Submarined

There’s a word in today’s vernacular describing what happens when someone is attacked without provocation. We call it being “submarined.” It means to be attacked by surprise, to be set up, or ambushed.

It means becoming disappointed by having your hopes and dreams attacked and sunk. But this is something we do to ourselves more than what others do to us. We submarine ourselves by our sinful and rebellious behavior.

This is something Israel continued to do by not obeying God’s word.

When they were commanded to enter the Promised Land, they cried out against God hearing what lay before them, and how the land had large standing armies with fortified cities and giants.

They grumbled saying, “Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? … Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” (Numbers 14:3)

Finally the Lord had enough. Remember, while the Lord is longsuffering He is not forever suffering.

If it wasn’t for Moses’ intervention and intercession, the Lord would have wiped Israel out.

Instead, God sent them back into the wilderness for 40 years until they learned their lesson to trust and believe in God rather than in what they perceived as right.

The people undercut themselves, which is what we so often do when we fail to believe in God and start going back to our old habits and way of life. We submarine ourselves, and our walk of faith.

We submarine ourselves when we don’t follow God’s word, His will, and His way for our lives. We submarine our life in Christ.

There are also other ways we submarine ourselves like when we start feeling sorry for ourselves, when we worry about what may happen or what others may think, when we fail to recognize what God is doing, or when we cling to what God did in the past not realizing that He desires to do a new work in our midst today.