July 20, 2018

God Sustains Us

Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken. – Psalm 55:22

There’s a popular saying that some people like to throw out. It goes like this: God will never give you more than you can handle. Yes. He will.

If we can handle alone whatever it is we’re facing, we have no need for God. It is only when we acknowledge that the journey is too tough, when we turn to Him, that we find His strength to carry on.

I’m not sure where the phrase came from. Maybe it simply makes people feel better. We’d much rather people be strong than for us to actually have to see them suffer. It’s that stiff upper lip silence that we’d prefer.

Life isn’t like that. It’s messy and sometimes it hurts. Sometimes things happen that are beyond your control, beyond your understanding, beyond your ability to withstand the onslaught. That’s where Jesus steps in.

Others try to tell us that God doesn’t care about the details. Don’t bother Him with the small things, they insist. Handle it yourself. God is there for help with the big things. You know. Things like cancer, divorce, death. He’s too busy for small concerns or joys.

They say this about the God who has numbered the hairs on our heads. Yes. I believe God cares about the details. While I joke about God wishing I would sometimes just shut up, I know that He hears my running chatter with an indulgent smile. God is my very best friend. I tell Him everything.

Some say that we shouldn’t continually bother God with the same requests over and over again. One friend used to say “You’ve asked God once. Just let it go. He heard you the first time.”

I bother God. All the time. When the time came, I bothered God repeatedly to heal this friend. He did heal him. God healed my friend by taking him home. That hurt. I bothered God about that too.

I know I don’t need to remind God about my needs. I don’t need to continuously thank God for His blessings. I don’t need to always be thanking Him for never leaving my side, for loving me no matter what, for placing good people along my path. But I do.

I will never deserve God. I will never deserve the sacrifice Jesus made. I will never deserve the presence of the Holy Spirit inside of me. But I am so grateful, in good times and bad.

So, yes, God will give you more than you can handle. He will bless you more than you deserve. Cast your cares on Him and trust Him. Accept His blessings and praise Him. God is there with you in all things at all times. That’s a promise you can cling to no matter what life brings each day.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

God’s Got It Under Control

Give your burdens to the LORD, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. -- Psalm 55:22

Some days just seem so overwhelming. Everybody wants something. Nobody is satisfied. Financial pressures pound you. What can go wrong does. Need I go on?

Most of life is just stuff that keeps happening. We know that. The laundry never gets completely done because by the time we finish something else is dirty. Same with grocery shopping. It’s one of those tasks that never ends.

Other things aren’t so easy to brush aside. A lingering illness. Financial stress. Job insecurity. Marital discord. Family feuds. These sorts of things rock our very foundation -- unless we are firmly grounded in our LORD.

A dear friend turned down a new job just two months ago because it would have meant a serious pay cut. Now she’s found out she could lose her job to staff cutbacks in May. She’s scared and kicking herself for not taking the other job.

Another woman can give a detailed list of all the jobs she’s applied for. She’s still looking. Her finances are dwindling lower and lower and she’s about to give up hope.

A man struggles with depression as his health fails. He wonders why God brought him this far only to abandon him to an incurable cancer. His wife has gone home and his daughters live far away. He feels so alone.

Sometimes I try to joke that if stress kills, then I’m already dead. Except it isn’t funny. Stress is real and can seem to control us unless we turn it over to God. That sounds a lot easier than it is.

We are taught to take control of our own lives. Except many of us feel we have no control over our days. We are told to toughen up and just deal with whatever is happening. But the endless days make the tough façade harder and harder to hold up.

The good news is that God hears our silent cries. He holds out His arms to life us up and hold us tight. And we can learn to give our cares, our worries, our concerns to Him. One day at a time. Sometimes one moment at a time. Refusing to allow Satan to control our minds.

So tell God you want Him to take over. Give Him everything that seems impossible to fix, to deal with, to accept. Let Him take care of it. God loves you so much. And He is all powerful. Never compare what you can do to what God can do because He can do anything. So relax. God’s got it all under control.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Death Breaks Our Hearts

My heart is in anguish. The terror of death overpowers me. -- Psalm 55:4

It started as a normal day. These things usually do. You go about life, working, running errands, laughing. Never knowing what is about to happen. How your world is about to change.

Later you’ll look back and wonder how you could have been so naïve. Certain tragedies are impossible to prepare for and even when you think you have, you really haven’t. Because you can’t. Your heart can’t imagine the depth of anguish some changes can bring.

I’ve been studying the book of James with a wonderful group of women. Two days ago we heard Beth Moore talk about how God turns anguish into joy -- if we let him. She asked us to remember the last time we’d felt anguish, which is so much greater than sadness or sorrow.

The moments immediately after I learned my best friend had died flashed through my mind. It wasn’t the last time I’d experienced anguish but it is a moment in time that will forever haunt me. I remember saying all the right things as I spoke with his mother on the phone. Then I sat alone, literally doubled over in pain, as my body convulsed in sobs.

Perhaps I remembered that moment first because I’ve never really gotten over it. My life changed dramatically, in ways I couldn’t begin to imagine at the time. Sudden death snatches away plans and dreams and all those tomorrows you’d once counted on having.

Without his death, I would not be where I am now. I would not have become the woman who held a tiny puppy in her arms for months, until that little girl grew too big to be carried. Her big brown eyes and sweet personality comforted and strengthened me as I dealt with rejection yet again.

She lost her battle with cancer yesterday. I wasn’t prepared. Her appetite was good. That tail still wagged a greeting every time she saw me. And she could get up and tell the news when a stranger showed up at the house.

But cancer is cruel and her body couldn’t take it anymore. Another loss. Another heartbreak. Another empty hole in my heart that will never be filled.

I know some people don’t understand how I could possibly write about the death of a dog in the same column as the death of a man. I feel sorry for them because they’ve never experienced the selfless love of an animal.

I know the days to come will be hard, just as I know time will ease the pain. But right now my arms ache to hold that precious girl one more time. Anguish fills my soul.

Monday, January 30, 2012

God Turns Anguish Into Joy

But I will call on God and the LORD will rescue me. -- Psalm 55:16

I just love the psalms. Don’t you? They are prayers to God, worship and crying out in anguish and joy. The psalms contain words that could easily fill our hearts in these days in which we live. They are so vibrant and alive.

As a child, I read the psalms again and again. I had a tattered Bible that had belonged to my mother when she was a girl. I loved that Bible so much. The words -- in the King James Version -- comforted me, even as I sometimes struggled to understand their meaning.

I’ve read those same words many, many times as an adult. But somehow, this year, I’m really seeing those words in a whole different way. I’m hearing David’s pain. I’m understanding how often the man after God’s own heart cried out to His Creator for help, for comfort, for defense. I’m understanding why the child that I was turned to the psalms for comfort in the storm that was my life.

He rescues me and keeps me safe from the battle waged against me, even though many still oppose me. -- Psalm 55:18

Anguish is what brought me to God. It wasn’t some powerful sermon or horrible tragedy. It was an unwanted life and a child desperate for someone to love her. What’s your story? We all have one. Some are pretty and some aren’t. But each story is as unique as the individuals who tell them.

Beth Moore said something truly profound in her DVD series on James. She said that if we trust God with our anguish, it will birth something precious out of us. What has happened to us will turn into our deliverance, she said. I’d never thought of it like that yet it made so much sense.

We are the people we are because of where we have been. There is no today without yesterday. Good and bad. We can either be the victim that we were or the child God always meant us to be.

That doesn’t mean we leave the past behind. We aren’t made that way. While we do need to get past it, we can use it to fuel ourselves forward. As a child, Moore was a victim of sexual abuse. Today she leads wonderful Bible studies and has a special passion for abuse victims. She has turned something horrible into something amazing.

God can turn our worst experiences into something joyous by creating a new birth through Him. But we have to show up. We have to believe. We have to trust in what He can and will do. Are you ready for all the amazing things God has planned for you? Let Him turn your greatest sorrow into something amazing too.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Be A Child Advocate

"I said, 'Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest -- I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.'" -- Psalm 55:6-8

The other night I watched a television progran where a child was kidnapped. I knew it was fiction. Hey, it's on TV! But it was so realistic. I suppose I will always relate to a suffering child. It breaks my heart when innocent children are left alone to face monsters. It's even worse when those monsters are people who should be protecting the children.

We've come a long way when it comes to child abuse and neglect. Once upon a time, law enforcement assumed that children from "good" families weren't abused. Yeah. Unbelievable, isn't it? It's difficult now to imagine that someone would associate bank balances and street address with whether that person could or would abuse a child. Or a spouse.

Now we know that abuse happens anywhere. I'm still not sure we're good at facing it when the abuser is someone "like" us. Our friends, our co-workers, the couple at little league, the family on the next pew at church -- it couldn't be any of them. Could it? Are we as aware as we should be? Are we open to what children tell us? Do we see and respond or do we look away because we'd prefer it be someone else's problem?

Children are the most vulnerable of all of us. They don't have a great many options. They are easily frightened and, thus, manipulated. That's one reason I love these verses from Psalm 55. When you're a kid who is suffering, all you really want is to be somewhere else. It seems impossible so you cry out to a God you may not know but toward a security you yearn for. And that's where God is.

I urge everyone to reach out to the children around you. Listen to them. Help them when you can. Believe them should the need arise. Don't stand on the sidelines and wait for someone else to call the police or child welfare. Help a child who needs an advocate. Let God use you to show a child that someone cares.