God really is in control... even for us "control freaks"!

Blessings

By Laura Story

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise

This song speaks to me and says, "This is what you have to remember, Carl, whenever you feel like giving up!"  Whenever you feel like Job did during his trials. 

Job chapter 1:

“In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. ² He had seven sons and three daughters, ³ and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

⁶ One day the angels^] came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan^] also came with them. ⁷ The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.”
⁸ Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
⁹ “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. ¹⁰ “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. ¹¹ But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
¹² 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.
¹³ One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, ¹⁴ a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, ¹⁵ and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
¹⁶ While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
¹⁷ While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
¹⁸ While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, ¹⁹ when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
²⁰ At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship ²¹ and said:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised.”

²² In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.”

At one point, even his wife had given up, and said to him in Chapter 2:

 ^“9 His wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
¹⁰ He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.”

Wow, so much more suffering will hit him, and his friends will give him all kinds of counseling, and in the end, Job never understands why it happened, but he trusts in God.

The Book of Job ends this way in Chapter 42:

Then Job replied to the LORD:

² “I know that you can do all things;
no plan of yours can be thwarted.
³ You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.

⁴ “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer Me.’
⁵ My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
⁶ Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”

Epilogue

⁷ After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. ⁸ So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” ⁹ So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the LORD told them; and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer.

¹⁰ After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. ¹¹ All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the LORD had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.
¹² The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. ¹³ And he also had seven sons and three daughters. ¹⁴ The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. ¹⁵ Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.
¹⁶ After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. ¹⁷ And so he died, old and full of years.

Three things I learned from my pastor’s sermon on this are the following:

        I.      I am shown that God does not cause evil.

     II.      I am sure that my perspective is limited.

   III.      I am satisfied that God is at work.

All we ever need to do when it seems like we just can’t understand something is to realize that God is in control.  I know, I know, easier said than done, but maybe if we let God truly be in control, He will help us live like we believe that He IS in control.  Again, not easy (especially for us control freaks), but it’s what we must do in all situations.  Acknowledge, by faith, not by feeling that God is in control and truly working it out for His great purposes in out lives.  Now that’s all I have to say about that, but I’m going to let God finish the story for my life. I'm going to let Him really be in control!

No "Best if Used by: Date"



Best if used by: Date

 In my morning devotions the other day, I read a passage in Hebrews that I've read dozens of times, but this time, I saw it in a totally new way.  The passage is Hebrews 11:11-12:

"And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. ¹² And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

Wow, it hit me!  God does not have a "Best if Used By: Date" for those that call him Lord and Savior!  I read this and just began to cry!  You see, I'm 54 (soon to be 55), and I just figured that I'd blown it, and that there was no way that God could use an old guy like me for much any more.  Begin a ministry?  What, at my age?  That's just not going to happen!  People my age are looking longingly towards retirement.  Funny, I don't see much about "retirement" in God's Word, but for some reason, I thought I'd been "put out to pasture" by Him already.

I read Charles Swindoll's Daily Devotionals every day, and that same morning I read this in Exodus 2 and 3:

¹¹ "One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. ¹² Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. ¹³ The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”
 ¹⁴ The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”
 ¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. ¹⁶ Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷ Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.
 ¹⁸ When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?”
 ¹⁹ They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”
 ²⁰ “And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.”
 ²¹ Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. ²² Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”
 ²³ During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. ²⁴ God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. ²⁵ So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.
¹ Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ² There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush."

In this passage, which is only the span of a dozen verses or so, we see a span of time covering about 40 years!  Moses was God's chosen man to set His people free.  He tried it under his own power, failed misserably, fled to Midian, found a family that took him in and gave him a wife, a new job (a shepherd, interesting choice of profession, isn't it -- it's a God thing), and a family.  For about 40 years, Moses hears nothing from God.  Then, when he's set up for beginning to think of his life as all ordered and in place, God calls to him from that burning bush!

If you keep reading the story, you see that God has decided it's time that Moses move into the next phase of his life.  Think about that for just a minute.  He's in his 50s, maybe older, and God is going to use him for one of the mose amazing things to have ever happened in His Word.  He's going to move nearly 1.5 million men, women, and children, countless livestock, tons and tons of belongings on a 40 year trek around and around the desert and eventually to the Promised Land!  No retirement for Moses!  He never even gets to settle down in that Promised Land, but he gets to see it, and that's seems to be enough for him.

Ok, so what does this all mean for me... for us...?  I think that it's time I re-think this whole age thing!  God doesn't seem to place a "Best if used by: Date" on any of His people.  When He decides to call someone to a particular ministry, He never looks at their chronological age.  He looks at their spiritual age.  It took Moses over 40 years to get to where God knew he could count on him to get the job done (and even then he made excuses, or tried to, but God didn't let go of him).  Oh, and if you really want to see that this age thing isn't a big deal to God, look at all the "old men and women" God used to do mighty things, it will astound you if you take time to do that study!

I make excuses, age, education, my history of failures, and anything else I can put up there to say I'm not the one.  Not the one for what?  I don't even know, I just put the excuses there and don't go beyond that.  It's time I (we) begin to listen to God's call and stop putting up so many excuses/barriers to what He wants us to do.  I'm not saying that God is going to call me to pastor a church, or become a traveling evangelist, or.... whatever else He could do.  What I am saying is that no matter what it is, I am going to stop putting up walls, excuses, and barriers to what He wants and will do with me.

Years ago, I went to Bill Gotthard's Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts.  At the end of a very long week of messages, we all received a small button with these letters on it: "PBPGINFWMY" - "Please Be Patient, God Is Not Finished With Me, Yet".  I even used that as an excuse.  I thought when God was finished with me, then I'd be able to be used by Him.  What I now realize is that the important part of that little phrase is "God is not finished with me, yet."  He will never be "finished" with me until He calls me home to Glory or I see Jesus come in His Glory to take us home to be with Him! 

Retirement?  I think you may stop working in the secular world, but there isn't a "retirement plan" for God's people.  You don't have a date/age at which you are not useful and cannot be called to do something for him if we are open to that calling. 

Best if used by: NO EXPIRATION DATE

Carl

Plan Carefully

(NIV)James 4:13-17
Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

I have never done this kind of thing before, so please, bear with me as I ramble on a bit about this passage.  For those that know me in a working/professional way, I've always been one to plan my vacation times out to the 'nth degree.  I not only plan, but I plan well in advance.  Usually by the end of December each year, I have always known when I would go on vacation, where I would be going, and what I would be doing each day of each vacation I plan.  I guess for some of you, this is something that's just incomprehesible.  For me, it's just the way I have to do things.  I tell myself it's so that I will save my money and be careful enough to be able to make the plans happen.  In actuality, it's just that I think I have to be in control of everything.


If I read this passage correctly, then what I see is that planning is ok, but we have to plan with the Lord's will in mind.  I rarely did that, except in passing or as a "prayer" that the right hotel would be open, or the right campsite would be available.  These prayers were just selfish ways for me to get God to put his "stamp of approval" on my plans.  I'm here to tell you that is just not how God works!  He wants us to bring our plans to Him, and willingly give them up, give up control to Him.  If we can do that, then, whatever plans we have are not really our plans, but they are God's plans for our lives.  Take that a step further, if we do that, then we should earnestly look for opportunities to serve Him as we live out God's plans for even our vacation time.  In doing this, He will make that time even more re-creating than we could ever imagine!


I learned all of this the hard way, seems the only way I know how to learn.  In December of 2009, I went about my usual ritual of planning my vacations for all of 2010.  I had big plans for a road trip for my birthday, a trip to England to visit friends and see the sights, and my annual camping trip to Donner Lake.  It was all set, and the money was even all there for a change.  Then, January 27, 2010, everything changed.  I was layed off from my job.  Wow, talk about an eye-opening, heart changing event!

It's been a long year and a quarter, and God is still working, but what I see is the truth in this scripture.  There's nothing wrong with making plans, just before you set them in stone, or, as a college professor used to say, set them down in the laws of the Medes and the Persians that cannot be revoked, bring them to God, say to Him, if it's your will, I would like to do live and do this or that.  Once God reveals to you His will, then whatever plans that are made will succeed.

Isn't it time that we all begin to not just ask God to bless our plans, and pray that we get this or that, but that we seek his face before, during, and after the planning?  I know for me, that's what He's calling me to do.

Thanks for putting up with my rambling.  May God plan your day, and bless you as you live for Him!