from there I will bring you down,"
* I got last place on this contest I entered on something I am good at or is my main talent area, and while it wasn't representative of my best work and I didn't expect much, it was still kind of humiliating. On top of that, things have been quieter because a lot of my friends have moved away and I went to this contest thing award night thing by myself, because my family and the handful of friends I have in town all couldn't go. Oh and they had raffle tickets that they gave out consecutively in line as you entered, ie 4080, 4081, 4082, and I let some guy cut in front of me in line and his number was called for the raffle! THAT WAS MINE!! Grr.
* I felt like God withdrew his presence from me and I noticed it until I resolved to obey him on a challenging thing I felt on my heart. I felt like I was supposed to not take my paycheck for the month from the small Christian non-profit I was working for, because I hadn't earned it for that month with the amount of hours I put in, and that in the past months before that I had missed enough hours with my flexible schedule that I "owed" time and that was their money because I hadn't given them all the hours I owe.
* I've never had an accident or ticket in my 8 years of driving and I got a ticket for 60 in a 55 which is just lame. To be honest I've deserved a ticket a great deal of times and been pulled over 8-9 times and never got cited, so I guess I had it coming, but in the context of this verse and this week... I feel like God let me get ticketed.
I just feel like everything is going wrong and I normally would never attribute that to God, except for that I woke up with that verse in my head and I've felt like I've been continually humbled, rebuked, and disciplined in the last weeks. And while I don't feel sad or self-pity I'm kind of like "man what did I do" ... I wasn't deliberately like being bad or something... actually I'd been really close to God lately and in the last years just growing and learning a lot.
I just can't help but wonder... I feel like bad things keep happening and I can't help but feel like it's God's hand bringing them to me to discipline me... is that right? I read Oswald Chamber's Utmost for His Highest entry for August 14th and I wonder if that is what God is doing in my life right now?
"Random" thoughts can come from the Holy Spirit, from spirits that are not holy (the same ones that bring temptation), as well as from half forgotten things floating around in our brain. I hadn't heard the commercial in years but a while back I caught myself singing "my bologna has a first name ..." Once data get stored in our mental computers it's never fully erased and is subject to random recall. That's true for scripture verse addresses as well as other data; remember how the devil quoted scripture out of context when he was trying to tempt Jesus. We also know that the Lord leads us and the devil pushes us. You can feel the difference if you stop a moment to think about it.
Since it was not part of an ongoing dealing of the Lord when it first came to your mind and since it is so easy to get so focused on something that everything seems to relate to that something when there may be no real connection the best way to figure out the source is to look at the result. Is this drawing you closer to God or putting a wall between you, building your relationship with Christ or weakening it? God certainly does chastise us and does use circumstances to help us become more and more like Christ. We resist often especially of the circumstances seem to be hard ones. Read Romans 8:28-31 to see that that is the goal of God's dealings with us. Hebrews 12:11 als reminds us "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. "
All of us have some pride, some instances when we think of ourselves, our wants more than we think of God or of other people and their needs and wants. Obadiah seems to describe an extra ordinary degree of pride and disrespect however/ It is certainly reasonable to ask God if this is something He is working on in your life and of so to please help you cooperate wth Him rather than resist and get damaged.