Some days the pain goes way deep and the hurt is really real and really hard and the heart hurts and the head hurts and the soul cries and the tears flow and the days are just so overwhelming.
In these anxious-filled, difficult moments, we have an Author writing our lives with pen in one nail-pierced hand and a divine paintbrush of grace-filled red in the other. His blood was shed for us and yeah, He paints our story beautifully now because of it.
He’s our Saviour and He’s made a way for us to make it through this hard place! Only because of the cross, His death, and His life can we have hope and do this hard thing, defying us and staring us in the face. So whatever it is He’s written and writing and hand-painted for your story, you gotta know He’s got this and His sustaining grace covers it for us.
So beautiful you with a beautiful soul, At such a time as this, He is our Healer, our Protector, and our Provider through it all and all the way to the cross He proved it. Now, just hand those anxious thoughts, that fear, disappointment, and deep hurt over into the Saviour’s pierced hands, the one and only Author of our faith who paints our story so perfectly; so beautifully perfect for us at such a time as this! It’s ok then to just breathe and rest in His care and safekeeping and know the promise of Romans 8: 28 is Truth!
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
“Light is sweet and it pleases the eyes to see the sun.”
Ecclesiastes 11:7.
Oh, how we love the light after the bleak and after the dreary! When skies are clouded with gray, oh yes, how we love the light then! Oh, how we cherish the rays of the sun when they win and fight their way through tough clouds and how we remember those rays of sunlight with favor in the storms and in the darkness of our lives. Yeah, in those desperately, dark days. sometimes we just want to throw in the towel and cease to run and forget to stand, don’t we?
Yeah, those just ‘give up” kind of days where we, for some reason, just can’t even stand on the promises of God! Some days and some seasons, It’s difficult to stand for the Truth, to stand for what’s right, to stand for the Light, or to stand for anything at all, isn’t it? No light, no sun, no hope, no motivation and who cares anyway? Just give it all up and dissipate into oblivion. It seems so much easier and safer that way!
Beautiful soul, are you ‘standing’ strong still or has uninvited trouble sideswiped you off stance, off course, run you off-track and mislead you out of whack? Has your world spiralled downward with all manner of distractions, and taken you along for the plummet? Yes, even when the sun shines and the days are good, we don’t see the light of it always, because too much stuff is in the way of our belief and too much dark covers our insight and blinds our pathway.
“They have eyes, but they see not, ears, but they hear not”
Jeremiah 5: 21.
We cringe, we fear, we recoil and withdraw because even in the sunlight the mind is bleak and dreary some days. Well, you and I and we and us ~ When we can’t find the sun, it’s crucial that we look to the Son and the Savior to find His love gracing us even in the dark. Find His care watching over us, even in the night. Find His awesome grace sustaining us over the hard places and the difficult challenges. Find the Truth in His Word to light our way and His protection to guard our minds, our hearts and our souls.
Yeah, in the dark, when the sun isn’t shining for the time, we must seek Him, find Him and follow Him! We dare not wait for life to be perfect and light before we determine to see the sweet, sweet light of Jesus’ face in the inclement weather of life itself.
The writer of Ecclesiastes wisely states in 11: 4,
“Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest.”
We truly have a need to look beyond the cloud and see the Son, even in our darkest hour because when we see the Son, the sun will shine again and once again hope will rise up within our souls.
~k “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
That worry, fear syndrome that wraps its icy fingers around our thoughts to pull us under and render us useless in its power.
The mind is our biggest enemy and our front line of battle. If any fear, worry or negative thinking breaks through that front line to consume our thought life it has the power to weaken us.
I’m so thankful our God is far greater than any threat or enemy attack and trusting Him is the only way to counter the mind/worry/negativity battle that wars within.
Trust Him, no matter what’s going down and always pray continually! God knows what He’s doing in this world and in your life.
So, when great leaders, whom we trusted, rise and fall and COVID trots around the world with icy fingers of death threats and lockdowns and evil riots protest in the streets and on steps of freedom and liberty, where do we turn? Where do we turn when a once normal world that we half trusted has fallen so far down, and gone clear mad, falling so far short of the beautiful Eden God originally created it to be!
It was a world we knew wasn’t perfect but it was livable for the most part. It had its sorrows and setbacks but there could be good news of small serendipitous moments along the way. Little things to add little sparks to our steps and a little hope in our journey. This thing we’ve got now seems wildly out of control in all corners and on all fronts. It’s been two years of ups and downs and thing is, it feels like ten. Anxiety rises and days are long. Nights are sleepless, dark and lonely and shut down is real and frightening. Loss is great, bank accounts topple and jobs are on the line. Kids are masked, overwhelmed and fear-ridden with self-isolation and school shutdowns.
Where on earth, in this wide world do we go with our concerns when even great leaders fall and those we trusted leave us reeling and flailing in our faith beliefs?
Let’s you and I and we and us, never lose sight of the fact that the sly serpent who introduced sin into the beautiful Eden to take it down still slithers slyly into our gardens. It’s apparent, He’s here big time and thing is, we’ve allowed him to worm his way in by letting down our once high standard of things. Over the years state laws have passed to allow him in with an invitation to have his way with things and so our selfishness, our rights and our freedom ruled but the consequences of our actions are devasting and now our stuff is catching up with us. Our selfishness has destroyed us and the freedom we fought for is gone and our freedom of speech is silenced while the death bell tolls the globe.
Thing is, it’s wild and it’s woolly, yet God reigns supreme over it all. His cross crushed the slithering serpent, years ago and His death and resurrection brought the victory that put our enemy in his place even though his arrogance still fights for the limelight, so evident in these days in which we find ourselves.
In spite of the turmoil, chaos and the way of things, God still reigns supreme and victoriously holds this old rugged, wretched world up against the old rugged cross, where mercy and justice meet! Truth is, He’s already defeated our enemy and He brings that victory to us as His victory people. Our part is to stand firm, trusting Him alone, not looking to the left or the right, but staying focused on His resurrection power, knowing that as believers, we are the resurrected people who can face the days with a message of hope and the promise of eternal life! Our role is to be faithful and move out courageously to share simply God’s message of salvation and love to a world ravaged by sin and distraught by its consequences.
There is a day coming when God will overturn this curse of sin and you can take that to bank! Malachi, as a stern prophet, warned of it to a tough audience of disillusioned, cynical, callous, dishonest, apathetic, doubters, skeptics and the truly wicked. Sound familiar? I wonder, how does one address this kind of crowd? Well, Malachi’s style was through dialogue and strong rebuke. His was a wake-up call that spoke of the day of judgment that was coming but with the message of hope for those who feared the LORD. Listen to his words penned in Malachi 4: 1, 2
“The Lord of Heaven’s armies says, ‘The day of judgment is coming burning like a furnace. On that day, the arrogant and the wicked will be burned up like straw. They will be consumed roots, branches and all. But for you who fear my name, The Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.’ “
A Psalm of David brings us back into a calm place, a place of reflection before the Lord, and giving praise to the One in charge when he pens in Psalm 65:5,
“You faithfully answer our prayers with awesome deeds, O God our Saviour. You are the Hope of everyone on earth, even those who sail on distant seas. You formed the mountains by Your power and armed Yourself with mighty strength. You quieted the raging oceans with their pounding waves and silenced the shouting of the nations.. Those who live in the ends of the earth stand in awe of your wonders.”
Let’s live there today in that quiet place before a God who is to be feared but a God of love and a God who desires your faithfulness and complete trust, even when others let us down and the world crumbles at our feet. #Soulnotetoself
Hope and Healing In Hard Places 