Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever
state I am, to be content. Phil 4:11
I don’t have answers to life’s questions. God knows I have many, many questions. I long for Him. I want to understand Him. I want to follow Him. But, if I am honest, I also want life to be
stable, predictable and easy. When hard days come, I want to immediately see
what God is doing and explain it to myself and to others. If you’ve read my story (www.morethanchocolate.org), you
know my life has been anything but predictable or stable. Yet, way down deep I
have still clung to a secret hope that somehow I could make it be. I like order.
I like predictability. I like to
feel like I am in control of what the day will hold. Yet life for me, and many of us lately, has
been anything but predictable and anything but easy.
A few years ago, I went for a walk around our little farm
with my niece Riley. We noticed the
change in the season as the cool air hit our faces. Leaves and dried blackberries were falling to
the ground. Fallen persimmons were
rotting into the earth. The ground was
turning brown and crunchy with all the decaying matter. I explained to Riley how God would make
something beautiful out of all the ugly, dead stuff the coming spring. I told her we couldn’t see what God was doing
but that deep down under all the decay, He was at work.
That walk and those words came back to my mind today. It seems every news story, every conversation
with friends and family is full of hard, heartbreaking things that are far from
beautiful and seem so utterly out of control.
I remembered telling Riley, “God is still at work even when things look
ugly.” My mind raced to my own ugly
times – like losing my husband to suicide—and other times when I honestly felt
like giving up. In the midst of the
heartache, I couldn’t see what God was doing.
Still, He whispered a persistent, hold-on-hope and asked me to believe
He was indeed “doing”. My eyes could no
more see His hand than I could see a flower being birthed under the rotting
leaves that fall day with Riley. Sometimes it is seems forever to wait on
spring in the dark days of winter and even harder to wait on God when we
desperately want answers, when our hearts are breaking, and when nothing seems
to be in control. It is exhaustingly difficult,
but it is not impossible for those who are determined to keep following and
trusting God. He has given us (yes
given us) a gift of faith (all that we need) to be sure of what we hope for and
certain of what we do not see (Heb 11:1).
He has always been in the business of bringing beauty from ashes, and
His Word is full of the incredibly hopeless finding real, stand-on, keep-going hope. Indeed, His greatest miracles came from the
most desperate of situations; and I expect they still do.
Yet, it is in the very midst of the trial, in our weakest-of-weak
that our Faithful Father asks us to surrender our will to His and believe He
can still do great things for us, in us, and through us. Yes, when
we finally lay down our conditions and expectations for how things should turn
out and say, “God, I trust you more than I trust me, I believe you are at work
even when I can’t see you,” it is then—that
we find incredible, amazing, hope-filled, hold-onto-peace that makes no
earthly, logical sense.
Oswald Chambers said, “There is only one thing you can
consecrate to God and that is the right to yourself (Rom12:1).” Yes, the enemy may have intended what you are
walking through for evil, but God alone can bring good. Keep your eyes on Him. This hard road you are walking may be the
only way someone else sees the only Savior of Souls. That awful situation that you or someone you
love is enduring may yield a depth of love for our Lord that could come no
other way. It is in reckless abandon to
God (not predictability or stability in this life or even the easy) that He
tells us we will find rest for our souls (Matt 11:29-30). And that is no small thing. So keep reading His Word, keep praying, keep
seeking encouragement from other believers and keep hoping in God who is at work in your life.
Prayer: Oh Lord, help me to lay down those things
which keep me from experiencing your peace.
Take my right to myself, my day, my calendar, my expectations, my need
to control, my desire for stability and predictability, even this heartbreaking
thing, and help me to live in reckless abandon to You. May I give glory to You no matter what this
day brings. May I only desire to stay
under the shelter of Your wings, for you are my rock, my protector and my comforter
(Ps 61:3-4). Amen.
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