Have you been trumped lately?

I use to love to play cards. In fact, I literally learned to count way before I began school by playing cards. Of all the card games I’ve played, one of my favorites and one of the most challenging is double pinochle. The main idea of the game is taking tricks. An individual bid by predicting /stating how many tricks he would take and the one who got the bid got to name trump. Trump was one of the suits (spades, diamonds, clubs or hearts) that once named took on particular properties. For instance if a trump was used in a non- trump led trick it would take the trick regardless of how high a non trump card was played.

Please bear with me, I am going somewhere with this.

Jeremiah 1:5.. before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born I consecrated you… I have appointed you …
How could GOD say this? Didn’t HE give men free will?

Close to 30 years ago, after a time of great struggle, attacked on many fronts, I was battle weary but instead of fixing my eyes on JESUS for grace to help in time of need, I turned my focus onto myself and how I hurt. In choosing to turn from what I knew that GOD expected, I turned from light to the darkness and in the confusion that followed I decided to leave my husband. I had had it!

That was my free will, my choice. But GOD stepped in. Did HE violate my free will and make me stay? No. He spoke in a still small whisper, ‘....Sharon...., if you leave you will become a castaway.”

Being a serious student of the Bible and having studied the culture of those times, I knew that the word castaway Paul used in connection with himself in I Corinthians 9:27 spoke of a piece of pottery that had a crack. It could no longer be used for the purposes it was made and was placed on a shelf off in a corner. It was not thrown away for it belonged to the Master but neither could it be used.

Therefore, I knew GOD was telling me that if I followed the path I had chosen, HE could no longer use me for the purposes HE designed me for. That statement was GOD’s trump card. HE knew my heart and HE knew I was not willing to pay that high of a price to do things my way.

It took awhile for my attitude to improve but I did stay. A short time later, I got pregnant. I needed renewal and the LORD saw that I got a break while pregnant and although having another child in my late 30s held some challenges those next couple of years were times of refocus, renewal and strengthening and what followed them was a beginning of several seasons of greater favor, fervor and fruitfulness than I had ever known.

GOD had planned the way before me, HE had set the exact times and places (Acts 17:26,27) and prepared the good works that I should walk in (Ephesians 2:10) just as HE has said.

I almost lost it all by my foolishness, I nearly walked away from all that HE had set in motion for me. I would have lost out on the joys of the work GOD had prepared for me to walk in and missed some of the greatest times in my life if GOD had not trumped me.

Some might think GOD stopped me from exercising my free will, but just knowing how someone will respond to a given situation does not take from them their ability to choose or force them to act in any certain way.

Like in pinochle, many times GOD has foretold of things that were going to happen way before they came to be. And as the trump in pinochle, GOD has special properties like none other. HE knows HIS plans and HE also knows me. HE took me through heavy testing, some hard, hard things where HE knew I would grow weary and want to give up to humble me and then HE used HIS knowledge of what I valued to direct my steps.

Although GOD never took away my free will, HE trumped me and stayed in control by using my own nature to get me to go the way I needed to go. HE was in absolute control and yet I still had my free will.

Then GOD showed me places in the Bible where HE used a trump card to get men to do what HE wanted done without violating their free will yet answering the accuser of the brethren.

#1 The Jews coming out of ....Egypt.... were a mess but GOD was determined in making them into a peculiar nation to declare HIS name. Because of the devil’s accusations, someone needed to stand the gap on behalf of the willful Jews. GOD didn’t tell Moses stand the gap for this people (that always must be voluntary) rather HE said, “Get away from them, don’t pray for them and I will make you a nation.” Even with GOD’s eternal plan being the Jewish nation, GOD could make that genuine offer because HE knew Moses’s heart HE was able to trump / control the situation and still allow Moses his own free choices.

#2 Saul was a religious Jew who firmly believed he was acting on the behalf of GOD in his efforts to rid the world of that cult called the Way. Acts 9:1-2 Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Yet, GOD trumped Saul. The LORD appeared in a blinding light and spoke with thundering words to Saul as he traveled to Damascus to destroy the LORD’s people, GOD knew Saul’s heart was wanting to know and serve the living GOD so HE showed HIMSELF to Saul and Saul immediately said, ‘Who are YOU, LORD?’ Then after learning HE was JESUS- the one who said, “I AM the WAY, the truth and the life” that very one whose name he was trying to stomp out, Saul asked, “What do YOU want me to do?” Saul’s, soon to become Paul, whole reason for living and way of operating completely changed because GOD trumped him. Yet, Saul desired and freely chose that change.

GOD’s trumping is GOD using HIS total knowledge to work all things together for HIS predetermined purposes. As Ephesians 1:11 puts it, “WHO works all things after the counsel of HIS own will.’ In the Genesis 50:20 “what you meant for evil GOD used for good.”

Have you been trumped lately?