to saddle him with. The Biblical David had such training far away from his homeland where he found himself a rallying point for all sorts and conditions of men which experience equipped him to rule over the \u2018mixed bag\u2019 of a united Israel. Similarly, Joseph in his own case almost bemoaned his fate as he transmitted from one hardship to the other in spite of all his efforts to be at his best at any given time. At the end of the tunnel when he became \u2018Prime Minister\u2019 of Egypt, he got to know that there can be no substitute for waiting on God for his fullness of time.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=19271&amp;ad_type=81&amp;rl=1800\" width=\"336\" height=\"280\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this thought-provoking essay, Dr. John Akao captures the patience of God in His judgement process which gives ample opportunity for a potential victim to make a choice between two options; either to fill up the cup of Divine Wrath to over-flowing, or have a change of heart to avert Divine Visitation. When man finds\u00a0himself [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":24104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/karma.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-6gL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24105,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24103\/revisions\/24105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}