marked by erratic changeableness in affections or attachments; fickle friends; a flirts volatile affections erratic: liable to sudden unpredictable change; erratic behavior; fickle weather; mercurial twists of temperament
What have you done for me lately? Have you ever let that attitude from someone else directed toward you discourage you? I have. I’m thinking – How was it that just a few days ago I was so wonderful and now I am loathed?
I think one insight we can gain from this is a gauge as to how we truly relate to God and to people. If God is giving me what I want, if he is “blessing me” and doing “miracles” in my life, then he is wonderful.
But if God isn’t making my plan happen then forget about it!
The Apostle Paul dealt with his share of fickle people.
Acts 28:2-6 GW The people who lived on the island were unusually kind to us. They made a fire and welcomed all of us around it because of the rain and the cold. (3) Paul gathered a bundle of brushwood and put it on the fire. The heat forced a poisonous snake out of the brushwood. The snake bit Paul’s hand and wouldn’t let go. (4) When the people who lived on the island saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, “This man must be a murderer! He may have escaped from the sea, but justice won’t let him live.” (5) Paul shook the snake into the fire and wasn’t harmed. (6) The people were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly drop dead. But after they had waited a long time and saw nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.
From evil man getting his just punishment to being a god.
Just because a snake bit him.
Can you hear Paul: “Sheesh. What the heck is with you people? I’m neither an evil murderer nor a god.”
Anyway, this is nothing new, and I have written about it before, but I guess my thought is that I need to be more prepared for the “fickle factor” so I am not so surprised so I can still relate to people as God intends.
That’s when I am sometimes at my worst, when I am surprised, when I haven’t had time to really submit something to God and bow before him, breathe in his truth and assurance.
Ahh. . .resting right now in the sovereignty of my Creator.
So I need to forge ahead and not expect too much from people who are sometimes as failure prone as I am.
