I’ve been silent here for the last several months because I haven’t been sure that I have anything worth saying.
Life’s been difficult, and it’s also been boring and normal. There have been wonderful triumphs and victories as well as great difficulties, questions, controversies, struggles, and pain.
This is what life is made of.
As I’ve faced things I prayed would never enter my life, I find myself falling back on one thing.
God.
The One who gave His Son not only to save me but to save my children as well.
Who else and what else is there that cannot be shaken?
I look back at decisions we made that seemed good at the time. Things that seemed like blessings but now feel like burdens. It’s so easy to second guess those decisions or even to wish that different decisions had been made, especially when the path led us through unforeseen valleys that were darker than we’d ever anticipated.
And yet…
Did we not pray about it and say we would trust Him? Has He not known all along that this path would lead through those valleys?
Did He know? Or didn’t He?
Does He have a plan to carry us through or not?
These are the questions that make us face what we really believe. What we really know.
As for me, I know that circumstances and appearances change. But my God does not change. He is the same in the valleys as He is on the mountaintops and the same has He has been at every fork in the road we have taken.
I look at another situation… a job opportunity for a loved one. I’d been praying that she’d get the job, for it seemed so perfect. But I prayed, “…if it is as good as it seems.”
So now that we’ve received a No, why is my natural response to complain about how much I wish the answer had been Yes? Seriously!
I said, “That stinks!”
God said, “Why? You prayed that she would not get it if it wasn’t as good as it seemed. Why is it bad that I stopped it as you asked?”
It’s amazing how God can stop you right in your tracks and make you realize you should be thanking Him instead of complaining about circumstances!
Only I can answer for myself whether I really believe God’s knowledge is complete enough to know if a job would be good or not… if God’s love is deep enough to use that knowledge only for our benefit… if His power is great enough to carry out what His love desires to do for us.
I realize again and again and again that my ability to trust Him and find hope in the darkness is based upon my revelations of who He is. It’s based on what I know in the depths of my soul to be true about Him.
I know that my God is Someone who finishes what He starts. He is love personified. His power is beyond comprehension over depression, over pain, over emptiness and need, over despair, over fear, and over everything that attempts to stand in His way.
Ask Him to show you more of who He really is, for that is where you’ll find what you need!
The magnitude of who He is would blow our minds, so He shows us bit by bit, expanding our mind’s ability to comprehend and our spirit’s ability to receive increased depths of the revelations that hope springs from.
“You will seek Me and find Me.” – Jer. 29:13
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” – Rom. 15:13
Hi Katie…
I thought of you this morning, and I am sure it was our Father who gently placed your name on my heart. So here I am… don't know when I was last here. I've not been around blogs much, and my posts are now down to one or two a month. But I'm still on blogger, cause that is the place where I am able to articulate and evaluate what God is doing in my life. Just wanted to let you know I'm thinking of you today. This post was a timely read for me.
Love
Lidia