Several years ago, I had made some decisions that put me in a toxic friendship, and I was making decisions that were keeping me there. This “friendship” was pulling me away from God and my family. God was telling me to stop, but I let the toxic friend talk me out of listening.
The next day I felt like I used to when my parents scolded me as a child. I felt like God was telling me to go ahead and stick a fork in that electrical outlet and see what happens. I felt like God was telling me I had one more chance to do the right thing. I feared in that moment that either God was going to punish me, or He was going to let me punish myself. God was either going to do something about this directly Himself, or He was going to let me suffer the consequences of my actions. I wanted nothing to do with either of those options, so I started shaping up. It still took me a while to finally get loose, but eventually I got there.
While it took God “raising His voice” to get my attention, I quickly learned that this isn’t really about avoiding punishment, this is about making the right choice because it’s the right thing to do. I don’t have to try avoiding punishment by trying to dodge the consequences of my actions, I can simply do the right thing in the first place. We don’t have to learn what the wrong thing is by personal experience, we can just not do that wrong thing altogether. God loves us and wants what’s best for us, so why would we do things that hurt Him or ourselves? Why simply avoid punishment when we can have love?
What happened later:
Forgiving Yourself