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| "Who knows how you'll react." |
I have enjoyed reading history and the history of war specifically I have noticed an idea which seems to be universally shared: "You don't know how you'll react to battle until your in it." Yes, you can prepare and train and this may help but there is something which happens inside a person. Sometimes they respond just like they have been trained. Others are captured by fear and freeze or run. Others rise to levels of courage which nearly sound like they are storybook. I say all this to say I have to agree with Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?"
There is an answer though, God understands it. "I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve" (Jeremiah 17:10). God knows what is really happening. He knows if an action can't be helped or if it is a deliberate choice. The other side of this is that he rewards rightly. We can misjudge. We don't know the inside, which is why judging someone's intent and destiny is left in God's hands, not ours.
This is the Old Testament equivalent of Jesus' words not to judge. It is also a promise that God is just. He is fair and He can be trusted.
Photo by Stijn Swinnen on Unsplash
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