“Diversion”
A Turning Aside
My wife and I live in the Smokey Mountains in East Tennessee. There is a swift running creek right next to our house. Now, many years ago the people of this community built a bridge made of locust wood across the creek. The bridge had an opening of about 12 feet across. When the heavy rains came, the excess water had plenty of room to go under the bridge. My neighbor told me that the only time the water went around the bridge was when a tree fell across the creek near it. Many years later unexpected change was coming. Now unintended change and intended change have the same results. The county road folks came out, took out the wooden bridge and replaced it with a 5 foot diameter metal culvert. Well, every time we get a heavy rain, tree limbs come down the creek, stop up the culvert, divert the water around it, and down the road, cutting it down two feet deep or more, the whole width of the road. All the while trying to find a way back to the creek and to its finale destination, the Pigeon River a mile away. I wouldn’t want to guess what it cost to fix that. One year it flooded 5 times. Now, some things need to be diverted and some don’t. Designed final destinations don’t.
Seeing the final destination is vital in fighting unwanted divergence. Let’s look at some final destinations so we can get a picture of what we’re talking about. There are short term destinations and there are long term ones. A short term destination might be building a set of steps on my front porch. Well I cut the steps and then the stringers and I realize that I don’t have the nails I need to put them together and have to drive 19 miles to town to get them. Having to stop and drive 19 miles which takes 30 minutes each way is the divergence. I can’t finish the steps, which is my final destination, until I do. A semi long term destination might be to graduate high school, go on to college and graduate also. One day we meet someone that we can’t live without that dosen’t have the vision of my destination. I have just married my diversion. Now lets talk about a lone term destination that my designer God set for me. When I was very young, I had a strong desire to become a preacher when I grew up. I don’t know why because I didn’t even know what one was yet. Well, as I grew up, Mother would take us to church and daddy would go fishing. She would tell us children who we could play with and who we shouldn’t. Well, one day I met my diverters, yep they were the ones mama told us not to play with. I began to sneak around and do what they did. Soon I forgot about the thing God put in my heart about becoming a preacher. I quit school in the 11th grade, went into the Army, began to drink beer, married the wrong girl, divorced, ran the bars for many years. I had met many diverters, one for each bad decision I made. My final destination of being a preacher was diverted for many years. But like the creek, I finely got back to my Pigeon River destination, by the hardest.
Now, all final destinations that God ordains are important. One of these pertains to Israel, their home land and their return to it. In our lives God said there would be troubles but woe to the one that brings it. Israel suffers many diverters that try to divert them from that purpose. There are many who would and are trying to change Israel’s long finale destination. Many have tried and many have failed. We must see Israel and ourselves from God, our Creators’ view, or we can become our own, as well as Israels’ diverter. The truth about someones’ finale destination preserves us from becoming their diverter.
In our society today we see many who have been diverted from their purpose and ignorantly divert others. To interfere with the future plans of a single person is bad enough, but for a nation, it is dangerous before God. He has in the past and will in the future, correct anyone who curses Israel and their destination. The foundational people of America do not curse Israel, only some of those diverters we have voted into office do. Great and mighty God of heaven and earth forgive us in our deception of voting into office godless diverters of your people. We stand with You and Your people Israel, in the name of Jesus your Son and the sure, soon return of Israel’s Messiah. Come Lord Jesus.
