Ok – right to the point today… I feel a bit convicted. After a week of struggle and Hannah-crying-out-in-the-temple kind of pain for longings yet unmet, I find myself tempted to throw in the towel. And not in a “let go and let God” type of way. More like a “is it time to just accept that God doesn’t want this for me?” way.
What kind of religion can be altered at the hands of man? If we can manipulate it to be what we want it to be, to accept what we want it to accept, then we don’t actually have a God – we are the gods. And quite frankly, sin has messed us up way too much to have that kind of power. If your faith is influenced by cultural ideology, then your faith is faulty at best.
Maybe the presence of anxiety isn’t always an indicator of something bad. What if anxiety is an opportunity to trust God more?
Change is coming. It will be good. And hard. Faith-building, and faith-testing. Just like this season has been.
We can expect change. We should expect to see the things we pray for. But if we fix our eyes on that expectation, we will miss out on the best parts of our lives now.
We may not wrestle with flesh and blood, but that doesn’t mean we don’t fight. You have an enemy, and he has one mission: steal, kill, destroy.
So what are you going to do about it?
Walls – like the one I wish I could rip out in my condo – can be synonymous with obstacles. They keep people out. Or keep people in, depending on which side you stand on. And our human resolve often causes us to be obsessed with obliterating obstacles.
Little by little. Seasons change gradually, but they do change. We don’t go from summer to winter without a fall. We can’t bounce out of winter without a spring. God moves step by step, little by little, unwilling to defy the natural laws He put into place.
I’ve been thinking lately about this idea of God working all things together for our good. Sometimes I think we apply this passage incorrectly. We either err on the side of “His glory,” or we find ourselves completely fixated on what He’s doing for “my good.” But I submit to you that these two things are not mutually exclusive. Let’s talk about it…
Don’t be surprised if you find yourself fighting a demon or two this week.
Jesus is most often imagined as the Lamb of God, peacefully abiding in the care of His heavenly Father. We forget that the Lamb of God is also the Lion of Judah. He is King. Kings fight wars, and wars can leave collateral damage. Wars are destructive.