January 2, 2018

Trust The Lord

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. – Proverbs 3:5-6

I memorized those verse long ago. I’ve repeated it to myself so many times over more years than I can count. I believe it. I do. But right now I trust Him and my path is anything but straight. It’s hard not to feel betrayed.

Except this is God we’re talking about. He wants good things for me and you. He knows what He is doing. He always knows the best way. And yet I can’t shake that feeling that He set me up to fail.

Maybe He did. A good friend told me that. Maybe He wanted me to give up something and knew the only way that I would is if I tried it and failed. Really? Wasn’t there a better way – a less painful way – to do that?

This has been a season of much loss. Great loss. Heartbreaking loss. I was just so uncertain about anything and everything. I asked God again and again if this was the right move. I asked Him to block it if it wasn’t in His will. He flung the doors open wide. Or so I thought.

I have failed. Repeatedly. I tried harder. I failed yet again. I thought that maybe God was just delaying the blessing. After all, God led me to this place so He must want me to succeed. Mustn’t He?

How long do I wait? When do I stop believing in the hope I had at first and come to terms with the reality I am facing? And if I was so wrong about this, how can I ever really trust that I am walking in His will?

I don’t know how this journey will end. I don’t really know what tomorrow will bring. I simply get up every morning and work. I don’t know what else to do.

God is faithful. He has carried me when I couldn’t stand on my own. He has never let me down even though I have let Him down more times than I can count. I don’t understand His methods but I know He loves me with an everlasting love. In this life with so many betrayals, God is faithful. Truly. I hold on to that when nothing makes sense anymore.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

What Are You Waiting For?

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

-- Exodus 3:11-12

God is not predictable. Just when we think we’ve got it all figured out, He asks us to do something we hadn’t planned to do. And it’s usually something that is terribly frightening and more than a little out of our comfort zone.

Of course, that’s the point. We need God. But sometimes we get so caught up in ourselves, in our own abilities, that we forget the power behind us. We fail to remember that God would never call us to do something without planning to be right there beside us, guiding us, and making sure that we accomplish His will.

But first we’ve got to step out in faith. Yeah. That’s the hard part. We want some kind of guarantee that we won’t meet up with failure. We want it in writing, if possible. We can’t see that it already is.

God’s promises are throughout the Bible. We know that He will never leave us or forsake us. We know that He loves us and plans good things for us. We know that we can do anything through Him who strengthens us.

So why do we doubt? Why do we hold back? Why can’t we seem to jump out in faith? We’re like a small child whose father is trying to coax him into jumping off the side of the pool and into his daddy’s waiting arms. He wants to. He knows it’ll be okay. He knows his daddy will catch him. But it’s just so scary to take that first leap. The side of the pool just seems so much safer.

And, in a way, it is. For a while anyway. Then it gets old, the sitting on the sidelines like that, never really taking part in the life God planned for us. Never enjoying the fun and the blessings we might have if we would just step out in faith.

But there’s that fear of failure, public failure especially, that weighs on our minds. It would be bad enough to fail in secret or even before just a few friends and family members. It’s just that when God is calling us to do something it’s usually pretty public and we’re really not wanting to get into a line that might lead to embarrassment and ridicule.

So there we sit on the sidelines. Undecided. Trust God and head toward the possibility of blessings beyond measure? Or stay safe and never really live the life we were created to live?

God is with us, whether we hang back or go forward. He’ll catch us either way. How much better, how much more fulfilling, to step out in faith knowing our Father will always be right there to catch us.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Be Careful of Slippery Slope

But remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it. -- 1 Corinthians 10:13

We want to believe that once we’ve traveled a bad road, learned our lesson, and straightened out our lives we will never, ever travel that path again. And that thought is the beginning of a dangerous journey.

It’s one of the many reasons I applaud programs such as Celebrate Recovery. People gather together to celebrate their success and support each other as they continue their journey. We all need that support.

Not just for alcohol or drug recovery. We want to think that other issues are somehow different. They aren’t. We can easily slip back into the people we once were. We can become angry. We can lie. We can mess up our finances. We can make bad relationship choices. Again. And again. And again.

Satan knows exactly which buttons to push. He knows that when we start feeling sure of ourselves, when we begin to think that we’re in control, that’s when we are most vulnerable. Because the stronger we feel, the less we rely on God. And that can never be anything but disaster.

If you think you are standing strong, be careful, for you, too, may fall into the same sin. -- 1 Corinthians 10:12

Paul tells us that while God will never allow Satan to tempt us beyond what we can resist -- with God’s help. We can’t do it alone. No matter how much we want to believe that we can, we can’t.

Nor are we any better, any stronger, than those around us. We want to believe that we would never make the choices that someone else might make. Maybe not. Because my buttons are different from yours and yours are different from someone else’s. But buttons are buttons. And we can all fall when we think that we’re stronger than we really are.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the person I used to be. I’m thankful for the experiences. I’m grateful that God used those experiences to draw me closer to Him. But I don’t want to go back. Ever.

So I hang on to God with all I have. I know how fragile I really am. But I also know how strong God is. I hang on to Him with everything I’ve got, knowing that He’ll never, ever let me go.

Monday, June 27, 2011

God Can Do Anything

“This command I am giving you today is not too difficult for you to understand or perform.”

-- Deuteronomy 30:11

When God calls me to do something, especially something out of my comfort zone, my first reaction is uh-uh. Nope. Not me. Can’t do it. No way. Call on somebody else, somebody more qualified, somebody with more time, somebody who has done it before. Anybody, God, but me.

He never gives up on me. Sooner or later He knows I’ll fall into line and move toward wherever it is He wants me to go. Silly, isn’t it? It’s not like God is asking me to jump off a cliff by myself. He’s going to tell me what to do and what to say. He wouldn’t send me out without help. So why do I resist?

Because like so many people, I was raised to believe I’d fail in whatever I did. I still hear it almost daily about something I want to do. I know you understand because just about everyone has had a negative influence on their lives at some point. There’s always one person who knows that whatever you want to do won’t work. They probably don’t even think about the words before they say them. It’s just their gut reaction. It would be almost comical if it weren’t so sad.

So here we are in that place of certain failure with God calling us to do something a little scary. We know we’ll fail. We know it. And we probably would except for one important factor: God. He doesn’t fail. Ever. That means when He calls us to do something, He’ll equip us with everything we need to do it. He’ll walk with us every step of the way. He’ll never leave us or forsake us. So how can we fail when He’s carrying us? We can’t.

I’m a living example. Me? A children’s church coordinator? I had no experience and no kids. But God needed someone with a fresh eye and a willingness to shake up the curriculum and do things His way. Now I’m a Sunday school teacher in a class with people who have a wide range of political views. Most of the time I still don’t have a clue. But God does. He’s leading me along His path, giving me words and resources. And I’m trusting Him.

The truth is God has never let me down. I’ve let Him down plenty of times. I’ll failed without even trying more times than I can remember. But God has never let me down. He’s never left me alone. And He’s never called me to do something without giving me exactly what I needed to do whatever He called me to do. With God, nothing seems too difficult. Give it a try. You might surprise yourself.