April 26, 2018

God Reaches Out

When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your unfailing love, LORD supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.

– Psalm 94:18-19

Some days are just hard. Do you know what I mean? A child gets sick. Nothing major but it sure does rearrange your day. The grass needs mowing – again. A vehicle breaks down and you’re faced with an unexpected bill. The list goes on and on.

It’s nothing major. It feels selfish to whine about it all. A little girl is in Birmingham fighting for her life. A dear man in Florida is grieving his constant companion and facing a void he isn’t prepared to face. Another man lost his job and desperation creeps in. How will he provide for his family? There are things that put ordinary challenges into perspective.

Life just feels overwhelming sometimes. There is so much to do. The hours seem few and the labor feels long. I am tired. How about you? Do you ever find yourself just getting through the days, afraid to look beyond because you can’t see anything different? That’s scary. Will it always be this way?

Our joy comes from the Lord. The Bible says so and I believe what it says. I feel guilty. Where is my joy? The birds are chirping outside my window this morning. I have bird houses and bird feeders everywhere it seems. My Mother loved to watch the birds and now I do too. On good days, a red bird brightens the day. A visitor from heaven is what they say.

Today is another beautiful day. The sun shines brightly. Not too hot and not too cold. The kind of perfect day we’ll be dreaming of when summer comes our way. It is hot here in the South. Humid hot. So perfect days are a treasure. Why am I sad?

Every day I awake and soldier on. I imagine you do as well. There are animals to tend and chores to do. There is a living to be made. I don’t know how to rest anymore. How about you? Is your day so filled with obligations and activities that there is no time to sit, to think, to contemplate, to simply enjoy the day that God has given to us?

We are busy. All of us are. Children have school and activities seven days each week. Their parents are right there in the middle of it all. Those who are retired find themselves busier than ever before. There is no end in sight. We fill our days and nights with things that seem necessary and yet we wonder why we are so empty inside.

God told us to rest. We will, we promise. As soon as all the chores are done, as soon as the children are grown, as soon as we enter another season of life. But each season brings its own challenges and we find that we don’t rest there either. We have forgotten what it means to be still before God. We don’t know how to embrace the small things because we’re so focused on getting through yet another day.

Another hard day. When does it get easy? It doesn’t. Not words you wanted to read. Truth is neither pleasant not inspiring but it is necessary. We alone make the choice to slow down, to say no, to take time to be with God in quiet stillness. We can rush along at the world’s pace or we can slow down and rest in God’s embrace. Our choice. We’re all slipping away in our busyness. Reach out to Him. God is waiting to grasp your hand and bring you safely to a place of rest.

January 12, 2015

God's Blessings Are Amazing!

 

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

 -- Ephesians 3:20-21

I have prayed for what seemed like forever. It wasn't of course. But day after day there was no answer. Nothing. Silence. Still I prayed. My hope, though dim, remained.

Today I got an answer and it was far more than I could ever have imagined. "Thank you God!" just seems so small when what He did was just so huge.

It has been a rough season. We all have those from time to time. This one has seemed to linger and has sapped all my strength. I have relied solely on God. I could not do it alone. And, yet, that is so hard when He is silent. Until today. I asked for just some sign, a tiny ray of light. He gave me brilliant sunshine far beyond anything I could imagine. Isn't that so like God?

The events of the last months seem insignificant when taken one by one. Something huge happened and it turned out all right. God was there and we made it to the other side. But the fatigue remained so that every little thing seemed to be magnified. I found strength in my quiet time with God. How does anyone face a day without that?

The challenges kept coming. The demands on my time. The demands on my finances. The demands on my heart. Again and again. Some days were harder than others. I longed for laughter. I ached for a bit of happiness in a life that seemed so pointless.

But no life is ever pointless. God created each of us for a special purpose. Finding it isn't always easy. And oftentimes it doesn't look like we thought it would.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

How Deep Is Your Faith?

“You have always protected him and his home and his property from harm. You have made him prosperous in everything he does. Look how rich he is! But take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!” -- Job 1:10-11

Do you want to know how strong your faith is? Do you ever wonder how deep your roots go? Have you ever looked down, maybe just a bit, at someone who seems to move and sway through their faith journey? Cockiness is easy when you’ve never been challenged.

Unfortunately, most folks never really know if their faith is solid and true until that faith is tested. Then it becomes one of those sink or swim moments. Either you cling tightly to your faith, counting on God to hold you up when you can’t stand up alone, or you let your circumstances destroy you.

It’s the difference between two widows, one standing and walking securely forward and the other barely able to face each day for the all-consuming grief. It’s the difference between a parent who never gives up on her child and a parent who turns a hardened heart toward a worthless cause. It’s the difference between an unemployed worker getting up each day and trying to build a better, a different, life and an unemployed worker who drinks away his days certain that nothing he can do will ever change his circumstances.

Job had everything. A large family. Wealth. And, most importantly, a God he adored. And that God allowed Satan to test Job, to take away his servants and his livestock. His children. And then his health. And still Job would not turn against his God. Job refused to blame his Creator, the One who gave him everything, when everything was gone. And for that God rewarded Job by giving him more children, more wealth.

Being a Christian doesn’t mean that we get to live an easy life. People sometimes get confused about that. Some folks believe that being a Christian means we get a free pass, a life with nothing really bad ever happening. And then it does. All those secret thoughts, those moments of believing people going through tough times somehow deserve it, come to mind. We look in the mirror. We don’t see a person deserving of such anguish. So we doubt.

Or we drop to our knees. We reach out for our God. We realize, finally, that life isn’t fair and that sometimes bad things really do happen to good people. Choices. God gave us the right to make choices. And, whether we deserve it or not, the choices of other people can sometimes have devastating consequences for us. We can either plant our feet firmly, counting on those roots of faith to hold strong, or we can let Satan’s wind rip us away from the only security we’ll ever know.

How strong is your faith? Think about it. Then pray you’ll never have to find out for sure.

　

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Keep Going Forward

Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.

-- 2 Thessalonians 1:4

The other day I arrived home from Georgia and came face to face with a very irritable mother. Her excuse? Her husband had procrastinated on a chore. He needed her help and she couldn’t do the things she needed to do because she was waiting for him. How inconsiderate!

I tried not to laugh. Not very successfully, I might add. But I did try. See I understood exactly what she was talking about. Really. Because I encounter it every single day, all day long. From them.

That’s the thing about being critical of others. Usually it’s the very thing we dislike so much in others that we also dislike so vehemently in ourselves. We don’t want others to mirror our flaws back at us. And we certainly don’t want to deal with the aggravation that comes from dealing with those flaws.

It’s difficult to keep going some days. And, yet, we must. I must. As hard as it is to allow my life, my world, to revolve around two people who have no inkling of how difficult that truly is. I believe that God has called me to this place, to this time. To grow closer to Him. To learn how to depend on Him. Day by day. To understand deep within that only He can save me from the evils that sometimes surround me.

Some days I see myself reflected back at me and it truly scares me. It’s an eye-opening fact check that sends my behavior and attitude in a different direction. And, frequently, to my Bible.

The weight of others’ expectations can be a burden that some days seems too heavy to bear. I am reminded that I don’t have to carry that burden alone. And, when it seems overwhelming, I can simply hand it off to the One who is far stronger than I. It allows me to laugh and let go when the strain gets to be too much.

We all have trials in this life. We all are placed in situations, sooner or later, where we have to do what we’d rather not simply because God’s will is that we do. And, most of the time, knowing that He knows what He’s doing is enough.