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The Lord said: “I am sending an angel to protect you and to lead you into the land I have ready for you.” Exodus 23:20 (CEV)
Life is full of surprises. Sometimes those surprises are humorous, like the other night when I heard a noise and went to investigate in the dark. It was on this adventure that I discovered that our cat was an efficient ‘mouser’. She left her catch for us, completely field dressed and lying on the living room carpet. Had I taken the time to turn on the lights, I wouldn’t have discovered this ‘surprise’ with my bare feet!
Sometimes, life’s surprises are frustrating, such as the night you save up for a date night, only to have a tire go flat on the way home from the date. A tire, mind you that you don’t have the money to fix, especially since you just spent your savings on a movie and dinner.
Life’s surprises can be devastating as well. Job loss, a call from the doctor regarding your tests, or finding out your spouse has been having an affair can send your world into a tailspin. Suddenly you are left to pick up the pieces of life and trying to put them together the best you can. It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without any idea of what the picture is supposed to look like when you are done.
The $64,000.00 question isn’t IF life will throw surprises your way, but how you will handle them. Moses knew what it was like to have surprises thrown his way. As he began his journey across the wilderness as leader of a bunch of rebellious people, God gave him a nugget that each of us can turn to when life’s surprises hit us.
In the midst of God’s instructions to his people he gives us hope for the times when surprises attack us. His words, “I’m sending an angel ahead of you…” should be encouragement to all of us. If you read on through the end of the chapter he promises us that if we will obey his words, trust him with our lives and remain faithful to him, he will guide us through the challenges and surprises we encounter.
Farmers will tell you that ground that has already been plowed is much easier to work. God promises us that he has gone before us. He has prepared the ground so that when we journey through we will have an easier time finding his direction.
Two things are important to remember, however. God has never promised that the journey will be easy. There will be struggles along the way. Secondly, while we hope for God’s promises to be fulfilled quickly, his timing is always best. When the Israelites entered the Promised Land they weren’t given all the land right away. God brought victory in his time and in his way so that his people would be ready for the tasks ahead.
God has seen your tomorrows. While we endure surprises along the way, nothing that crosses our path surprises him. The trials you are encountering are his way to strengthen you and prepare you for the journey ahead.
PRAYER: Father God, thank you for going before me. The surprises I encounter sometimes seem too great and without purpose. Thank you that you know my future and know what I need to carry on. Amen.
For you have upheld my right and my cause, sitting enthroned as the righteous judge. Psalm 9:4
When you think about it, how much of our time is spend fighting for our rights? It could be something as small as the race for a parking spot or refusing to let the person trying to merge into traffic get the spot in front of you. Then of course there’s ‘shopping cart aisle rage’ resulting from the mad dash to the checkout counter
The fight for rights also had a larger, more dangerous tone as is evident whenever you turn on the news. Special interest groups demand their right ‘to choose’. Political groups demand the right to provide programs or funding for their own special projects. Children negotiate in order to get the toys they feel they have a ‘right to have’.
Not all ‘fights for rights’ are wrong of course. Many a war has been fought to protect the rights of those who are being victimized and brutalized. The question one must ask in the fight for rights, especially our personal rights, is who am I ultimately fighting for?
Society in general would never admit it perhaps, but ultimately their battle for rights revolves around their own personal, humanistic world view. For the believer in Christ, the battle for ‘rights’ must always look back to the cross. We don’t fight for ourselves, if we must fight, we fight for others protection for the glory of God.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m far from a political activist trying to start a new version of the crusades. When his disciples were ready to protect Jesus in the garden (a noble gesture I think) he told them to put the swords away and let God handle it.
Maybe that’s the key to effective warfare for our rights. We need to find the balance between standing for God’s standards as stated in his word, and yet be willing to let him fight his own battles in the street. After all, I don’t know about you, but God is considerably stronger, more experiences and better equipped to defend me and himself than I am!
Letting God fight my battles is full of risk though. First we need the wisdom to know when and how to fight. Secondly we need to patience to let the Lord handle what we can’t in his way and his power. That may mean pain on our part. We may experience times of loneliness, rejection or misunderstanding. The battle may take much longer than we were hoping. But true faith in a sovereign God means we trust him to win the ultimate battle. In spite of the fact that it may not go as we’d like, trusting God WILL bring ultimate victory over our physical and emotional enemies.
PRAYER: Father there are times when I get angry and I want to fight. The tools may be words or judgmental thoughts or even manipulation or force. Give me wisdom to know when and how I should fight, and patience during those times I need to hand it all over to you. Amen.
But if any of you needs wisdom, you should ask God for it. He is generous to everyone and will give you wisdom without criticizing you. James 1:5 (NCV)
“There’s no such thing as a stupid question.”
We’ve all heard or said that at some point in our lives. The intent of the saying is, at least from my perspective, that asking questions is not only okay, it’s to be encouraged. Asking questions allows us to grow in knowledge and understanding in a variety of ways.
Still, we all know people who we avoid asking questions to, people who make us feel like a total idiots because we don’t know the answer to something. It could be a boss, a spouse, a professor, even a friend. It only takes one sarcastic comment, one condescending remark, to keep us from ever asking questions again.
How a person responds to our questions is usually a sign of their character. Responses that shut us down or attack our self-esteem are intended to hurt us, not build us up. In a real love relationship questions are never met with sarcasm, anger, or condescending responses. Even if the answer can’t be given, a person of Godly character will always respond in a way that builds up, never tears down.
You can come to God with your questions. He’s proven over and over again that he will never be angry with your questions. Look at the lives of Job, of Moses, of Jonah and others. These were men who at some time or another questioned why God did what he did, or even argued with God about what he was doing. Yet he never attacked them for their questions.
Your Heavenly Father may not answer your questions the way you hope but he will never criticize or use sarcasm in response to your request. You don’t need to be afraid to ask God the hard questions. First of all, he knows the questions you ask before you verbalize them. Secondly, he made you the way you are. He realizes that your mind can’t comprehend the vastness of his wisdom.
God will give you the wisdom you need for the moment. Godly wisdom that may not seem ‘wise’ in the eyes of the world, but is always best for you. Wisdom you can trust when circumstances are tough. You can always trust him to listen and respond in love.
PRAYER: Father, I have so many questions about life and direction. Thank you that I can rely on you for the answers I need for life. Give me courage when the answers I get don’t seem to come fast enough or aren’t what I want to hear. Amen.
“Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.” Romans 11:3 (NLT)
Ever noticed how a campfire dies out more quickly if you spread the coals out? Once the coals are spread out the lack of heat generated drops the fire dies out much sooner than if you’d left the coals together.
The enemy knows that your spiritual, emotional and even physical well-being is much like the coals in a campfire. He knows that there is strength in numbers and that believers banded together in unity and love are disastrous to his cause. The best way for him to defeat you is for him to break down your endurance.
The lie he wants you to believe in the battle for your endurance is that you are all alone in your struggle. He wants you to believe no one else in your church struggles with pornography and if they knew about your struggle they’d surely ostracize you from the group and make you feel second rate.
He wants you to believe you are the only one that struggles with debt and he’ll remind you of the many sermons you’ve heard about tithing and not using credit cards and not borrowing from the future to acquire the toys of the present.
He’ll tell you that if you were responsible and gifted you’d be hosting the small group Bible Study at your home or at least going to one.
He’ll tell you the addictions, the thoughts and the feeling of being overwhelmed all the time is YOUR problem and if you were living by the Spirit you wouldn’t be going through this.
Once again, the problem with all of this is that in each statement he tells you there is a small element of truth. Remember, he is a master at telling you just enough to keep you down, distracted and discouraged.
His tactics aren’t new. He’s been discouraging God’s people since the beginning of time. The first murder was the result of Cain being discouraged because his offerings weren’t acceptable to God. He felt alone and left out. He became enraged and killed his brother. From that point on the story remains the same. Satan tells us we don’t measure up.
Even the great prophet Elijah experienced it and fell victim to the lie for a short time. He’d just seen God work mightily as a result of Elijah’s prayers. He’d just been empowered by God’s Spirit to kill over 400 false prophets. His prayers brought rain to a parched land. But when Jezebel threatened to kill him Satan whispered in his ear, “You are all alone. There is no one who will come by your side. You are doomed.”
Satan’s attacks seem to come at us at times when God’s been the most real to us. Pastors will tell you that the hours and days after a great outpouring of God’s Spirit, Satan will attack with a vengeance. We see it in our homes as well. When God works, Satan works overtime!
It’s what we do with his lie that makes all the difference in the world. If we believe we are all alone in our struggles we withdraw from others. We feel guilty when we can’t measure up to the standards Satan tells us we need to measure up to. We compare ourselves to others and realize we can never be like them. The more negative the thoughts become the more we withdraw and the more we begin to believe we are total losers in the game of life.
The Truth Statement God wants you to remember is that “The struggles you endure today are not a sign you are alone but God’s call on your life to trust him more.” Just as Elijah discovered that there were many who were waiting to come alongside him, there are many who will come alongside you in your struggle.
Elijah’s ability to endure came after he took some time for physical rest and then found others who would support him. Our trust in God and ability to endure comes as we build around us people we can trust. Like-minded people who will pray with us, dig into God’s word with us and understand our short-comings without judgment. Endurance grows as trust in God increases.
PRAYER: Father during the storms of life I often feel very alone. What I see as my weakness keeps me from experiencing your strength. Empower me by your Spirit to keep from listening to Satan’s lies so I can hear your voice through those you bring into my life to encourage me. Amen.
All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us. Hebrews 11:39-40 (NLT)
Trust: To place confidence in and rely on the truthfulness of something or someone.
Trust has to earned, usually over the passage of time. The enemy wants you to believe that during those times when God is silent it’s because he is either unable to provide the answers you need or is able but simply doesn’t care. God’s silence leaves us feeling abandoned and questioning why? Why, when he promises to be with us always, does he leave us when we need him the most? Why, when we seek his power to handle life’s most difficult problems does he seem distant or non-existent?
In a word, the lie the enemy wants us to believe is that God’s silence indicates Apathy. The lie comes to us in different ways. Religion tells us that God leaves us because we have sinned. As sinners before an angry God he refuses to listen to us. In order to offer us some relief religion gives us a list of rule and regulations, dos and don’ts that will hopefully appease him.
The humanist version of the lie is that IF there is a God he is only available to those who help themselves. This version of the lie puts the onus of our success emotionally, physically and spiritually on us. We fail to achieve. We try harder and fail more miserably. Once again the negative spiral continues. The deeper it goes the more desperate we feel.
The version of the God is apathetic lie given to us by society is that we are crazy for even seeking him. He’s dead after all. The Bible is nothing but a meaningless set of stories and outdated writings. Society tells us that science and education are the answer, not a distant concept of some supreme being.
The second aspect of trust is that it is earned over a period of time. Take a look a few other people who trusted God when he seemed absent, distant or apathetic.
- Noah built the ark and warned a people that had never seen rain that it would soon rain and a flood would come. Finally, God’s promised judgment took place, but only after Noah and his family suffered verbal abuse for their actions.
- Abraham was promised a son and yet that son didn’t come until he was long after child-bearing age. When the son finally came, God called on him to execute this ‘son of promise’.
- Joseph waited for God’s promise to deliver the Israelites fromEgypt. He never got to see the fulfillment of God’s promise, yet he never lost hope.
- David was anointed king but was subjected to humiliation, verbal and physical attack and attempted murder for years until he was finally able to ascend the throne.
- Job lost his family, his money and his health. He was maligned by alleged friends and his wife. Yet even though God eventually restored him to health and gave him more wealth than he had before, no explanation was given for the struggles he endured.
The writer of the book of Hebrews reminds us all that many have gone through life enduring trials that seem insurmountable. They lived holy lives of faith and trust yet never saw God’s promises fulfilled in their life times. Our human nature leads us to think that God’s promise of blessing will happen in our lifetime, but the real blessing comes after we leave this earthly shell we call a body.
The Truth Statement in the battle for trust is: Trust in God allows us to live at peace in present difficulties with hope built on the future.
PRAYER: Father God, during the times of darkness and struggle I sometimes lose sight of the fact that you never promised my life here would be easy. During the times you seem distant keep me from listening to the lies of the enemy. Empower me with your Spirit to trust you regardless of earthly struggle. Amen.
[From the series: “Lies that Keep Us from Loving Ourselves”
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 