Our God is a God of NOW -April Self
I'm going to write this now. Now when the creditors are knocking at the door. Now when the mess in my house is beyond my comprehension of how to fix. Now when every vehicle and boat is in need of work. Now when the legal issues are growing in a bad way instead of a good way. Now when I feel guilty when I wake up in the morning and realize that – on the surface – we look like bad Christians – not holding to our word in our finances – not looking like a family that is put together and has good strategies that work handling our kids and our situations.
I am sick and tired of seeing people who live in million dollar mansions; who have good established marriages and families; who have overcome addictions and tragedies in their past and right now are doing well; I am sick and tired of those people telling me that God is going to do good things in my life – and all that I have to do is believe. Yeah, I am sure they have gone through some rough times. I do not know their lives and I do not know what struggles they have had and do have – but I do know they are not here with me right now in this moment. I believe God is a unique God – He works in each of our lives very differently. And while He may not be a “respecter of persons;” He is also not constrained to an “a+b=c” type of plan. Just my belief and my works of my faith is not necessarily a guarantee that He is going work in my life the same way He worked in someone else's. He is GOD!
So it is in this place that I want to declare my faith in my God that He is a good God. It is in uncertainty of what God is going to do, that I choose to still believe that God has a plan. And His Word is what I can use in this moment. From Hebrews chapter 11 and 12 two thoughts are helping me face NOW:
My first thought is that I know that I can not focus on the problems around me – but man is that hard! Yet I know that when I start thinking about one problem – it is a small step to total and complete annihilation of my Hope in life. Worry over my life and fear and depression snowballs until they consume me and kill that spark in me. And since I know that is what happens when I look at the problems, I can apply that knowledge to HOW I address my problems. It CANNOT be to ponder, meditate, mull over and worry to death each and every issue. God has a different way. “Keep my eyes focused on the author and the finisher of my faith!” (Hebrews 12:2) Can that Word really apply to me here and now? Well looking at that verse in context I see that it comes right after the “faith chapter” (Hebrews 11). After going through person after person who believed, who had amazing faith, this is how that chapter ends: “And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:39-40) What????!!! These amazing people of faith did NOT receive their promise – and THAT is supposed to encourage us?? And I am supposed to trust that God will come through on His promises for me in my pit, when it looks like He didn’t do that for the most faithful?
That was the way I saw it, at first, until I realized that the promises they were holding onto were bigger than their immediate circumstances. The promises of God ARE true and Amen – but we are only a part of that promise. . . . Look at what comes next: “THEREFORE, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us . . .” (Hebrews 12:1) You know what that is saying? The faithful of the past are daring us with their lives: “You better keep the race going – because we worked so hard in God so that you could continue this bigger amazing promise – don’t you dare stop that process!” It is NOT that they never saw God work in their lives – it was that God’s promises are more than a single life can contain. God’s promises both contain the moment AND go way beyond anything we can think or imagine. And the promise of a promise that is that big – is that this current circumstance that I am in is just a “blip” in the bigger picture. If the promises of God are bigger than my life – and my life is a part of it – then my life has a future – this will be just a part of the process. If I stay in my own closed little self-pitty world- what a pitiful world that is. If I focus on God and all that He is – and all that He has planned – my life and its current little whisp of vapor – gets into perspective. If I truly believe that there is a bigger life that can show the Glory of God – then being debt free or free of sinful chains becomes a real possibility. It helps me to look at my current situation and say – there is a path out of this. It helps me look with HOPE for that path; I mean really, really look. Not the type of looking that my grandson, Isaiah, does when we ask him to find something he picked up and left around the house. While he is sitting on the couch he declares defiantly that he “can’t find it.” We often give up looking for a way out when, if truth be told, we haven’t even really started. Don’t give up looking. If you know that you know that you know there is a way out, then even if you can’t see it now, you can have confidence to keep looking. Keep asking and you will receive; keep seeking and you will find; keep knocking and the door will open. (Matthew 7:7) I do not know what my way out of my current circumstance is – or how the variety of problems are going to be handled – but for me to keep going I need to believe that there will come a point when I will look back and see that I made it by the amazing Grace of God.
The second aspect of that section of this Scripture is that in order to keep going, to endure, to run the race with the perspective of Jesus – His plan and His purpose – is to throw off the weights of the world and the sin that so easily entangles. The weight makes it difficult to look for options, to believe, to have hope. This is the Gospel. To run to Jesus, to be healed, to be cleansed you need to make the decision to throw off the weights, to get rid of the sin. And for that removal process – we need three things: a willingness to get rid of the baggage and the sin we carry, clarity to see what it is that actually needs to go, and the ability to truly get rid of it. And our God, my God, in the middle of my mess, right now, actually provides all these three. His Spirit convicts us and leads us to repentance – which is what changes our temperament and makes us willing to get rid of sin. His Word opens our eyes to what our bondages are – what is holding us down. And it is Jesus - His Blood, His Sacrifice - which breaks the power of sin – and is able to untangled the way that sin wraps itself into our lives. So for me to go forward at this point, I need revelation. I need a repentant heart; I need wisdom to know what to change and what to release to God. And I need this very God in His love and mercy to help me in very practical ways to not only emotionally and mentally get rid of my selfishness – but to physically give me a direction or to intercede that my future in His promises might come to fruition.
So right now; at this moment; I am going to stand in believing God for a promise that is bigger – not just of my current situation - but bigger than my whole life! I am going to believe that God can help me seek out and root out my sin and the weights that are NOT supposed to be there. I have no idea how God is going to do that. I do not know if He is going to miraculously intervene with an unexpected financial windfall, or if He is going to work with us through each task and go the long road through this process. I have no idea how I am even going to make it to the end of this month, but God does and because of that I can be sure that my life does not end here – and in that I can have hope and look to Him.
Maybe down the road, when I actually experience the victory and can look back at this moment, my message will be different, be more uplifting. But I am choosing to share this message “in the moment,” because I think that there may be other people “in the moment;” and I want them to know (and I want myself to know) that all of us can be used by God now – that you can hold to the path of God now – this is not a moment to just get through and tell about later – it is NOW. And our God is a God of NOW.
I am sick and tired of seeing people who live in million dollar mansions; who have good established marriages and families; who have overcome addictions and tragedies in their past and right now are doing well; I am sick and tired of those people telling me that God is going to do good things in my life – and all that I have to do is believe. Yeah, I am sure they have gone through some rough times. I do not know their lives and I do not know what struggles they have had and do have – but I do know they are not here with me right now in this moment. I believe God is a unique God – He works in each of our lives very differently. And while He may not be a “respecter of persons;” He is also not constrained to an “a+b=c” type of plan. Just my belief and my works of my faith is not necessarily a guarantee that He is going work in my life the same way He worked in someone else's. He is GOD!
So it is in this place that I want to declare my faith in my God that He is a good God. It is in uncertainty of what God is going to do, that I choose to still believe that God has a plan. And His Word is what I can use in this moment. From Hebrews chapter 11 and 12 two thoughts are helping me face NOW:
My first thought is that I know that I can not focus on the problems around me – but man is that hard! Yet I know that when I start thinking about one problem – it is a small step to total and complete annihilation of my Hope in life. Worry over my life and fear and depression snowballs until they consume me and kill that spark in me. And since I know that is what happens when I look at the problems, I can apply that knowledge to HOW I address my problems. It CANNOT be to ponder, meditate, mull over and worry to death each and every issue. God has a different way. “Keep my eyes focused on the author and the finisher of my faith!” (Hebrews 12:2) Can that Word really apply to me here and now? Well looking at that verse in context I see that it comes right after the “faith chapter” (Hebrews 11). After going through person after person who believed, who had amazing faith, this is how that chapter ends: “And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:39-40) What????!!! These amazing people of faith did NOT receive their promise – and THAT is supposed to encourage us?? And I am supposed to trust that God will come through on His promises for me in my pit, when it looks like He didn’t do that for the most faithful?
That was the way I saw it, at first, until I realized that the promises they were holding onto were bigger than their immediate circumstances. The promises of God ARE true and Amen – but we are only a part of that promise. . . . Look at what comes next: “THEREFORE, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us . . .” (Hebrews 12:1) You know what that is saying? The faithful of the past are daring us with their lives: “You better keep the race going – because we worked so hard in God so that you could continue this bigger amazing promise – don’t you dare stop that process!” It is NOT that they never saw God work in their lives – it was that God’s promises are more than a single life can contain. God’s promises both contain the moment AND go way beyond anything we can think or imagine. And the promise of a promise that is that big – is that this current circumstance that I am in is just a “blip” in the bigger picture. If the promises of God are bigger than my life – and my life is a part of it – then my life has a future – this will be just a part of the process. If I stay in my own closed little self-pitty world- what a pitiful world that is. If I focus on God and all that He is – and all that He has planned – my life and its current little whisp of vapor – gets into perspective. If I truly believe that there is a bigger life that can show the Glory of God – then being debt free or free of sinful chains becomes a real possibility. It helps me to look at my current situation and say – there is a path out of this. It helps me look with HOPE for that path; I mean really, really look. Not the type of looking that my grandson, Isaiah, does when we ask him to find something he picked up and left around the house. While he is sitting on the couch he declares defiantly that he “can’t find it.” We often give up looking for a way out when, if truth be told, we haven’t even really started. Don’t give up looking. If you know that you know that you know there is a way out, then even if you can’t see it now, you can have confidence to keep looking. Keep asking and you will receive; keep seeking and you will find; keep knocking and the door will open. (Matthew 7:7) I do not know what my way out of my current circumstance is – or how the variety of problems are going to be handled – but for me to keep going I need to believe that there will come a point when I will look back and see that I made it by the amazing Grace of God.
The second aspect of that section of this Scripture is that in order to keep going, to endure, to run the race with the perspective of Jesus – His plan and His purpose – is to throw off the weights of the world and the sin that so easily entangles. The weight makes it difficult to look for options, to believe, to have hope. This is the Gospel. To run to Jesus, to be healed, to be cleansed you need to make the decision to throw off the weights, to get rid of the sin. And for that removal process – we need three things: a willingness to get rid of the baggage and the sin we carry, clarity to see what it is that actually needs to go, and the ability to truly get rid of it. And our God, my God, in the middle of my mess, right now, actually provides all these three. His Spirit convicts us and leads us to repentance – which is what changes our temperament and makes us willing to get rid of sin. His Word opens our eyes to what our bondages are – what is holding us down. And it is Jesus - His Blood, His Sacrifice - which breaks the power of sin – and is able to untangled the way that sin wraps itself into our lives. So for me to go forward at this point, I need revelation. I need a repentant heart; I need wisdom to know what to change and what to release to God. And I need this very God in His love and mercy to help me in very practical ways to not only emotionally and mentally get rid of my selfishness – but to physically give me a direction or to intercede that my future in His promises might come to fruition.
So right now; at this moment; I am going to stand in believing God for a promise that is bigger – not just of my current situation - but bigger than my whole life! I am going to believe that God can help me seek out and root out my sin and the weights that are NOT supposed to be there. I have no idea how God is going to do that. I do not know if He is going to miraculously intervene with an unexpected financial windfall, or if He is going to work with us through each task and go the long road through this process. I have no idea how I am even going to make it to the end of this month, but God does and because of that I can be sure that my life does not end here – and in that I can have hope and look to Him.
Maybe down the road, when I actually experience the victory and can look back at this moment, my message will be different, be more uplifting. But I am choosing to share this message “in the moment,” because I think that there may be other people “in the moment;” and I want them to know (and I want myself to know) that all of us can be used by God now – that you can hold to the path of God now – this is not a moment to just get through and tell about later – it is NOW. And our God is a God of NOW.
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