Standing on the Promises While Waiting for the Showers

 

My friend, Denise, says that the only routine surgery is one undergone by someone else.  There is truth in this saying, but cataract surgery has become so well-tolerated that most people categorize it as "no big deal."  

Not me.  

I've just come through an ordeal that, but for the Lord, would have been completely beyond my ability to traverse.  There were weeks of sick dread, nightly rendezvous with the Lord, and tears, many tears.  Finally, just two days ago, successful cataract surgery was completed on my right eye.  I did not get sick. I did not suffer light-induced ocular migraine. I did not give way to panic or fear. I did have a ridiculous blood pressure spike, but suffered no ill effects. 

I could record in detail the reasons I was afraid. They are valid, as valid as any fear that is formed from past trauma and layered with present risk factors can be.  I could state the reasons I was vulnerable to a variety of complications so that it would be apparent that according to human logic, I had a low chance of coming through this ordeal safely.  But what I really want to do is to describe the faithfulness of God.  

I have waged battle against fear and the victory was won for me by the Lord.  All I did was to pray and to keep on praying. I also activated two prayer chains and asked my friends and family to pray for me.  Intercessory prayer can comfort and support better than any medication, and although I was embarrassed,  pride gave way to need and to the knowledge that the prayers of Godly friends are powerful and effective.  

It has been my habit to "drop a marker" at the places along my path that reveal God's faithfulness. This is an account of the Lord's victory and not mine; He has been gracious to me.  

Here are the reassurances God provided leading to my surgery day.  I hope others will find encouragement here also:  

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Step aside, take your eyes from fear, and allow your Heavenly Father to fight the battle.  It is ok to go into this naïve, because the Lord is all wisdom; it is ok not to advocate for yourself because He will advocate for you; it is alright to be afraid, because He will keep fear from hurting you. Everything, even the things you think you ought not feel, will work to your good.  The Lord is with you.  Do not be afraid.

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You are striving for the peace of faith in God. Hold steady. 

Your times are in His hands.  He has promised you a routine procedure, and you will have a routine procedure.  

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You are not the only child of God who is afraid.  You will be provided medicine that will calm your physical body and enable the trust you have in the Lord to take the fore.  

Everything is being orchestrated for your good and none of it relies on you.  From God's perspective, He is giving you a wonderful gift.

It’s as though a completely reliable (and in this case, omnipotent) travel agent has said, “Let me handle everything; you don’t even have to pack for yourself.”  

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This entire path has been orchestrated for you and is a journey to blessing.  Do not be afraid.  This is not “the fire,” it is a walk through a garden of new experiences that will usher you to a better place physically.  

The blessings you have experienced as you have walked through infirmity have been mercy drops, like the few, fat drops of rain that precede a shower.  

You are at the threshold of a blessed season; this is not the beginning of the end, it is more akin to a rebirth.  Embrace it as such. 

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Keep up the good fight, as you have done, as you are doing.  But if you “lose it” for a bit, the Lord will not lose you.  He will usher you into the blessings He has promised you by His own hand.  

You are afraid of losing control of your faculties through medication, pain, or fear.  Do not be afraid.  The Lord will not lose control of you, and His intent toward you is for good and not harm, blessing and not curses, joy and not sorrow.  It is true that sometimes God instructs His children not to be afraid though they are walking into fire.  But the Lord has gone ahead of you and straightened your path so there is, from your perspective, no danger and nothing to fear.  God understands you being a tad jumpy; your experiences dictate the validity for dread.  But inasmuch as you are able, expect good and not harm.  Indulge hope, Child.

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You don’t have to be afraid because the great I Am is your Father, and He is at work on your behalf.  Spirit, Son, and Father, together as One, on your side, actively working in your circumstances, nothing can touch you without His permission and guidance.  Be encouraged, dear child, the Lord is with you.  

Allow Room for A New Thing

 If we click on reels on social media, we will find many influencers who possess knowledge we don't.  This is enticing.  

As we listen to counselors and psychologists explain personality types, we may feel a jolt of recognition.  This is what I've been through!  And here is why!  And I never understood what was happening to me even as I was being gaslighted and victimized! By golly, I have been wronged!  

In this way, a two minute listen on social media can bring past injuries to mind, re-igniting them into present pain.  

I have walked with Jesus over a lifetime of prayer, and yet I'm not immune to this phenomenon of a short reel from a self-proclaimed source of wisdom disturbing my peace.  

The enemy wants us to indulge self-pity and to be so bound by past injustices that we are unable to participate in present freedom.  

As Christians we are blessed as we persevere, run to the Lord with every injury, and trust Him to act on our behalf.  God rights past wrongs as we cry out to Him, not always in the ways we would like, but in His own way, which allows space for Him to love and redeem the very ones who have sinned against us. It isn't that God sacrifices our welfare on the altar of someone else's salvation; our Lord does not forget us. But He does expect us to love as we've been loved and forgive as we've been forgiven (Ephesians 4:32).  

This morning I was sitting, immobilized, after hearing a reel that described with uncanny accuracy some trials I went through a long time ago.  The Lord delivered me, but now, with clarity that may or may not be accurate, I had been given labels to characterize the precise sort of injustices I'd suffered.  

But then the thought came that, as a believer, I don't have to count the injustices that have been dealt me; I am assured that even if I forget, the Lord will not (Isaiah 49:15). Righting wrongs is not our work, but God's (Romans 12:19).  As children of God we are safe to entrust past wrongs into His hands and to count deliverances instead of injuries.  

It isn't wrong to be cautious in wisdom based on past experience.  But to rehearse wrongs and feel pain that is no longer in the present is fruitless.  We sometimes are in danger of becoming upset, not because we are being hurt now, but because we were once hurt. In this way, past injury can rob present joy.  

One of God's fortes is to cause those who once disdained us to recognize the error of their ways (Revelation 3:9).  Like Joseph, we may be generous even with those who once caused us harm, because the weapons to hurt us have been taken from their hands (Genesis 50:20).  We can be merciful to them as God has been merciful to us.  

Prayer: Lord, help us not to allow reminders of past suffering to rob us of present peace.  Help us to look at the past through your lens, counting the ways You've delivered us rather than the ways we were injured. Help us to extend to others the grace You have given us.  In Jesus' name we pray, amen.  

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See, I am doing a new thing!

    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

    and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:19

Think About His Grace That's Brought Us Through

 I don't think God is the source of our sorrows and pain, but I am sure that He uses the suffering that comes to us in this fallen world to sculpt us into a closer likeness to His Son for our blessing (Romans 8:28).    Why suffering must be a fact in this age of grace is mostly unknown to us, but we receive enlightenment in the die to live patterns in nature.  A seed must fall into the ground and die before it gives forth new life (John 12:24). 

In one of the Narnia books, C.S. Lewis says that Aslan remains true to His own rules. Likewise, the framework God has set into place during this age allows Him to remain true to His own Holiness and yet offer grace to us, even though we have used the free will He has given to sin against Him. His own Son suffered to offer us Salvation, and God resurrected our Savior as a first-fruit of those bound over to death by sin.  If we suffer with Him, we can expect to be raised with Him (2 Timothy 2:12).

When we find peace in our earthly circumstances, we are less likely to put forth the effort to seek the Lord.  Sorrows, fears, and suffering drive us to the foot of the Cross where we find the peace that defies human understanding (Philippians 4:7).    

God does not willingly bring suffering to us (Lamentations 3:33). We can always trust His good intentions toward us; we can always trust His love.  The enemy will try to twist the fact of God's sovereign power over Earth's sorrows in an attempt to convince us that God willingly hurts us in order to help us.  The secret the enemy doesn't want us to know is that the Almighty God uses even what the enemy means for evil to our good, for His glory (Genesis 50:20).  Evil isn't God's fault.  He gave his created beings freedom, and we used it for evil.  God sent His Son to make us a way to Heaven despite the filth of our own sin.  There is no greater love than this.

I wrote the words above and then went to bed, and sometime during the night watches I realized...I must not think of God as being only partially sovereign.  He is not merely a benevolent King who is determined to bless those who have suffered by the enemy's hand.  In this scenario some evils slip past Him and so He then intervenes to turn it for our good.  Of course this is inaccurate; Hannah Whitall Smith has said we must receive everything from His hand with no second causes.  

We consistently underestimate the extent of our own sinfulness, the disasters we cause via the path of free will, and the measures God takes for and through us in order to secure us for Heaven.  

But...always a caveat; sometimes we hear of horrible things happening that very obviously have occurred outside of God's will.  At those times we give God glory by affirming trust in Him and finding rest in His promise to see us through (Isaiah 42:3). The enemy reigns in the minds of unbelievers and so there is great evil at work in our world. God will have the ultimate victory. Faith in Him will be rewarded. And He sees us through 

Human logic can't track God.  But our free will, a gift from God, allows us to choose to trust in Him where our human understanding can't reach.  

Blessed be His Name.  

First Comes Love

Sometimes, we as Christians miss the mark as we work hard to evangelize in the name of the Lord.  Our goal isn't to get others to act as they should, it is to invite them into the warmth of God's love.  

We don’t want people to be manipulated by fear of our judgments of them, we want them drawn to the unconditional love of Christ.  Yes, unconditional.  Available to us with no other payment than our belief in the work Jesus did for us on the Cross.  His sacrifice, His Blood, the Father’s love, the Holy Spirit in us; and then—and only then--the response of obedience.  

Service to God and good works in His Name unfold in a specific order. First, we learn of the love of God expressed through the gift of His Son. This knowledge of God's love for us fires the response of love for Him in our hearts. Finally, obedience to perform the good works to which He calls us grows from this center of being loved by God and expressing love for Him in return.  

We need to be sure to present God's love in this order, or we are in danger of causing those we target for discipleship to change their outward behavior in order to please us.  They then become bound by a desire to be acceptable in the eyes of other human beings with fear of human judgment motivating acts of service that flow, not from the Holy Spirit's lead from within, but in order to meet the standards of human beings from without.   

The unfolding of a damaged heart in the warmth of God's love takes time.  Pray that those you invite into God's Kingdom may know His love and be cautious of demanding acts of service as evidence of heart change. Obedience comes after one has basked in the unconditional love of God and is a response from within, not an initiative imposed from without.  Lack of outward acts of service is always a sign that we need to know more of God's love.  "If you are really saved, then you will prove it by these specific acts of service" needs to transform into "I will show you God's love and pray for you, and then watch to see what He does through you."  

Once more: obedience is a response and not an initiative.  Let our motivation in evangelism always be this: how may we show them more of God's love.  

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We love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:19 

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 

1 John 3:1