Something is about to happen. Do you ever get that feeling that you just can't shake, the feeling that warns you to be ready? That's the feeling I have, and I'm not liking it one bit.
Yesterday, I went on a two-hour road trip to do some furniture shopping in North Carolina. On the way, I tuned the radio to a Christian music station and listened to a guy who was giving an amazing sermon. He ended it by saying "Believe in miracles, trust in Jesus." Within a minute or two as I approached an interstate overpass, I saw the words "trust Jesus" spray-painted on the side of a concrete bridge support. "Wow, that's pretty cool," I thought. God must be trying to tell me something.
A short time later, I lost the signal for that station and found another. This time, a different pastor from a Chicago mega-church was giving a message on Psalm 23 and how it relates to trusting God. That's when I started to squirm. Psalm 23 is usually one that is used at funerals to bring comfort to the bereaved, or it is used to encourage those who are otherwise hurting or experiencing difficulty or trials. "Oh-oh," I thought, "what's coming?"
I found myself praying "If you're asking me if I trust you, Lord, the answer is yes. I do trust you completely. I don't need to experience any difficulty in order to know that I trust you." I suddenly felt like Peter, whom Jesus asked three times "do you love me?" Yes Lord, I love you, I trust you! Don't you believe me?
This morning, I opened my email to find something that disturbed me even more. The daily devotional I receive on email was there, and today's title was "Trusting God Through Difficult Times." The devotional included a couple of stories of faith through horrible tragedies, as well as a quote from Oswald Chamers:
"Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character must be proven trustworthy in our own minds."
I don't know what's coming, but I have this sense of foreboding. If you're reading this, I am asking for prayers for peace, for protection for me and my family, and for unshakable faith and trust no matter what comes my way. In the meantime, I'm leaning on two specific verses:
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." (Prov. 3:5)
"The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." (Deut. 31:8)
Hopefully all this is coincidental, but I don't really believe in coincidence. I fully believe in God-incidences, and if in his grace he is trying to prepare me for something that is to come, it makes me love him all the more.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Who's in the Loop?
Something happened last night between my daughters and I'm still trying to figure out exactly what. I do know that it caught me very much by surprise.
Hannah, who is 10, went to bed first. A little while later I went to tell Kaelie, my 13 year-old to do the same. I looked all over the house for her and couldn't find her. Finally, I heard voices coming from Hannah's room. When I went in, I found them both crying and neither wanted to share what it was all about. When Kaelie left to go to her room, Hannah said everything was fine, that it was just "sister stuff." Once I returned to Kaelie's room to get her to bed, she also insisted that they were just having a much-needed talk and everything was okay. Fortunately, both of them went on to sleep and seemed fine this morning before school.
I still wish I knew what it was all about though. While I do have some inkling, and I'm happy that perhaps they are learning to work things out for themselves and to talk to each other like rational human beings instead of getting into screaming fights, it drives me crazy to be left out of the loop. I'm their mother and I love them and I want to be able to help.
God has really been teaching me a lot about leadership recently, and I think he's reminding me in this situation that a good leader equips and trains those she is leading so that they can do things for themselves without relying so much on her. I'm certainly not implying that my children will grow up and never need me again, because I know how much I still need my own mother. But it's important that they learn to do and handle things for themselves, confident in the knowledge that I am here for them.
Second, the fact that I feel left out of the loop makes me realize how much it must grieve the Lord when I leave him out. Sometimes when things come up, the first tendency is to go to my husband or a friend to help me through it, or to seek advice from self-help books or others who have faced similar situations. I need to make sure God, the one who made me and loves me and knows me inside and out, is the first one I call to rather than the last resort. Whatever the situation, he already knows it completely and desires to help me through it.
1 Peter 5:7 says "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." I like the word all in this verse. It tells me that I can go to God with anything. I've heard people say that they don't feel right bothering God with what they perceive to be small and petty problems, compared to the much bigger issues that other people may be facing. But God wants to be in the loop for all of it, and I want to have the kind of faith that trusts him to be big enough to handle all of it.
I'm glad my girls were able to talk things out with each other last night. I hope that when they each finally went on to bed, they also talked it out with the Lord.
Hannah, who is 10, went to bed first. A little while later I went to tell Kaelie, my 13 year-old to do the same. I looked all over the house for her and couldn't find her. Finally, I heard voices coming from Hannah's room. When I went in, I found them both crying and neither wanted to share what it was all about. When Kaelie left to go to her room, Hannah said everything was fine, that it was just "sister stuff." Once I returned to Kaelie's room to get her to bed, she also insisted that they were just having a much-needed talk and everything was okay. Fortunately, both of them went on to sleep and seemed fine this morning before school.
I still wish I knew what it was all about though. While I do have some inkling, and I'm happy that perhaps they are learning to work things out for themselves and to talk to each other like rational human beings instead of getting into screaming fights, it drives me crazy to be left out of the loop. I'm their mother and I love them and I want to be able to help.
God has really been teaching me a lot about leadership recently, and I think he's reminding me in this situation that a good leader equips and trains those she is leading so that they can do things for themselves without relying so much on her. I'm certainly not implying that my children will grow up and never need me again, because I know how much I still need my own mother. But it's important that they learn to do and handle things for themselves, confident in the knowledge that I am here for them.
Second, the fact that I feel left out of the loop makes me realize how much it must grieve the Lord when I leave him out. Sometimes when things come up, the first tendency is to go to my husband or a friend to help me through it, or to seek advice from self-help books or others who have faced similar situations. I need to make sure God, the one who made me and loves me and knows me inside and out, is the first one I call to rather than the last resort. Whatever the situation, he already knows it completely and desires to help me through it.
1 Peter 5:7 says "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." I like the word all in this verse. It tells me that I can go to God with anything. I've heard people say that they don't feel right bothering God with what they perceive to be small and petty problems, compared to the much bigger issues that other people may be facing. But God wants to be in the loop for all of it, and I want to have the kind of faith that trusts him to be big enough to handle all of it.
I'm glad my girls were able to talk things out with each other last night. I hope that when they each finally went on to bed, they also talked it out with the Lord.
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