God – Page 42 – thelifeididntchoose

Hanging On

(A psalm by David.)

Listen, Lord, as I pray! You are faithful and honest and will answer my prayer.

~Psalm 143:1 CEV

There are days when I am not interested in a deep dive into Scripture or a lengthy conversation with myself or anyone else about faith.

Days when I’m too tired to try to tease out the meat from the fat or the subtle from the obvious.

On those days I hang on to HOPE by remembering some basic truths:

In my own power I am lost, but God promises not to abandon me to my own resources.

He made me, He called me and He keeps me.

He hears my cry for mercy. He collects my tears. He turns His face toward my suffering and doesn’t look away.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

When my heart is overwhelmed, He is my Rock, my Refuge and my Very Present Help in time of trouble.

He will not abandon me.

Arguing with God

I don’t expect to win and I don’t think I’ll get an audible answer, but I will tell you I’ve had some rip-roaring, humdinger arguments with God.

Now the pious among us will probably be shocked. They may tell me I’m pushing the envelope of grace or even sinning by asking God what exactly He is doing in this Valley of the Shadow of Death.

That doesn’t deter me-there are plenty of scriptural precedents for asking God, “why” and begging Him for an answer to the pain of this broken world.

Moses wanted to know how come he got stuck leading a bunch of whiny migrants tramping through the desert.

Paul begged God to take away the thorn in his flesh.

Jesus and Job both asked the question.

Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.
‭‭Job‬ ‭13:15‬ ‭NASB‬‬

We usually don’t quote the last half of that verse, do we?

We stop at the affirmation and leave off the doubt-Job’s desperate desire to understand just what God was doing when it seemed unfair and capricious.

Most of the book of Job is full of questions. Job asking why he was targeted and his friends asking him what sin he was hiding.

Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

Isaiah 1:18 NRSV

God invites us to ask. He opens the door to questions.

He is willing to “talk”.

But He doesn’t always answer every question.

In the end, Job’s mouth was shut not by God giving him assurance of anything except His “otherness” and the fact that He IS God.

A difficult truth to embrace.

One I ponder often.

I hurt, I sorrow, I agonize over the loss that has come into my life. A precious life has been taken away. I feel great grief and pain. It sears my every waking hour and casts a puzzling dreary shadow across my life’s journey.

At a time like this, it is imperative that I remember that God has not promised to keep my life bubbling with pleasing sensations. I must not prostitute God by giving Him the responsibility of being an indulgent Santa Claus in the heavens. God is not my servant. I am His servant.

As I come to grips with my grief, I reject the sentimentalized, sickly religion so popular today. God’s comfort is not insulation from difficulty; it is spiritual fortification sufficient to enable me to stand firm, undefeated in the fiery trials of life. God’s provision is not always green pastures and still waters. Sometimes God leads into the valley of the shadow, but I may walk there with confidence, assured of the love and presence of God.

No longer can I offer a mindless, frivolous assertion that God always measures up to my every expectation of Him and always gives His children goodies. I must declare that some things are beyond my human understanding in the ways of God. Those mysteries have destroyed my comfortable existence, but I proclaim: ‘Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him’ (Job 13:15). I will hurt for years to come. A hundred times a day I feel keenly the void left by death’s cruel blow. That pain, however, must drive me to stronger trust in God whose providence is not always compatible with my desires.

~James Means, A Tearful Celebration

New Year, New You?

January is the month of resolutions and new beginnings!

So I boldly declare that THIS year I will (take your pick):

Lose weight
Eat only healthy food
Exercise more
Read more books
Declutter my house
Spend more time with family
Spend less time with electronics
Blah,blah,blah

Wouldn’t it be grand if all it took was the turn of a calendar page to make all things new?

How wonderful if I could wipe the slate clean and start afresh just because the earth had made another round of the sun!

But the average length of time these commitments last is just 7-10 days. (Which by now, most of us have already found out.)

Why?

Because we can rarely make sweeping changes that go against habits and character traits just because we say it aloud or write it on a special piece of paper.

Life’s not like that.

Life is an amalgamation of thousands of small and a few not-so-small choices that combine to make me who I am.

Choices become habits and habits become character.

And then there are the other things–the things I didn’t choose-that slam into me and violently reshape who I am-ready or not.

How I respond to what I can’t control continues to remake who I am.

There is ONE resolution that can remake me from the inside out.

There is one habit that that will not only make THIS year new, but will make ME new.

There is a single choice that I can make every day that will affect me and everyone around me.

It’s not hard, but there will be resistance. It doesn’t require special equipment, but it requires commitment. I don’t have to be in shape-as a matter of fact, the more out-of-shape I am, the more remarkable the transformation.

If I place my heart in the hands of Jesus by sitting in silence with Him each day, reading His Word and asking Him to open my eyes to the beauty He places in my path-even this rocky road of child loss-He will renew my mind and transform my character so that I am conformed to His image.

He is the Potter.

The work is His.

I am the clay.

I Don’t Want to Know The Future

Many years ago my grandparents had a lovely Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration with family and friends.

My dad videotaped it and the tape was full of fun moments where my grandmother was smiling, laughing and having a wonderful day.

It was a short time afterward that she began to show signs of dementia and not very long after that she left us.

We watched the videotape a year or two after her leaving and I thought, “What a mercy she didn’t know what was coming!”

Those moments were full of unadulterated joy because a sorrowful future was hidden from her heart.

What a mercy that curves in the road obscure my vision and mountaintop to mountaintop hides valleys in between.

I am so very thankful that I did not live the 23+ years I had with Dominic knowing his accident was coming. I was free to love him without fear.

If I, like God, knew the end from the beginning my heart could never bear the burden of foresight.

But He, in kindness, withholds the knowledge from my feeble frame and leads me step by step each day.

Eternal Atonement: Hallelu Yah!

The Fall Feasts of Israel are a beautiful reminder of Who God is and what Christ has done for us.

Beginning this evening and continuing until sunset tomorrow, Jews around the world are observing Yom Kippur or The Day of Atonement.

According to Scripture (Leviticus 16), The Day of Atonement was commanded by God for Israel to remember the terrible debt of sin and the only acceptable payment–blood.

The high priest would enter the Holy of Holies and apply blood to the horns of the mercy seat, thus covering over for another year the individual and corporate sin of Israel.

According to Jewish tradition, God inscribes each person’s fate for the coming year into a book, the Book of Life, on Rosh Hashanah, and waits until Yom Kippur to “seal” the verdict. During the Days of Awe, a Jew tries to amend his or her behavior and seek forgiveness for wrongs done against God and against other human beings. The evening and day of Yom Kippur are set aside for public and private petitions and confessions of guilt. At the end of Yom Kippur, one hopes that they have been forgiven by God.

Yet year after year, this sacrifice was not enough.

The blood of animals is insufficient to pay the debt owed by men to a perfect and holy God.

But the blood of the Perfect Lamb, Jesus Christ, has completely paid the debt I owe-I no longer cower in the shadow of my sin.

When I chose to apply that blood to my heart by faith, I was made right with the LORD.

As a believer in Jesus the Christ, I have a High Priest that has offered His own blood as the Perfect Sacrifice once for all (Hebrews 9).

I can rest assured that I’m not sealed only for a day, or even a year, but for all eternity!

Because Jesus is the eternal and sufficient propitiation for my sins, I need not fear death.

It is sin which gives death its power, and it is the Law which gives sin its strength. All thanks to God, then, who gives us the victory over these things through our Lord Jesus Christ!

I Corinthians 15:55-57 PHILLIPS

We do not have to bring a sacrifice to the altar and hope that our sins are forgiven. The Law holds no power over us who believe-Jesus fulfilled its every obligation.

But it is a good thing to take a day to reflect on the cost and the gift

Too often we grasp the gift and forget its cost.

Today, remember what the LORD has done for you. Remember the burden He lifted by His sacrifice. Remember His claim on your life–the life He purchased with His blood.

revelation-5_9

Remember.

If you are withholding grace and forgiveness–remember, and repent–give to others what God has graciously given to you.

If you are walking outside the will of God for your life–remember and repent-fall back in step behind the Lord Jesus and let Him guide you.

If you are dabbling in sin–remember and repent-turn from your wickedness and back to holiness.

Remember and be thankful.

“Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.”

~Psalm 32:1

Dig the Well BEFORE You are Thirsty

I am not a fan of church signs.

Most of the time they try to be cute and reduce eternal truth to a few words that often leave room for [mis]interpretaion.

But I saw one today that I DID like: “Dig the well before you are thirsty”.

It takes time to dig a well.

And it’s hard work.

You can’t wake up one morning, decide to dig and expect results in a couple of hours. If you want a reliable source of water to quench your thirst you have to plan ahead.

It’s been my habit for about 25 years to wake early in the morning, read my Bible and journal. I started this practice when my children were young and boisterous and our active household meant once they were awake I’d have no time for quiet meditation.

But after reading Scripture for so long, I’d noticed the stories had become too familiar. I would read through some of them with a “yeah, yeah-heard that before” attitude.

So I committed to SLOW DOWN and force my heart to look carefully and listen closely to what the Spirit was speaking from the page.

I decided I would read just a single chapter each day and copy out a verse or two that stood out into my journal along with notes and comments. I found as I went along that it was harder and harder to choose only a couple of verses, so I began to copy whole chapters.

Of course I missed a day or two here and there so it took about three and a half years.

Just a few months before Dominic left us, I finished my slow journey through the Bible. I had copied out most of it by hand in six journals. I had underlined and circled and annotated the pages, making it my own.

I was digging my well.

I had no clue that I would be desperately thirsty in such a short time.

The morning I received the awful news-my heart shattered, my world spinning, my life undone-words of Truth bubbled to the surface unbidden.

Living Water sprang forth from the deep well of promise that was dug before I knew I needed it.

When I began my slow walk through Scripture, I didn’t know what the future held.

But my Shepherd-Who knows the end from the beginning-was leading me.

When my hands trembled too much to open the pages of my Bible and my eyes were too full of tears to see the print, the words stored up in the well of my heart spilled out to soothe my soul.

I continue to draw from this deep well and drink the Living Water.

It is a source of life and hope and sustaining strength until that day when a well will no longer be needed-when faith will be sight and I possess what has been promised.

Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.

And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true”; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place.

“And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who ^[e]heeds the words of the prophecy of this book.”

Revelation 22:1-7 NASB

Grace for Right Now

It’s funny-or maybe not-that God will weave a theme through a day or week or month.

He will put the same word in front of me in multiple places, speak it through different people, sometimes even (literally) plaster it across a billboard.

This morning it is grace.

Abundant, sufficient, enduring grace.

A precious friend is approaching her son’s first birthday in heaven. She writes about it here . In her post she says, “At one time I believed in the Doctrines of Grace…now I am certain. Because in my own strength, my own thoughts, my own power, I would have walked away.”

Yes! That’s it! In my own strength I would have walked away. The pain and sorrow and isolation and horror of burying my child would have driven me from the Presence of Christ.

But His grace keeps me near.

Another mama lamented that she did not know how she would survive missing her son. She’s fresh in her grief-not yet a year has passed since she said “good-bye”.

Oh, how I remember those early months! How it was a genuine struggle to simply get out of bed and face a new day knowing it was another 24 hours without the earthly companionship of my son.

I thought about how I was able to keep going and wrote this reply:

“I am so very sorry you are feeling overwhelmed and hopeless right now. After the sharp stab of loss, I think helplessness is the most frightening thing I have felt in this journey.

When I am overcome with the sense that I will never make it, that I can’t go on, that I am not going to be able to put one foot in front of the other for even one more hour, much less one more day-I cry out to Jesus and tell Him that.

I have never gotten an audible answer, or a miraculous phone call or a perfect note in the mail-BUT I think in the moment of absolute surrender, the moment when I know with certainty that I can not do this without His supernatural grace, mercy and strength, HE gives it to me.

Nothing changes.

I’m not whisked away to an island where things are better or different-my son is still gone-my heart still hurts, my mind cries out that I want him back.

But I receive the grace I need for that moment and I do take the next step.

After being the kind of person that always had a plan, a list, an idea of next week, next month-I’m now a person who lives right now.

That’s the only way I can make it.

Enough grace for right now.

Praying that the Lord overwhelms you with His love, grace and mercy and fills your heart with His hope when yours is gone.”

Immediately this verse of “Amazing Grace” came to mind:

And then Ephesians 2:

But even though we were dead in our sins God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, gave us life together with Christ—it is, remember, by grace and not by achievement that you are saved—and has lifted us right out of the old life to take our place with him in Christ in the Heavens. Thus he shows for all time the tremendous generosity of the grace and kindness he has expressed towards us in Christ Jesus. It was nothing you could or did achieve—it was God’s gift to you. No one can pride himself upon earning the love of God. The fact is that what we are we owe to the hand of God upon us. We are born afresh in Christ, and born to do those good deeds which God planned for us to do.

Ephesians 2:4-10 Phillips

It’s grace-start to finish.

So when I struggle to find my way, fear that I will lose it forever, question that a WAY even exists-

God in His

abundant,

sufficient,

and enduring grace,

draws my heart back to Himself.

I Will Not Be Moved

I’m not brave by nature.

If I have a choice, I will run every time. But there are just some things worth fighting for.

My family is one of them.

I will not let the enemy have them.

I will not allow despair to overtake us, fear to bind us, hopelessness to sap our strength.

I will not let death win.

And though he stalks me like a hungry lion, knocks persistently demanding attention, follows me as close as my own shadow-I will not let the evil one overtake me or find a home in my heart.

I refuse despair.

This night of loss will be longer than I can bear in my own strength, but I am convinced the Lord will restore my joy.

I am committed to cling to Christ even through my eyes are worn out with tears.

I fight fear.

There is no guarantee that my cup of suffering is full. It may yet hold more sorrow, but I will not worry about what tomorrow may bring.

God is there

I won’t give in to hopelessness.

I hold onto hope because hope is a Person. He is faithful and He is able. What I have given to His hands is safe and secure.

And though death is awful-it is not the end of the story.

When trapped between the Egyptians and the Red Sea, the nation of Israel was understandably frightened.

There WAS no escape-turn back and be slaughtered or move forward and drown.

They despaired of help and begged God to save them.

…Moses told the people, “Don’t be afraid. Just stand where you are and watch, and you will see the wonderful way the Lord will rescue you today. The Egyptians you are looking at—you will never see them again.
Exodus 14;13

They could never have imagined the miraculous answer to their desperate plea for rescue.

I realize that the answer to my cry for help is not going to be restoration of my son in this life. I know that I will have to wait for redemption of my pain.

But I am convinced that what the world regards as a final chapter is only the beginning of the story.

I serve the same God Who parted the Red Sea.

He is still on the throne.

He is not sleeping and He is not silent.

I can stand my ground between today and eternity confident that He is at work in all things.

He is an ever present Help in time of trouble.

I will not be moved.

Not What I Had Planned

I don’t get to choose.

I don’t get to plan the way life is going to be.

Oh, I bring out the calendar and mark down the days: birthdays, holidays, special events and obligations.

But then one dark morning a knock stops the clock and makes the world spin faster all at once.

I’m suspended and plunged under in the same breath.

Frozen. Broken. Horrified.

How did this happen?

How is this my life?

My head and heart explode in pain.

Months pass. The days march on.

I still don’t get to choose what sunrise brings.

But looking back I’m grateful that when my circle was whole we chose love.

That when the days were unfolding we chose faith.

That even as the night closed in and the days grew dark we continued to cling to the one Hope that proves true.

I’m thankful that my heart was full of praise songs and Scripture and that when I couldn’t lift my hand to turn the pages of my Bible the Spirit used them to whisper courage to my soul.

This Valley is deep and the sun is often hidden by the towering mountains on either side.

I have learned two things:

I can’t determine how life unfolds,

but I can decide where to place my hope.

“I admit how broken I am in body and spirit,

but God is my strength,

and He will be mine forever.”

Psalm 73:26 VOICE

Not Ashamed to Wait

“Those who wait for Me with hope will not be put to shame.”

Isaiah 49:23c NLV

We love stories of overcomers. We invite testimonies that end in victory.

We applaud members of the Body who have a “before” and “after” tale of how Jesus plus willpower took them from the dust of defeat to the pinnacle of spiritual success.

But we hide the strugglers and stragglers in the back pews.

If suffering lingers long, whether or not it is in the hands of the one who suffers to do anything about it, we cringe and pull back and hope they go away.

We don’t offer them the pulpit or the Sunday School hour to speak of how Christ continues to be the hope to which they cling.

Because deep down, we think there must be something wrong with them, something wrong with their brand or quality or strength of faith. If they only got it “right”, they too, would have the victory.

We would rather shush the suffering than face the tension between God’s goodness and His sovereignty.

We shame them to silence by implying they have nothing to share until they are able to wrap their story with a perfect spiritual bow.

We add insult to injury when their need for help exceeds the allotted three weeks or six months or whatever arbitrary deadline we impose on the prayer list and our patience.

But maybe what God has for me and others who suffer long is not a victorious tag line that can be slapped on a photo or shared on social media.

Maybe it’s only in the continued press of suffering that God reveals Himself in ways the non-suffering never see.

Maybe a dash to declare victory is actually rushing past what God has for us in deep pain and ongoing struggle.

Maybe waiting in hopeful expectation for what God is doing and will do in me and through me IS the victory.

We wait for Yahweh;
He is our help and shield.
For our hearts rejoice in Him
because we trust in His holy name.
May Your faithful love rest on us, Yahweh,
for we put our hope in You.

Psalm 33:20-22 HCSB

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