Good afternoon!
Welcome to your afternoon sick-day coffee! May our Heavenly Father call out to us again, afresh and anew, to see Him rightly, and ourselves rightly. Father we desperately need you today. Thank you for being willing and able to guide us and grow us as you answer our needs. Help us to see you in our lives, though we so often and so easily miss you moving and doing. In the name of Jesus, by the Spirit, help us to look for your presence, that we might see you today, and trust you all the more, no matter what is happening to us and around us today. Amen.
Your Evening Song: "Counting Every Blessing" by Rend Collective
Your Evening Scripture: Isaiah 26:3-4
You will keep in perfect peace
those whose minds are steadfast,
because they trust in you.
Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord, the Lord himself,
is the Rock eternal.
...
One of my most cherished memories of my father is when he would take our simple Duplo blocks (think big Legos for little kids) and make helicopters for us out of them. I can still remember some of the directions he would give us as he made something amazing. I won't bore you with them, but even though it's been years, I could make you a helicopter. Thanks Papa.
Now my kids look at me in the same way. I can make them things. I can fix things. I can build things. In their eyes, I can do almost anything. And for a moment, I thought so too.
And then COVID happened. And then one crisis after another, all within the span of about a year and a half. It was the most difficult time in my life as a father. I couldn't fix it. I couldn't make a new situation for us. My control over my life and the life of my family was much more limited than I'd always thought it was.
Lockdown in California. A horrific nightmare of a job situation. Bleeding money. Homeschooling our children. I have never before been so deeply and utterly convinced that I was not God.
What could I do?
At first I struggled with God. It says in Genesis 32 that Jacob wrestled with God. And perhaps I did that. But that is not how it felt to me. I less wrestled and more lay on my face whispering, "God help me," and wept until my nose bled. I was so hopeless, though I knew that God had promised hope. I was peace-less, though I knew that God had promised peace. And I was so weak that I was powerless. Just as God had promised.
But God was not powerless. He was moving and making and controlling and doing in such big and mighty ways in my life that, for the sheer scope and scale of His presence, I was missing it. I was missing Him. Looking back I can see countless ways in which He was acting and moving. He was in perfect control.
I'm sick again with whatever my kids decided they wanted to share. And I've had to lay in bed, powerless. Lately my friends and family have been suffering in all kinds of ways. But without peace? Without hope?
No.
Because we have put our trust in our Heavenly Father, and not in our own abilities. We trust Him. We entrust ourselves to Him. Not hesitating, but eagerly, desperately, knowing for a fact that He will not fail. And so in response to our trust in Him, our humbling ourselves and admitting our weakness and desperate need for Him, He holds our thoughts and feelings steadfast, secure, stable. And He keeps us in His perfect peace.
May we trust in Him forever.
He is the Rock Eternal. Our Heavenly Father.
We may trust in Him forever.
No matter what.
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