The first article on this subject focused on a physical impediment in my life which diminished my sporting performance and had the direct purpose of removing boastfulness and curbing excessive arrogance. But as I have also written about in ‘The Disease of Arrogance’, the damaged knee was not enough to keep that nasty disease under control. Naturally one must draw a line between confidence and arrogance. Confidence is good and arrogance is bad. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between them. Over-confidence in one’s abilities, the disregard of warnings, and under-rating significant events are all based on arrogance. Arrogance, even diluted, prevents surrender because a part of me still wants to keep control and take the credit. At the time I did not realise that it was God protecting me from myself.

John 15:1-5 refers to the pruning which takes place so that we may be more fruitful, and my pruning took place in 1995, five years after my beautiful encounter with the love of Jesus. Evidently, my knee impediment was not enough to curb an arrogant attitude, and God was never going to be satisfied with playing a supporting role in my life. Rightly, He wanted to be the centre of my life, which the underlying arrogant spirit was preventing. The Lord knew that I needed a real shake-up and he orchestrated a ‘perfect storm’. I needed more than a fire; I needed a furnace, an inferno. Clearly my thinking and my priorities were not aligned with what God wanted for me.

In a matter of a few months I went from hero to zero through circumstances which all seemed out of my control. As is well documented elsewhere, I lost my business, my wife left, and my son became a confirmed drug addict. This was not what I would have called pruning. It was brutal branch cutting, and caused the beginning of very valuable introspection and reflection, both of which play such an important role in my life now. Second to Jesus Christ, that furnace remains one of the cornerstones of my life because it left permanent changes which have impacted the rest of my life. This massive, Godly intervention, and disruption in my plans, took many years for me to process the fall-out and the consequences.

During the ‘processing’ years I continued to pay too little attention to events in my life. I discounted and undervalued lessons that were being sent my way. I had sold a very successful business on a whim, long before maturity, but I continued to believe that I could repeat that success as and when I wanted. I went on to start many ventures in a wide variety of fields, several of which should have been winners. They were innovative and although I made considerable efforts, and combined them with my usual passion, none of them ‘took off’ or progressed the way I expected. They kept me alive, involved, motivated, and curious, but I was not shooting the stars down.

It was a daily grind, and not at all the way that I had imagined my life would evolve. The lack of financial breakthrough enforced a modest lifestyle, where every cent mattered. I hasten to add that I never went hungry, owned a house in a decent suburb, a car, and was still able to go out for a pizza regularly, as well as continue being a cyclist. By many people’s standards, this may not be ‘modest’, but by the standards that I had set for myself, by the expectations I had, and by what I knew I was capable of doing, I remained in the doldrums.

After many creative but unsuccessful enterprises, I began to get the message, but it was a slow process which took years. God knew something I did not know. I began to realise that financial wealth could possibly corrupt me. Financial wealth would prove that I could do it, after all. Financial wealth would probably weaken my relationship with Jesus, the very thing that He was wanting to strengthen. Financial wealth might even have destroyed my relationship with the King of Kings, the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The arrogant spirit was lurking under the surface, and God knew it. During those years, I kept wondering why my very cunning ideas did not bear more fruit. I watched as many mundane businesses were making progress. I asked God for clarity; I changed strategies, changed products, innovated, imported, exported, travelled, and still the results were the same: disappointing and not at all commensurate with the efforts behind them.

This lack of financial success put a lid on the arrogance that was waiting to get out. It did not extinguish it, but it could not flourish. It was a thorn in my flesh which forced me to live modestly. It removed any ability to use money as a leverage for my own worldly pleasures or to ‘buy’ relationships. It forced me to rely more on God and His promises, and to be authentic. It forced me to look at myself from God’s perspective. It turns out God has more perseverance than me. He will never overlook sinful behaviour, and showed once again that the more we think God will ignore bad behaviour, the harsher the lessons become. One of my conclusions is this:

Money is neutral; it enables more choices, but should not become what we work and live for. The ‘processing’ years have shown me that there are two groups of people who have no respect for money, even though their lives are ruled by it. The very rich who do not have a generous spirit and spend money lavishly as though it is their birthright, and the very poor, who do not understand money and who waste what little they have. I could easily have been an actor in the first group.

Thorns in the flesh are always there for a reason, and it is very gratifying to join the dots and discover their purpose.

As in every one of my messages, I write only from lived personal experience, for the glory of God. I make use of many reference books from a wide variety of Godly and reliable sources.
I thank The Lord for the privilege of His discipleship in my life.
I do not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished in me, as an instrument for His glory.
God bless every one of you, as you live and learn.

Please refer to The Salvation Prayer on the website if you want a direct connection with the creator of the universe, and are seeking love and peace of mind, for now and for eternity.