Things Shaken

By Michael Pemberton

 "He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.  And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain."  - Hebrews 12:26,27

 Suddenly I realized that it was over.  All my dreams of an Army career were gone.  I snapped to attention at the command of my sergeant.  His eyes blazed with fury and his foul breath was right in my face.  I was in trouble.  He left me there to sweat it out for a few minutes while he did some paper work and my thoughts raced back over the last few weeks.  How did I get here?  Well, it just sort of snowballed.  I objected to something on a moral basis and the command objected to my objection.  They pushed me, I pushed them.  On and on it went until here we were.  "But Lord," I complain in prayer, "you could have intervened if you had wanted."  Suddenly I realized that God did intervene.  In fact, this was part of his plan.  He wanted me to go through this.  I was hurt.  No, I was mad!  How could he do this to me?  Had I been unfaithful?   Had I disregarded his will for me?  NO!  Then why? 

 Over the next week I fought against my own faith.  I had what some call a "crisis of faith".   Not that I would quit believing in God, but that nearly everything I believed about God was suddenly called into question and my best reasoning did not seem to buy me any peace.  Clearly, God had the right to do with my life as it pleased him.  But, I could not figure why he would do something like that to someone that was trying to serve him.  Especially when there was a whole world of people out there who would not give him so much as a thought.  I could find no constructive purpose for this disaster.  None. 

 It turned out that I was right.  There was no constructive purpose, only a destructive one.  See, sometimes there is no other way for God to get the "self made" things out of our lives than to shake us up a bit.  The army was my plan for a career.  It had taken a place of prominence in my life.  God wanted me to know that his relationship with me was the most important thing in my life.  And his way of getting me to see that was to shake out of my life the things that could be shaken.  That way the things that could not be shaken would remain.  Things like my relationship with him and his call for me to enter ministry.

 Ever been really shaken up?  There are two important things to keep in mind when you feel the earth shake and your life begins to crack or crumble.  First, he really does love you and wants only the best for you.  Sometimes that means taking away some of the shakable things.  Think about it.  How else will you have unwavering confidence in God than to know that having been thoroughly shaken, you still stand?

 Second, there are unshakable things in you.  There ARE unshakable things in you.  The temptation is to panic and believe that everything will be shaken away and you will be left with nothing.  It will NOT happen.

 There are glorious flowers in this world that will not bloom unless their root has been thoroughly frozen.  Marvelous seeds of mighty trees that will not germinate unless burned by fire.  And you may rest assured that the shakings of life will leave you in a more permanent, stable and glorious state after the shaking stops.