God is up to something!
When we have an ache in our heart, a longing.... I know personally, there is a stirring within. God is up to something. Ticks me off sometimes as...... In times like these when we cannot see what He is doing right away (and even many times He will not reveal His intentions), we need to trust, put aside the fear of not knowing as He goes with us through our recovery. Trust His work. Trust His doing. Trust that He only has the best intentions for us:
Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. Hosea 6:3
There are days when we feel God's presence. We sense God's love. We see God's power. But we do not always feel or sense or see. There are times of silence, distance and uncertainty. There are the difficult times of waiting for God to appear. In times like this we may find ourselves both longing for God and fearing that God will come.
The longing comes because in our heart of hearts we know that there is no recovery without God's gracious presence. If God does not appear, we are stuck, bound, hopelessly entangled in dysfunction. If God does appear, it will be like the sun rising - we will be able to see the way. It will be like gentle rains which nurture us so that we can grow and thrive.
The fear comes because often we do not see God as one who comes as 'sun' and 'rain' to give life. We are afraid that when God does appear, it will be to punish us, to demand restitution from us, to shame us. Because we have served vengeful and vindictive gods, we fear that it will be the god-of-impossible-expectations who will finally appear.
We do well to follow the urging of this text to 'acknowledge God'. We need daily to examine whom we serve. When we acknowledge the god-of -impossible-expectations, then we will surely fear his appearing. But if we acknowledge the God of the Bible whose coming is to nurture and give life, then we will await God's coming like the dawn of a new day.
I acknowledge you, Lord. You are not the god of impossible-expectations. You are not the god-who-is-eager-to-punish. I know what it is like when these other gods come. They bring shame, blame and fear. I do not acknowledge them, Lord. I acknowledge you.
Come as the dawn of a new day, Lord.
Bring light into my dark days.
Come as gentle rain, Lord,
Cleanse, renew and nurture.
Come, Lord, as the dawn.
Come as the rains.
Water the parched earth of my soul. Amen.
Copyright Dale and Juanita Ryan
Amen, trust and obey, for there is no other way.
ReplyDeleteI have never experienced God wanting to hurt us, only to help us. I wonder where the fear comes from?
ReplyDeleteSurprisingly, children take their cues on God, from their Earth father.
ReplyDeleteIf that man hugs and loves, laughs and reads stories, embraces and gives love, love , love... the child views God as such a person in authority position too. God has those characteristics that dad has.
But if dad was an abuser, alcoholic, screaming and yelling, throwing fits, never a compliment, and allowing the YOU are not good enough, strive harder!, God become impossible to know and love for a child.
(My own dad was a stickler for A's on the report card. It took me a while and major effort. One day, I had ALL A's in every subject. I showed him, and he replied: "Anybody can get A's once. Let's see if you can ever do it again".)
His intention to motivate me to do my best was good. His method of doing it was atrocious and backfired. I got all A's all the time, but did it for ME, not him, and had mom sign my card always. I never spoke to him of A's again.
Many homes today are missing a father. Their view on God is skewed as mom brings many men over their 18 years at home into their life and view. It leads to confusion.
Perfect love drives out all fear.
God...is love. Indeed, perfect love.
Grace is his game, not condemnation.
A price must be paid for sin and error.
It WAS paid by his Son, Jesus Christ.
Since that wages of sin is death thing no longer exists (Christ died for you; you no longer pay a price)....grace is all that is left when we sin anew, and confess we are sorry for having done so.
If churches told people the truth of God, they fear people will sin like crazy, so that grace can increase as a result of the new sin.
This is all in Romans if you wanna read it, but anyone who understands hurt and forgiveness, stops sinning, for they know how much sin hurts.
You will never be loved on Earth by anyone, as much as God loves you now, before you were created, before the Earth was created, and forever into all eternity.
He is your best friend.
He is the lover of your soul.
Establish a vertical relationship with Christ, and when you have that joy, you are able to establish healthy mutual relationships of love horizontally with people.
We do it backwards and try to find love in a fallible person. They are generally chosen for the sheer wisdom they possess to like us. We accept them on that basis, though they could easily be a serial killer. We don't care; they said "I like you" or better "I love you".
This needs tested over time, and we do not have time. So do it right in the first place and find love where it is genuine....from God.
Find a person like God, with skin on, after that.
Healing is always better than getting sicker.
You'll be fine; and loved.
For real.