Oct 26, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word
Hi there! Welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. You can also find a link to all the posts in this series on Day One. I hope you enjoy diving in!
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You know what can really throw you off your game when you’re preparing for a race? When one of your competitors false starts. You’re standing on the blocks and the buzzer is about to buzz, you’re focused on swimming your race and you know what you need to do once you hit the water. The buzzer goes and you spring into action and you’re on your way, and then you hear the loudest, most unpleasant repeated honking sound and you know — somebody false started and you’re going to have to get back on the blocks and do this thing again.
Those were the rules when the hubs swam in South Africa years ago, and when I swam in high school. It was quite an inconvenience to have to swim back to the wall, get out of the pool, and prepare yourself wait for that buzzer and spring into action all over again.
The rules in swimming (and track and field) have changed now, and if a swimmer false starts at the Olympics, they will automatically be disqualified. The race will carry on. Like one swimmer in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, you could train your whole life for this moment, miss the timing by false starting and lose the chance to swim your race because you moved a fraction of a second too soon.
Over the course of the conversation this month, we’ve talked about When to Get Up, slowing down to make Room in the Margins, Keeping Pace, and even trusting God In the Waters of Postponement. And yesterday, we added the important concept of Rest to the discussion, as a reminder that our life has to take place inside a balance of time when we are focused and working, and time when we are allowing our souls to breathe and giving our bodies the rest they need.
So, you might ask, how do we know? How do we know when our race is in the waters of postponement? How do we know when to get up? When to rest?
Here’s a little story about that, with a little backstory that I’m very fond of.
In 1 Kings, the story of Elijah the prophet is told. He has a boldness that I enjoy reading about, and the gifts that he has kind of make him seem like a stealthy spiritual super hero. Where we’re picking up in the story, things are not so nice in the nation of Israel. The wicked king Ahab is ruling, with his exceedingly wicked wife Jezebel steering his hand, and the people are worshiping Baal instead of the God of Israel. (Worshiping Baal often involved self-affliction, ritualistic prostitution and even child sacrifice, so in addition to the fact that this is a completely false god and they’re turning their back on the true God who loves them, this is a pretty nasty deal.)
Jezebel has gone on a rampage to kill any prophets that belong to the God of Israel — anyone who could continue to share His truth and speak against the way this wicked king and queen are steering the nation.
Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to a sacrificing contest. He says, “Let’s head to Mt. Carmel, each build and altar and sacrifice a bull on it, but we won’t light the sacrifice on the altar. We’ll pray and see whose God accepts their sacrifice. And you guys can go first.” So the prophets of Baal build their altar, pile up the wood, load up the bull, and promptly start a prayer ritual to pray that their “god” will accept the sacrifice. They holler and scream and dance and shout for hours. They cut and lance themselves and they’re leaping around their altar and bleeding all over the place.
Elijah looks on, and teases them. One translation of one of his comments is that they should “Cry louder…maybe their god has gone to the bathroom.” HAHA!
Nothing happens to their sacrifice, and finally, in the evening, Elijah draws the people’s attention. He finds twelve stones to build an altar. He digs a big trench around it, puts the wood in order, lays the bull in pieces on the wood, and then proceeds to pour water on the sacrifice. He dumps gallons of water onto the sacrifice until the trench he’d dug around it is full of water and everything is soaking.
Then, he prays and calls on the name of the Lord and the Lord sends fire, which consumes the sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the dust, and even the water in the trench is “licked up” by the flames.
It’s clear who the true God is, and he orders the false prophets of Baal to be killed. Those false prophets were Jezebel’s minions, so she is furious.
She sends a message to Elijah that she will make his life like the life of the prophets he destroyed by tomorrow. He sees the message and runs for his life. He travels to Beersheba, leaves his servant there, and then goes a day’s journey further, sits down in the wilderness under a broom tree and asks the Lord to take his life before Jezebel does.
He has just had this mountaintop victory and now he’s on the verge of total meltdown.
He lay down to sleep under that tree, and an angel of the Lord touched him and encouraged him to arise and eat. He ate and drank and lay down again, and the angel returned again, and said, “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.” So he arose, ate and drank, and then” traveled in the strength of that meal for forty days and forty nights.” I suppose he was so full of fear, he was a bit like Forest Gump and he just felt like running.
Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.
Psalm 103 puts the concept I want to emphasize quite well in verse 14: The Lord knows our frame, he remembers we are dust.
Elijah had an amazing victory on Mount Carmel, but immediately afterward, he was shaking in his sandals. The Lord knew his frame, knew him inside and out, and knew that when he saw that message from Jezebel, he was going to start running. So what did the Lord do? He prepared him for the journey. He gave him water to drink and food to eat, twice, before the journey began. There was a time to prepare for the journey and there was a time to set about the journey.
Although we might not experience a So You Think You Can Sacrifice kind of moment, where we face off with 400 prophets to prove the existence of the one true God, we are likely to have some mountaintop moments in our lifetime, and there will be other moments where we will completely despair our own existence. In every situation, the God who created us can look deeply into us, heart and soul, and lead and guide us, based on His plans for our life, but also just because He knows our frame.
It turns out, when Elijah finished running, God simply asked Him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Elijah explained the situation from his perspective, and God responded by reminding Elijah of His incredible power — the scene where He was not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire that He caused to pass Elijah by on the mountaintop, but He was the still small voice. Elijah heard that still small voice, wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out to listen to what the Lord would say to him.
God gave him directions to go back, and if I could I’d play music from Simba’s decision to go back to the pridelands in the Lion King right now, because it would really just fit.
God knew Elijah would run, so He prepared him to run, allowed him to run, met him where he was, and then gently encouraged him to head back, not to be afraid.
Elijah waited through the strong wind, the earthquake and the fire, and eventually found the still small voice.
Similarly, we often need to be still and listen for the still, small voice of God. It may seem like the world is falling apart all around us, we might be fearing for our lives, or just dreading another day, but if we can quiet our souls and listen, we will hear a voice, willing to lead us. If we are willing to live with a yielding to the Spirit of God, God can tell us when it’s time to get up, when it’s time to trust Him and wait, and when the journey is too great for us, and we need to eat and drink and prepare before we dive in again.
While a false start will not disqualify you from the race that you swim to the glory of God, I think it’s fair to say that you’ll always be thankful for the outcome if you choose to listen for the gun, and hear the voice of God leading you in His perfect timing.
xCC
Oct 25, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word
Hello, how are you, g’day and welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. You can also find a link to all the posts in this series on Day One. I hope you enjoy diving in!
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It was sometime during my junior year in high school, but it was such an odd experience I remember it like it was yesterday. All my teammates were in the pool, and I was standing by the pool fully dressed. I’d gone to my coach with words I just didn’t quite understand myself, but I did my best to explain, “I don’t really know why, Coach, I just can’t get in the pool today.”
The sport I loved so much almost repulsed me. The thought of putting on my suit and getting ready for another practice was so itchy and uncomfortable and just plain awful, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
My coach was very gracious and said it was okay, and I got in my car and drove home.
That strange and uncomfortable feeling passed, and I think I was probably right back in the pool the next day. But why did every ounce of my being want to refuse to swim that day?
My best guess is I just needed some rest.
I was in the middle of a busy year at school, pummeling my way through difficult classes while participating in lots of extra curricular activities, and I think that day my body was just saying: Be still.
Sometimes our bodies tell us to be still with the gentle warning signs that we might be getting sick: minor headaches, scratchy throats, stomach ulcers, and so on, and we don’t necessarily want to listen to them. We want to keep going, keep pushing, keep doing doing doing.
Sometimes our minds give us a good indication that they need some breathing room, we struggle to focus on one thing, we’re constantly trying to work in several different directions, our thoughts are hazy and cloudy and don’t make sense.
We just looked at the clock and have no idea what time it is.
I recently read an article in the Washington Post in which pediatric occupational therapist, Angela Hanscom, discussed what seems to be an ADHD epidemic, and how so much of the problem could actually have to do with the lack of time that children have to play outside, run, spin and jump and just live inside their own bodies, exploring their world.
Her article made a big splash in the educational community, and in a follow-up piece, she described a specific interaction with a parent, some teachers and a school administrator, who were concerned about a particular child who had not been flourishing at school, but showed great potential after experiencing the therapist’s nature-based development program, which fosters creativity through independent play outdoors. Hanscom was invited to this educational meeting, and her recommendation, in the situation of this particular child, was that he needed an hour long recess to play outside each day.
All of the teachers present in the room burst out laughing at this suggestion.
Why? Because there are time restraints and curriculum restraints and heaps of bureaucratic reasons why an hour-long recess is impossible in public school today.
The system is cutting back on the time for recess — which for children, is really a time for rest. Sure, they are physically active when they’re outside, but mentally, they’re not staring at a chalkboard or reading a book, or participating in any other type of classroom-based learning. While childhood obesity and ADHD continue to rise, the system says it cannot afford to give kids time away from the classroom.
There is just too much work that has to be done.
Could this school-related example really be a telling sign of the times?
Are we so convinced that all our toiling and scurrying about under the sun is so meaningful that we cannot give in to the idea that we need to rest?
How often do we go to the doctor because we want the medicine that will cure us, when a hot cup of tea and taking it easy for a few days would probably do the job better?
You may have heard this point a thousand times before, but it has to be repeated because we just aren’t getting it:
God set a pattern when He created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. He actions said to us, “Work is great and very good things come from work, but rest is important, too.” If even the Creator of the universe decides to stop and rest, shouldn’t we?
How are you doing with allowing yourself to really rest? Does taking a day to rest just look like you, working hard at something else? Do you get outside to recharge your batteries? If you have children, have you been outside to play with them lately?
Rest diffuses the stress of the way that we live in this world.
Rest invites peace into our frenetic pace.
Rest creates opportunities for our bodies and our souls to just be human beings instead of always human doings.
An important part of swimming your own race is knowing when not to dive into the pool. If you are constantly going, and never allowing yourself the space to breathe, take a nap, read a book you don’t have to read, look at clouds, or just stare out the window for a while, chances are making a rest a priority will make your school or work life better and your family life better. Most important, it will empower you to “swim” with endurance the race that is set before you…
Make a plan and block out the schedule…let the world keep on spinning, while you get some rest.
xCC
Oct 24, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word
Hello, how are you, g’day and welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. You can also find a link to all the posts in this series on Day One. I hope you enjoy diving in!
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Yesterday, a little discussion began with some not-so-great-news, that may not have been news to you at all. Briefly put, the discussion turned to the enemy of our souls, who uses deception, discouragement and division, among a myriad of other tools in the arsenal, with the intention of getting us off track on the race that we’re running. We should not be ignorant of his devices, but sometimes, we are.
Although there are other tools in the arsenal, today I just want to focus on mentioning one, because I think it is probably one of the most effective tools for pulling present day Christians away from the faith, and a solid focus on their race:
DISTRACTION
Anyone who has ever parented a small child knows what a useful tool distraction can be. The child is focused on a piece of candy in the grocery store, and in order to avoid creating a scene, you distract them with the possibility of some other reward, or even a toy or treat from your purse, so that the shopping can continue without your child screaming like a banshee.
Sometimes a baby who’s been fed, changed, had a nap, isn’t thirsty, and seems right in every other way just needs you to step outside with her and give her some good old fashioned natural distraction.
And after the football snaps, everyone knows that the quarterback who just handed off the ball to a running back will usually still keep his arms close to his chest and run for a while in the opposite direction. Why? Because he wants to distract the opponent from recognizing what is happening in the play for as long as possible.
Distraction can be a powerful tool, but it can also have serious consequences.
Distracted driving is becoming THE problem that police are concerned about on the roads — some researchers indicate that texting while driving is six times more dangerous than driving drunk. How many lives have already been lost because someone was distracted behind the wheel?
Distracted parenting is very dangerous, too. My heart still aches for the mother who lost one of her children when the older child drowned the younger in the bathtub while she was in a different room on Facebook.
While social media can perhaps have some redeeming qualities, the distraction of social media is perhaps one of the newest and most powerful tools inside the arsenal of our enemy.
Not only does seeing the highlights of other people’s lives often discourage us into believing our life is second rate, and deceive us into thinking God is withholding good from us but blessing everyone else, but it also distracts us from the real mission that we have on this earth. While we are busy comparing, or even just enjoying the highlights of our friends and acquaintances, life is happening all around us and opportunities to focus on our race and serve God with enthusiasm are diminishing.
I wonder if the enemy sometimes thinks, what I’ve thought about my children before: The worst thing I can do for them is give them just about everything they want.
Last night on the way home in the car, I listened to a news report of significant fear throughout many west african nations about vaccinations. Many people believe that vaccinations for significant childhood diseases like polio are actually western attempts at injecting people with the ebola virus, or sterilizing children so they are no longer able to reproduce.
I regularly receive emails from World Vision about water issues and hunger crises that are opportunities for the western world to step in and make such a big difference in the lives of people in poverty around the world.
Are we too distracted to give some time and thought to how we could make a difference in these situations?
While we are perhaps distracted from remembering the positive impact we can have around the world because we are very focused on our own little slice of western society (how many Facebook friends do we have in Somalia?), we are simultaneously missing the opportunity for real connection, real interaction, and important real life that is happening right in front of us all the time.
While I almost never try to carry on with a long phone call while with my children, yesterday I was on the phone with a friend when I returned from picking the Tank up from preschool. By the time we made it from my minivan into my house, two children were crying, one because she couldn’t go outside, it was lunch time, the other for something his brother did that I didn’t see.
It was as if my own distractedness somehow created a playground for the enemy to get to work.
I shared a couple of weeks ago how disappointing it is when we photograph weddings, and take pictures of people whom the bride is walking right past, going down the aisle, who are watching her, while she’s four feet away, on the four inch screen of the iPhone, instead of right there in real life. These couples paid professional photographers to capture their wedding day — why aren’t the guests able to be present and live and enjoy this moment? Because they are thinking about posting it to social media once the moment’s over. But isn’t it funny — in a way, we actually miss the moment when we try to “capture” it with our phone. We might post it for our friends, but were we really all there?
Are we so often looking down that we forget to look up?
Our unpleasant habit of constantly seeking entertainment and rejecting quiet and living with our noses near our screens is causing us to miss out on real moments with our real spouses and real children and the real friends around us, and more important, to be present enough to see the opportunities we have each day to serve and to glorify a very real God.
Jim Elliot once said, ““Wherever you are, be all there! Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.”
Wouldn’t we be a force to be reckoned with, if we were fully present and thinking of God’s purposes in every situation?
Here’s the thing, friends. God has a beautiful, incredible plan for your life. But there is a snake in the grass who would love to keep you too distracted to swim the race God has planned for you. It is hard to hear the voice of the Lord saying This is the way, walk in it, when there are so many other voices competing for our attention.
A turn for us will take daily, conscious, deliberate decisions. A decision to turn away from distraction and turn toward focus. A decision to turn off the TV and turn the pages of the most incredible book ever written. A decision to turn away from excessive consumption of social media and turn toward the real life opportunities for connection and interaction that we are missing because of our distraction.
We cannot love our neighbors — the people we live in community with both locally and globally, if we are too distracted for genuine interaction.
If I could ask one thing of you today, I’d ask you to look at your own patterns. Observe your own interactions with your family, your friends and co-workers. Are you sitting on the sidelines distracted? Does the thought to offer a prayer for a friend in need cross your mind? The thought to invite someone new to join you for dinner or church? The thought to speak the name of Jesus in a world that desperately needs to hear it?
With God in us, we have the potential to be fiercely faithful, gloriously taking back the ground the enemies of God would attempt to take for their own.
But storming the gates will require discipline of mind and focus, and a deliberate decision to daily swim the race God created each of us to swim.
Where are you today? Be all there. Live for God’s glory and refuse to be distracted from the deep and abiding reasons you were created. You were made for a story that is nothing short of glorious.
xCC
Oct 23, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word
Hello, how are you, g’day and welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. You can also find a link to all the posts in this series on the Day One. I hope you enjoy diving in!
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If there’s one thing that’s not a super popular discussion-starter, it’s the part where we talk about the enemy of our souls. The fact that we have an enemy that doesn’t want us to succeed is just not a happy thought. The truth is, however, we do have an enemy, as Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians “for we are not ignorant of his devices.” {2 Cor. 2:11b}
But the tough thing is we are (at least a little bit) ignorant of his devices. We forget that Satan “prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” We forget the calling to “resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.” {1 Peter 5:8}
So in case no one ever has before, let me pull back the curtain on a couple of areas where some of us might be ignorant of his devices. Because the truth is, he sees you, he knows you’re running this race, and it’s not a stretch to think that his leagues of minions are involved in doing the work of defeating you, so that your race is not the gloriously incredible story God created it to be.
DECEPTION
The greatest lie the enemy of our souls will ever put forth is to believe that he doesn’t exist, or perhaps just that if he does, that his existence has no bearing on our lives whatsoever. If we believe that, we are deceived. If we believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, then we cannot simultaneously believe that 1) we don’t actually have an enemy or 2) his movements have no bearing on our lives.
Deception can come in many forms. We might be deceived into believing our husband or wife no longer loves or cares for us, when they actually love us just as much today as they did yesterday. We might be deceived into believing that something we’re working toward is too hard for us, and we’re meeting too much resistance, so we’re not supposed to do it. Some wonderful thoughts are whispers that come from the voice of God, some of our thoughts are our own, but some, unfortunately, are whispers from the enemy. If you can be deceived, you can perhaps be sidetracked from swimming your race.
DISCOURAGEMENT
Similarly, the enemy of our souls loves to discourage us. One example — that we’re trying to do something we’re not capable of doing. I sensed the Lord directing me to write for 31 Days again this year. As the month has progressed, I’ve sensed the enemy of my soul just whispering — you can’t finish or you shouldn’t keep going. Or other similarly discouraging things.
Satan loves to fool us into thinking we’re disqualified when we’re not. We spoke earlier this month about disqualification, and the truth that we are all now qualified because Jesus swam the race that qualified us all to become the children of God, rightly-related to Him by way of the forgiveness paid for with the cross. But we are often discouraged or deceived, to think that we haven’t done enough, haven’t earned it yet, or we’re just not good enough to be eligible for that forgiveness and reconciliation. We believe we’re disqualified, when in truth, the very fact that we’re sinners is what qualifies us!
DIVISION
Oh how the enemy of our souls loves division! God desires His body to have many parts, but be one whole. He wants us to show the world that we are Christians by our love for one another. But we fall so short, and sometimes that’s because there’s a wolf in the sheepfold. Perhaps Satan whispers that we deserve some placement or position we feel we’re not getting in our church. Perhaps, like Paul discussed with the Corinthians, we are offended by something and choose to hold onto unforgiveness. Instead of letting it go and forgiving, we allow the enemy a foothold to our very souls where all sorts of bitterness, anger and resentment can begin to grow and bear fruit.
We think that division comes over significant issues of the faith, but often it comes because we are human and simply couldn’t learn to forgive, to find compromise and learn to get along. We want to be preferred and we feel entitled to — I’ll just stop dancing around the most important word for all this — we’re prideful. We are so prideful.
And from the beginning, pride was the tool the enemy used to pull the children of God away from right relationship with God.
Remember what the serpent said to Eve? {See Genesis 3 for the whole story.}
“Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree in the garden’?”
And she said, “We can eat the fruit of the trees in the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'”
And pay close attention to the serpent’s response... Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good from evil.”
When Satan fell, why did he fall? Pride. He wanted to be like God.
When Adam & Eve fell, why did they fall? Pride. They wanted to be like God. They didn’t believe that God knew what was best for them. They were deceived into believing that God was withholding something good from them. They thought they knew better, so they ate the fruit, and found out how deceived they really were.
Friends, I think this discussion will continue tomorrow, but here’s what I want to conclude with for now. Please know that the enemy of your souls is prowling about. He wants to deceive you in so many ways. He wants you to believe you are somehow not good enough to swim an amazing race for the glory of God. He wants you to be deceived about the goodness and the trustworthiness of God, and instead to believe that God is withholding good things from you.
Your greatest weapon in this battle is the same weapon Jesus used in His confrontation with the enemy in the wilderness: the Word of God. Before those whispers come, and come they do, dig deep into the Word of God, store it up in your heart, and make sure the truth of God is telling you how to swim your race. If the enemy has anything to say about it, he’ll have you swimming in the wrong lane, headed in the wrong direction, but God has a plan for your race. He has a vision for your story, to be a part of His story, and it is the greatest story that has ever or will ever be told.
So swim your race today friends, not ignorant, but mindful that there’s an enemy interested in sidetracking you today and every day. Remember that the God who takes residence in your heart by way of the Holy Spirit is greater than our enemy in the world. Victory is yours because of Him!
xCC
Oct 22, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word
Hello, how are you, g’day and welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. You can find a link to all the posts in this series on the first page. I hope you enjoy diving in!
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At present, I’m slowly swimming toward the end of a season that has been a bit of a challenge for me. When my Dad passed away, there were two other estates in my family that also needed to be settled in order to settle his. This meant opening three bank accounts, dealing with three sets of assets and researching three sets of liabilities. Looking at how tax liabilities differed based on when each family member passed away, paying three sets of bills to our lawyer and so on.
Today, I’ll be signing the paperwork that will mean the second of those three estates can be closed. (Two down, one to go…) This morning, as I reflected on the challenges I’ve faced in walking through this process, I couldn’t help but consider God’s faithfulness throughout this process.
As I faced the challenge of working my way through getting things done, there were a few times when I hit a wall and just felt I couldn’t keep going. It just felt too challenging to put this task on top of the rest of the things that make up my life.
But somehow, the Lord met me at every bend in the road. I breathed a deep breath, maybe hit the pause button for a day or two, and then carried on.
It has felt a bit like wandering in the wilderness at times, but in a wilderness authored by God, there is always bread.
When God appointed a season for the Israelites to wander in the desert, because of their unwillingness to follow His leading and take the land He promised them, He brought them out to bring something into them. He pulled them away from the distractions and duties of normal life to show them something about His character and His faithfulness.
He didn’t let them faint, even in the desert — a place where life struggles to survive without some serious adaptation. He gave them water to drink, and each day, He made manna fall from heaven so that they would have food to eat.
This daily bread from heaven, which they gathered six days a week (since they gathered double the day before the Sabbath) for forty years, was probably a little bit humbling for them to receive. It might’ve tasted sweet and been a good filling meal, but having it day after day and year after year eventually frustrated them and caused them to get angry with God. They didn’t want to continue wandering in the desert, they didn’t want to keep eating manna. But they hadn’t yet learned the incredible faithfulness and incomparable holiness of the God that chose them to be His people.
It was hard to be humble and to just keep being faithful.
We don’t always value faithfulness these days. We certainly don’t want to eat the same thing every day, wear the same thing or do the same thing. We like change and new tastes and new places and new experiences. We redecorate as the seasons change and look forward to out with the old and in with the new.
But there are so many lessons for us, so much we can learn, so many ways we can be stretched and our faith strengthened, in seasons where we aren’t called to the new and different and exciting and amazing — we are just called to be faithful.
It’s humbling to just keep being faithful.
I felt I was nearly on the verge of a breaking point (again) about a week ago. Then I received a phone call that I could go sign the paperwork to close the first estate.
God knew what I needed and when I needed it and at every turn in this nineteen-month journey, He has given me the bread I needed to keep going.
Our challenge to trust God through every circumstance we might face in our lives is a challenge to trust His faithfulness to give us our daily bread. Why is it daily bread? Why don’t I give my children seven days worth of breakfast on Monday morning? I’m pretty sure they couldn’t ration their breakfast enough to make it to Thursday.
Why doesn’t God give us everything we want right now? Because He cares about us, and knows best how to give us what we need when we need it.
These words have been a source of encouragement to my soul for many years now:
Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart. {Psalm 37: 3-4, NKJV}
How about this instruction to feed on His faithfulness? Remembering, enjoying, savoring and giving thanks for the faithfulness of God — this is very good nourishment, food for our souls. We delight in Him when we think about His goodness, rejoice that He is good, and enjoy entering His presence with praise and thanksgiving. And as we trust that He is good, and we drink deeply of the well of His faithfulness, so He meets us and gives us the desires of our heart when He sees that the timing is right.
Perhaps you’re in a wilderness now. In the race you’re swimming, you feel humbled by what your life requires of you. It is hard to be faithful when you can’t see any change on the horizon. But God cares more about the character He is forming in us than about just making us happy. Your faith can be proved and improved in the wilderness like no where else.
Be encouraged there, and keep your eyes wide open. You will see God’s faithfulness, even in the driest of deserts.
In a wilderness authored by God, there is always bread.
xCC
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