My friend, Gabby, has worked as an office manager for the same medical practice the last 18 years. She has excellent benefits and for most of her working career, she hasn’t had any financial difficulty. Three years ago, her oldest son broke up with his girlfriend, and she, the girlfriend, wasn’t interested in retaining custody of their 3-year-old little boy. Both her son and grandson came to live with her, because with on and off employment, her son couldn’t afford his own place. The timing of all this happened just before her only daughter’s senior year in high school. Gabby never dreamed she’d be a grandmother before she turned 40, but she was, and for the first time she also found herself struggling financially. Putting her daughter through college and paying daycare and other expenses for her grandson was depleting her resources. This weighed heavy on her mind as she considered the marriage proposal of someone she didn’t love, but was wealthy, and she liked well enough.
Opportunities take on a completely different perspective when viewed through the lens of desperation. Something that may be an opportunity for someone else may be a trap for you. God puts this very precisely in Proverbs 14:12, 16:25(NLT) when He tells us, “There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.” There are a whole bunch of situations that will come our way that seem like the right thing, but they end in destruction by causing something extremely important in our lives to die.
The path that seems right may be the wrong path for us, but because we’ve witnessed it be fruitful for someone else, we sometimes convince ourselves that it’ll be too good to pass up. In truth, only God knows what is right for us. He knows our past, present, and future. He said in Jeremiah 29:11(NLT), “For I know the plans I have for you…They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” God always and forever wants the best for us. We know this because He gave us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for our sins. This is the best that could be given. You and I know how much we mean to God because He willingly gave His very best to save us from an eternity in hell. This is where all of us were headed, and God saw fit to save us from a life of eternal darkness and damnation, where we would have been under the dominion of satan.
2Corinthians 4:4(NLT) says, “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.” Most of society doesn’t believe in the One True God. They are blinded by satan, so we can’t afford to think something is best simply because society labels it that way. It can come from the pit of hell, and society will brand it as the best of the best. So, we must be careful not to be fooled, because wealth and privilege do not guarantee a Godly and good life.
The prayer of a wise woman is to only want what God has for her, so that she only receives what is in His plan. Desperation very often causes us to view a situation, person, or thing as the source of our contentment and satisfaction. It causes us to view the wrong things as too good to pass up. In these situations, we should take a long pause until we hear from God, because something that seems to good to be true could be a counterfeit sent by satan to trick us.
James 1:17 tells us that every good and perfect gift comes to us from God, our Father, who created the sun, moon, and stars. He doesn’t change, and we can count on Him with every fiber of our being. If something is a good gift from God, He’ll let us know beyond a shadow of doubt. So, let’s not be tricked by something that seems right but isn’t right for us. Jesus Christ tells us to seek God first in all things. We can’t lean on our own understanding. Life is too short, and mistakes are too costly. Proverbs 3:5 tells us to trust in God with ALL our hearts, and He will direct our paths.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Too Good to Pass up” written for Crazynlove.com ©2019. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!