“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” – Pslam 27:13-14
Father, as we begin a new day we sense somewhere within us a reluctance about the challenges we face. In bolder moments we are convinced we are up to the task and our hearts are resolute in You. But there are many other days when we feel like things are a mess. We see what is lacking in us, around us and to us. It’s strange but it seems those are also the days when we feel that You are quiet and distant when we really had hoped you would rush to our speedy aid. The Psalmist said above, Father, that he had chosen to remain confident in You. We have made that choice also: confident that You are good and that we would be eyewitnesses of Your goodness while we are here in the land of the living. There’s no point in denying it in front of Your all-knowing eyes so we confess that there are certain days when we are anything but assured of seeing Your goodness again. It’s not because it is isn’t there, it’s because we cannot see it when we are distracted with other things, lesser things. We have longed to see Your goodness to us via specific answers to prayer that we feel we cannot do without. We have asked for healings. We have wondered why our enemy seems to be prevailing. You need no additional reminders that we have asked You repeatedly to make certain troubling elements of our lives to go away. And that undesirable thing in our hearts that we wrestle with – why has Your goodness not yet made that bad thing in us disappear? Lord, we will risk it today and say that, on some days, we feel like things are falling apart. Some days we wonder how long you can put up with this. Some days we wonder how long we can.
But you have said that things are not falling apart. You have taught us the principle of resurrection is infused into every place where You are invited to come and stay. You have promised that you are working all things together for the good of those who love You and have answered the call into Your Kingdom and its purposes. You even said three verses above the Psalm 27 verses quoted in this blog that, should our own parents forsake us, You would always be there to take us in. You have promised your children that we will experience fullness of victory for all of the eternal ages. You preached through Paul that there is nothing in the entire universe that will divorce us from Your love. Your Son promised to give us peace while He also promised that this world would give us trouble. So much of Your word exhorts us to trust, wait, endure and abide in You. I suppose part of our trouble is that, even after all this time with You, we still aren’t very skilled at that. We are people of the quick-fix, the instant adhesive, the microwaved meal and the 3 minute bible study. We like arrival but resent the process. We are learning that it is hard to grasp the vision of Your goodness with nothing more than a darting glance. So my prayer for us today is for abundant grace to bear with us in our struggles. We believe that those struggles are temporary but we sometimes feel like they are forever. When You let us up for air please let that air be fresh and crisp with genuine hope. Let those breaths give us all the spiritual oxygen we need for life’s murky moments. Like the Psalmist has counseled us above: we will wait for You, our Lord; we will be strong as we take heart and wait for You. You will empower us to not only be confident…but to remain confident of seeing Your goodness in the land of the living.
Thank you for listening, Father. Amen.
In my current “trial” I have been offered this perspective to consider:
I may not be the key player. It could be that God is working out His character in the other folks’ lives and, for once, I do nothing but pray to stand up under it. I’m very familiar with feeling guilty and often assume a difficult situation is all “on me”. If it is “on me” then I can fix it. However, when it isn’t “on me”, I must wait for God to fix it and that involves cooperation from the other mortals involved. This is unfamiliar territory for me. I continue to learn…
I am confident that I will see His Goodness. Actually, there is a glimmer of it now…that your Monday post reminds me on a Wednesday that NOTHING separates us from God’s love.
We all have those areas in our hearts and minds that we wish our Lord would remove right now, but we usually have not learned the first time He showed us what is needed or that we are refusing to release things completely to His will. The illustration you gave us last night in church that He is so loving that He will meet us at the level we are at made me think about how I had to stoop to my knees yesterday morning in the 2-3 year old class to tie their shoes after class because most of them are not yet able todo it by themselves. He loves us where we are at!!!