Sometimes we find ourselves wishing our circumstances would change and that we would have a problem-free life. However, when everything is going "swimmingly"....we can often get comfortable and complacent and our need for God is not as strong. For a couple of Sundays, I've been unable to go to church as I've been hosting a friend who's going through a difficult time in her marriage. She has been using our home as the kid headquarters whenever she has to make arrangements to connect her kids and her husband. So, I watch children and do "church at home".
This past Sunday I listened to a sermon on King David and the pastor talked about just that.....how King David's problem-free life led to his affair with Bathsheba. He was at the top of his game as king. Everything was going great with Israel. He was now wealthy and no longer being chased into caves, wandering around in the wilderness, worried for his life. In fact, he was now what the pastor called a "couch potato"! The Bible actually says "he got up from his couch", and at that point he saw Bathsheba bathing. Perhaps if he hadn't been lazing around on his couch and he'd been at war (when all the other kings were at war). Perhaps if he hadn't sitting around doing nothing and instead been busy, not idle, than the whole incident with Bathsheba could have been avoided.
What really struck me was that the pastor pointed out how David's greatest Psalms, the ones that give all of us the most comfort and the ones that are the most powerful are the ones that he wrote when he was in his greatest trials, when he was most dependent on God. Isn't that how it often goes? When we look back on our lives, our greatest times of spiritual growth are when we are in our darkest times. Yet, when things get a little better, a little less stressful, we find we aren't depending on God so much. David got a little lazy, a little complacent and it led to his terrible downfall.
I don't love trials and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to say, "Please give me more trials so I can stay dependent on You", but at the same time I think I can truly say I understand the purpose of trials so much more now and I am oddly grateful for them as I do look back on my life, at my darkest times, and I see how much God was working and how much my faith grew. With my friend who is in her dark time right now, I'm watching God do the same with her. I would love to wish her into a problem-free life, but He is working. She has so many stories to prove how God has been showing up and making Himself known to her in a way she hadn't seen before when she had been living a life less dependent on God.
She's been on her own now for a few months and has been looking for a way to supplement her income. She's become very dependent on God for her financial needs. God keeps providing in amazing ways. Just this weekend people showed up at my house with money in an envelope for her and a huge bag of clothes for her kids. She's been trying to figure out what a good job would be that she could do long term. Recently she was introduced to the idea of selling essential oils. She liked the idea. She could do it from home and it wouldn't impact her children too much. She had a family friend introduce her to someone who could get her started in the business. Once these people, who also happened to be Christians, found out what her situation was, not only did they offer to train her on how to do it, but they generously provided her with a computer and a large gift of money just because they were so blessed in their life. I said to her, "Wow! They sound like angels!" She said, "You'll never guess what his name is (the husband)....) "What?" I said, wondering. "Gabriel." So funny. So Gabriel, the angel-husband, and his wife are helping my friend get her oil business off the ground. But wait.....oil business? Could that be coincidence, too?
RM suddenly said to me, "Isn't that like the widow and her oil?" Think about it.....My friend is just like the widow is the Bible who has lost her husband. In the Bible story, the children are possibly going to be taken away if she can't pay her debts. In my friend's case, if she can't provide for her kids, that could happen to her, too. She wants to keep her kids! Along comes Elisha. He asks her, "...what have you in the house?" "Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil." With that oil, she was able to fill all the jars in the house and it didn't stop flowing until all the jars were filled. Then she was able to sell the oil, pay her debts and live on the rest. A miracle. I cannot help but think God has given my friend "oil", literally oil, to help her pay for her life so that she can keep her kids and live on the rest.
Again, I do not wish problems on my friend or her children, but I am seeing her faith grow and watching how her children are learning the truth about God. Psalm 10 says it best, "Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted. ...But you do see.....to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless....O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed...." What a beautiful passage that shows how God cares for the afflicted, the fatherless, the oppressed.
As Robbie Symons says, "What is the wisdom moment? What is wisdom saying?" I think what I'm learning over and over is to not fight my trials, but to embrace them as James says and to truly "count it all joy" when I "meet trials of various kinds" for I "know that the testing of (my) faith produces steadfastness." That steadfastness has a job to do.....to make me "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." Why wouldn't I want that? Why wouldn't my friend want that? We do. So we may not love the process, but we can trust God with our lives, even with the painful parts.
Psalm 10 acknowledges the painful part of the process and really describes what we all feel sometimes. Right before the psalm gives that amazing encouragement that God does sees the afflicted, the psalmist says "The helpless are crushed, sink down and fall by his might. He says in his heart, 'God has forgotten, He has hidden His face, He will never see it." This tells me there will be times when we will feel crushed and that we will feel like we are sinking. It will appear like God has forgotten us, that He's hidden His face and that He will never see our situation or that He'll never act. Thank goodness the psalm goes on to say the exact opposite and leaves the reader with hope that God does hear.
Psalm 9 says it best, "For the needs shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever." So even if our hope is languishing, it shall not be that way forever....
No comments:
Post a Comment