6.30.2011
6.24.2011
Still Pursuing
The heading over Hosea, chapter 11, in my NIV Study Bible reads, "God's Love for Israel". The chapter starts out recounting how the Lord deeply loved, nurtured, and called out to Israel since the nation was young. But the people of Israel seem determined to run from Him. Although their actions deserved much punishment, the Lord responds with mercy in verse 8: "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?...My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused." In Chapter 2, we see similar language: "Therefore I am going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her...In that day," declares the Lord, "you will call me 'my husband'; you will no longer call me 'my master.'"
This language speaks of a father, of a lover, who can't help but follow the longings of his heart. Even though His beloved has turned their back on Him time and again, the Lord STILL pursues; He is STILL ready for his people to turn and embrace Him.
That's the love that your Creator has for you. A love so crazy that He doesn't care how long you have run from him, or how hard you've run in the other direction; He is waiting with open arms and eyes of adoration. His heart longs for you.
When you consider all that we've done to put distance between ourselves and God it is incredible that He still wants us, and is so close. Just like the people of Israel we read about in Hosea, we have prostituted ourselves and forgotten where the goodness of life comes from. We have chosen to embrace things other than the One we have been sworn to. But His love looks past our infidelity; He sees us as who He made us to be, not as who we've made ourselves out to be.
Turn and see how close He still is. See the grace in His eyes and find your identity in the name He gives you. His love never fails, and there is nothing you can do to earn it--just let His mind-blowing love envelop you and forever change the cadence of your heartbeat. Amen.
6.18.2011
6.14.2011
Song of the Week #50
6.11.2011
I'm Having Isaacs
One of the hardest things I have to do is not push so hard that I end up messing things up. When I want something to happen I want it to be done as quickly as possible and in the most excellent way possible. When I know something should happen, I see no point in waiting. Anybody else?
Well the hard part is this: it seems that some things take time. And I hate that. I see all this time transpire between a dream and reality, between a desire and fulfillment, between a promise and the manifestation of the promise…and I can’t help but to think that a lot of that time is wasted. All of that time sitting around and waiting could be used to pursue other dreams if the initial one would hurry up and happen. If you know me at all, you know I hate wasting time.
One thing I can’t push though is God’s timing. I don’t understand why I feel urgency with a promise He has given me and it seems as though that urgency isn’t shared by Him. I have no clue why sometimes a promise will come in an instant and sometimes it takes a lifetime to realize. The very fact that I don’t understand it makes it all the more frustrating!
There’s a million different ways to possibly explain why things take a long time…maybe God is waiting on me to do ‘x’, or maybe my character can’t handle this yet, or maybe He wants to see if I believe Him, etc, etc, etc. Whatever the reason may be, the bottom line is this: the thing I am hoping for is not happening yet.
So I’m left waiting and hoping and trusting and believing in God’s promise…which I’m SO ready to watch happen, but for some reason it is taking longer than I think it should. It is in these times where I try to remind myself not to push so hard. I can’t make the promise of God happen in my life. I can, however, make imposters of that promise if I’m not careful. Let me explain using Abram from the Bible.
Abram had a promise from God that he would be made “into a great nation” (Genesis 12:2), that he would have offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5), and that the promise would come to fulfillment through his own son (Genesis 15:4). Abram tried to have children with his wife, Sarai, but was having no success. Sarai comes to the conclusion that the Lord is keeping her from having children, and suggests that Abram sleep with her maidservant, Hagar, so that they could build the family through her. So Abram married Hagar as well, and she became pregnant.
This is where they messed up. God had already ordained marriage to be between one man and one woman (Genesis 2:19-24). In their efforts to find a way to make the word of God come to pass, they violated the marriage covenant. They reasoned that the word of God was true, but since it was taking too long to happen then they should try something else.
The error here is not in trying. Partnering with God in seeing His word culminate is usually a good thing. A large amount of the time, God’s promise coming to pass in your life will require effort and movement on your end. And if something isn’t working after a while, then it only makes sense to seek out other possible ways of going about things. However, the error happens when our reasoning trumps the word of God. “How did their reasoning trump God’s word?” you ask. This is how: they overstepped a boundary previously established in attempting to make the word happen. They let their own ideas supersede their faith in seeing the word come to pass. They regressed into only seeing the word come to pass in ways they could understand. When getting pregnant didn’t work for them within the confines of what God had laid out, they decided that they could conceive via another woman. Their faith only went as far as their understanding and reasoning could take them.
To make a long story short, Hagar, Sarai’s maidservant, gave birth to Ishmael. After Ishmael was a teenager, God again told Abraham that he would be the father of many nations (Genesis 17:4), and this time the Lord specifically indicated that his wife, Sarah, would conceive even though she was very old and beyond the age of child bearing (Genesis 17:15-16). Sarah became pregnant and gave birth to a son named Isaac. When Isaac was still very young, Sarah demanded that Hagar and Ishmael be sent away. Abraham obliged after the Lord assured Abraham that it was through Isaac that his “offspring will be reckoned” (Genesis 21:12). Thus, the Lord honored his word and opened the barren womb of Sarah in her old age…blowing the minds and the reasoning of everyone.
If we aren’t careful, we can push past God’s timing. Though we may make something happen it may turn out to be a copy of the promise, not the real thing. We can definitely try different things in partnering with God to see His promise come to pass, but let us be very mindful to stay within the confines of what He has laid out. Also, may we all (especially me) embrace the fact that we don’t understand everything about how God’s promise plays out…that our reasoning is not big enough to grasp the ways of our Creator. As much as I hate waiting, I much rather wait on God’s timing than end up with duplicates. I’m having Isaacs.