Today is the first day in 6 days that I actually feel ... hmm.. what's the word? Alive.
I don't know why exactly, but 2009 has not been off to a good start. I'm so glad that the truth of God's word supersedes all those little "superstitions" that we so often allow to attach themselves to our lives.
Overwhelming grief and desperately missing Cody. Just when I think my heart is on the mends, here comes a suffocating wave.
I lie in the dust, completely discouraged; revive me by Your word. (Ps 119:25)
I weep with grief; encourage me by Your word. (Ps 119:28)
I highlighted these two in my Bible and scribbled the date beside them... 1-1-09
Years from now, I wanna be able to look back and see how God has redeemed and restored my life.
Lately, I feel like I'm on this constant search for truth. Pure, unadulterated truth. Early last year, a well meaning friend, made a comment about how everything that comes into our lives is filtered thru the hand of God. Those words have stuck with me and caused me to ask some hard questions. I have YET to find scripture to back that up. If anyone has any ideas, please feel free to comment. I'm open to truth.
So often in our culture, or maybe it's just the West, we are so quick to accept something as truth that isn't even truth at all. In this season, I'm on a quest to get rid of anything in my life that isn't truth. When we allow something into our lives that isn't truth, we walk in deception which results in a messed up, distorted, even veiled view of who God is.
I believe that God loves Cody much more than me. He died to give him life. I believe it brought Him immense pleasure and joy watching Cody's life here on earth. It caused Him much more grief and heartache seeing Cody's life cut short by cancer. We so often blame God and shake our fists at Him in the midst of suffering, forgetting that He is so for us and so deeply committed to us. God is so passionate about us. I believe it breaks His heart even more when we blame Him or accuse Him of something that He had absolutely nothing to do with.
"Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father." - Galatians 1:3-4
"Cancer has become the Goliath that taunts the armies of the living God and I have a righteous anger over the violation of the name of the Lord. I can't afford to have thoughts in my head that aren't in God's. It's a great misconception to think that God gives cancer - He doesn't have it to give. I refuse to blame God for my dad's cancer, or any other calamity in life, for that matter. We simply live in a world of conflict and sin. Bad stuff happens. While I may not understand "why", I do understand that neither God nor His convenant are deficient. While God is big enough to use every situation for His glory, it doesn't mean that the given problem was His will. Not everything that happens in life is God's will. We must stop blaming Him. The cornerstone of our theology is the fact that God is always good and is the giver of only good gifts. He is always faithful, and always keeps His promises. There is no evil or darkness in Him." - Bill Johnson
6 comments:
Yes, that does get into the Armenianism -vs- Calvinism discussion about where the line is in God's will. I know one thing for sure, we'll not have any questions about it on the other side!!
Sometimes when I read a paragraph like the one from Bill Johnson I often think "I wish I wrote that!"
I'm reading the Bible through chronologically this year. I asked God to bring to my mind something new every day. A brand new thought I've never had before about His word.
God's Word is amazing...
Melissa and I were traveling back from Knoxville on Saturday and Melissa didn't say anything...she just tapped my arm and pointed. Across the sky was this HUGE, ENORMOUS, GARGANTUAN rainbow.
And I thought of God's covenant with man in the days of Noah. He still reminds us of His eternal covenant to us through a rainbow in the sky.
Looking in the night sky and I see millions of stars...and God reminds me of His covenant with Abraham...
And I'm reminded when I look at my children...they are part of the covenant God made with Abraham...I look at my grandchildren and they are part of the covenant that God made with Abraham
And I am overwhelmed by His promises to us.
Kay Arthur writes:
"As I study the Word of God, I find that you get to know God in the Old Testament -- that's where He reveals himself through all these events of history. As you watch Him in His dealings with Israel, in His dealings with the kings, with the prophets, with the individuals, and with the nations, you get to know Him. The thing that I love is that His sovereignty rules over all. The truth that has enabled me to handle whatever has come into my life is the fact that God is sovereign. Everything that comes into my life, everything that happens in this world, is filtered through His fingers of love.
In Isaiah, chapter 45, it says that He is the Lord and there is no other. He creates good and He creates adversity. He's the Lord that does all these things. So from 9/11, to tsunamis, to mudslides in California, to the tragedy of a friend truly believes, yet is not physically healed -- to understand and watch him live through the sufficiency of God's grace -- to see people who lose a child, knowing that God has never left them alone -- this same God, because of who He is, is able to say to us, 'I will cause all things -- not to be good -- but to keep on working together for good to those who know God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.' For whom God foreknew, He predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, and to know that no matter what happens in life, that because God is sovereign, he is able to take that trial, that tragedy, that pain, that suffering, that test, and work it together for my good, and for His glory, and to use it to make me like Christ.
That's peace."
That is peace in the midst of our storms.
Ouida
Call me simplistic, but all this "stuff" happens because of a decision made by two people in a garden a long time ago to go against what the Father told them.
Amen, lynda
"You can shed tears that he is gone, or you can smile because he lived, you can close your eyes and pray that he will come back, or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see him, or you can be full of the love that you shared, you can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday, or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember him and only that he is gone, or you can cherish his memory and let it live on, you can cry and close your mind be empty and turn your back, or you can do what he would want:
smile, open your eyes, love and go on!"
(David Harkins)
"The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger."
Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD." Job 1:12
God allowed Satan to destroy what Job loved, but would not allow for Job's life to be taken.
Yes, there is sin and because of it we have adversity and death. Sin is not in control. Adversity is not in control. GOD is in control...
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