Matthew 11:29
Saturday proved to be a unique ending to a very busy week.....it wasn't that there were no places to go or things to do....instead I made the choice to rest. I NEVER do that. When I first began to ponder making that decision, guilt reared its ugly head shouting, "You should _______." Fill in the blank......
In the "old" days we called it a "mental health" day. I never did that either. 🙄
I love this explanation of rest for your soul:
"The soul refers to the mind, will, and the emotions. So Jesus is saying He will give us peace of mind. He will give us rest in decision making, and He will give us emotional stability."
I want that!!
So what does sitting at the feet of Jesus, in a quiet house, alone, look like. Praying finds me asking God to show me what he would have for me. And he answers.....it's a miraculous thing....I don't claim to understand it.....I just KNOW it. So here's what he showed me. WARNING: Hard stuff.....😢
All day I thought about Noah. Noah was a righteous man in the eyes of the people of his day. He was called blameless and he was devoted and obedient to God. When God commanded him to build a boat, proclaiming rain would come and the earth would be flooded, what did Noah do? He built the boat ...he built that boat for 75 YEARS!! He built a boat in a desert land that had never seen rain and was not near a body of water. Who does that? Noah did.... without question, without concern and with complete confidence and trust. When it was time God commanded Noah to gather two of each animal....and as always, Noah was obedient......but here's the part that is so amazing to me....
In Genesis 7:4 the Lord says, to Noah, "Seven days from now I WILL SEND rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
And then verse 10, "And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth."
Verse 13 says, "On that very day....."
Do you suppose it just happened that it began to rain? Or did God CAUSE it to rain? He said, "I WILL send rain ..." This is a really hard concept. How could a loving and kind and compassionate God purposely cause such tragedy? Millions of people, children and animals died.....though heartbreaking I understand that question...... sadly.....it took YEARS for me to understand how God orders tragedy that befalls those who profess their love for him. Those who give their lives to him. And how, like Noah, can I learn to follow with blind faith....with confidence that God has already written my story and the stories of those I love? Here's how I've finally made some sense of that which seems senseless.
Psalm 139:16 gave me the peace I sought for years.
"Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."
Do I believe it? Do I believe all of my days were ordained before one of them came to be? Do I believe God's Word? ALL OF IT? Am I all in? As long as God, in my mind, is loving and kind, he's palatable......but talk about his Sovereignty and his rendering justice and all of a sudden he's not as easy to accept. It's so much more reasonable to blame sin in the world than to believe that God caused unbearable pain, right? Is it easier to accept that the God of wrath in the Old Testament left the building when the Jesus of the New Testament arrived on the scene? NO! THEY ARE ONE!! There are not two Gods. A mean one and a nice one. One Sovereign God over ALL!
But here's what I finally understand.....something that, two years ago still escaped me.....if I believe all my days were ordered....if I believe that my beloved's days were completed on that horrible, horrible day than everything that happened that day had to be from God's hand. Nothing in this world could perfectly come together unless God ordered it. I spent years asking why. There are no answers that satisfy that why but, if I believe that my beloved's numbered days came to fruition that day; if I believe God's Word; I have to believe that God is in control of that day, of those events.
God's word never promises that bad things won't happen.....what he does promise is that he'll walk with me through it and he'll change me through it and I'll be different; changed......and I am! I don't understand it, I don't try to analyze it and I certainly don't ask "why" anymore. It's a huge step in faith to believe that from the day God called me, my book was written....beginning to end and NOTHING happens in my life that is not directly from his hand. And just like Noah, God will ask me to do and experience things that don't make sense to me. Things I can't comprehend. It is no surprise to him. It is all planned. Do I trust him to write my story? Noah did.
Be blessed today.
No comments:
Post a Comment