Hello world – I’ve made my choice and my choice is to trust God over having to understand. Understanding is a very hard task master and allows no rest, because there is always something more to be understood in order to be safe. It doesn’t work.
Understanding is a modern-day idol that masks itself in its “acceptableness” (yes, I just made up that word) within our society.
This past week a friend of mine lost her husband unexpectedly and suddenly because of a heart attack. As I have witnessed her grief my own heart feels raw from the harshness of the reality she faces. I wish I had answers for her, but I don’t. I can’t explain away her pain and I would not dishonor her grief by trying to do so.
So I am faced with a choice:
- to withdraw and hide from the world in order to protect my heart from grief when things I can’t understand or explain happen to those I love or those who love me or
- to trust that God is Who He says He is and that He is much bigger than my understanding … after all He is infinite
It felt absolutely overwhelming when I first heard this news. As I sat searching for words to pray I heard “you don’t have answers, but you have truth”. Therein lies my choice.
I had not realized it before, but these past few days I am becoming more and more aware that sometimes hope hurts because to hope means to give a voice to the longing within me for something I do not yet have.
Psalm 107:9 tells me “For He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with good.” When I look up the Hebrew – the word longing means at a visceral level like a hunting animal longs for food. And how does God fill that kind of longing … with good or more literally translated … are you ready for it??? that which is good, pleasant, agreeable (to the senses), excellent, rich, valuable in estimation, appropriate, becoming, better, glad, happy, prosperous, kind, benign, ethical, benefit, welfare, prosperity, happiness, and bounty. Yeah … that’s what I’m talking about 🙂 Fill my longings Lord!
A few truths for when you are short on answers:
- Our Heavenly Father, has not changed and does not change — He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb 13:8)
- Our God is still Merciful, Gracious, Slow to Anger and Abounding in Loving Kindness and Truth (Exodus 34:6)
- Our God is still good and His love endures forever (Ps 107:1)
- Our God’s mercy endures forever (Ps 107:1) and is new every morning (Lam 3:23)
- God still makes the impossible, possible (Mark 10:27)
- Our God is the Only One who can take what the enemy purposed for evil and turn it to His good purpose (Gen 50:20)
- The Holy Spirit is still our Comforter, Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener and Standby remaining with us forever (John 14:16)
My prayer for you when you have no answers is for the light of God’s truth to destroy the darkness of this time and for God’s unfailing love to destroy the pain.
Hope Without Limits 
Thank you for sharing from your heart. Love you bunches, Joni
I needed that encouragement Joni, thank you. Love you too!
The hardest thing for me to do is letting God be in control. I want to fix everything. I guess I think God won’t do a good enough job. Letting go of worries would solve stressing about things, and when I say things, I mean _______. He seems so lost. I know God has a plan for him, but I don’t think God moves fast enough. Pray.
You’re not alone Judy. I, too, turned to control for many years rather than turning to God. Finally God opened my eyes to see I had made control my “god” rather than Him and it was a a REALLY huge burden I was carrying trying to fix everything for everyone that was sucking the life out of me. I’ll blog more about control in another post as there are so many of us that have been deceived by it.