Some people need a lot of reassurance about God’s care for them, and I must be one of them. He keeps telling me that He will take care of me.
Today I’m reading 1 Kings 17. It is about a divine drought declared by the prophet Elijah. He says, “As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word.”
Growing up on a farm makes me a weather-watcher. My father constantly checked so he knew how to plan his days and weeks. It became a family habit, but not only that, I know what a long, dry spell can do to crops, and ultimately our food chain. City folks love a hot, dry summer, but farmers do not.
God sent Elijah to a remote place where there was a brook for water. The Lord sent ravens to feed him. After a time, the brook dried up. The prophet was not going to escape the effects of this drought, but God had a plan. He sent him to the home of a widow.
The widow was about to use her last handful of flour and bit of oil to make a last meal for herself and her son. Elijah asked her to use it for a meal for him. I can imagine her thoughts. This is all I have. What nerve this man has! I am about to perish in this dry spell and he wants to take my last bit of food. She must have been very fearful.
My drought is not food, but time. This past two weeks have taxed me to the limit. I’m grabbing moments here and there to do a few household essentials, getting up early and staying up late. I feel like my time/energy cupboard is bare, but the demands of the necessities are relentless. Some things are not happening and while most of them can go by the wayside, it bothers me that I cannot complete my normal responsibilities.
God understands. He understood the drought (it was His idea) and the needs of both Elijah and the woman. Verse 14 Elijah explains, “For thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘ The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.’”
The woman believed the prophet and God. She made the food, fed Elijah first, and “she and her household ate for many days. The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by Elijah.”
God created flour and oil, but also time. At one point in Old Testament history, He made time stand still, and while this is not the norm, it sometimes seems as if that happens. I’ve had days where so much fits into so little time. How does that happen?
Oh yes, there are days where time seems to whiz by and nothing gets done, but He speaks from these verses, and says to me, “Maintain the priorities I give you, and you will have enough time and energy. Take care of your husband, take care of your household, be here for people, but first, take time for Me. Give Me your heart. Listen to what I say and do it. The clock will not run out; you will have all the time you need to do everything I want you to do.”
Because marriage makes “two people one flesh” (Genesis 2:24), what happens to my husband affects me. Whatever happens to me, affects him. We share our lives, and this past week that sharing has become more distinctive in several ways.
For one thing, the hospital nutritionist said that his diet was pretty good, but suggested he follow the Mediterranean Diet, good to promote a healthy heart. It makes sense that both of us eat the same things, so I’m also following the same diet. Already, we have both dropped a few pounds and feel really good.
I’m also seeing that his heart attack is my heart attack, but not the physical kind. God is using what happened to my husband to show me how to improve some of my heart’s attitudes. One of them involves submission.
I’ve often said that submission means being free from the tyranny of always needing to have my own way. However, being a “kept woman” who does not work outside the home and most of the time has freedom to plan her own day, by default, I usually have a lot of freedom to make my own choices. This is not in a sinful sense since God overrides and is my constant Guide who directs my decisions, but unless He tells me otherwise, my days are routinely predictable.
All that has changed. I am now chauffeur and errand runner. Every day brings trips, errands or appointments that I normally would be involved in, as well as lifting, carrying and so on, all things that my husband would usually do for himself.
Normal-me would find this role irritating to say the least. After years of being alone most of the day, even having someone around all the time takes adjustment. But the heart attack, both his and mine, has an effect of changing normal. I’m noticing an unexpected lack of feisty in me, a surprising willingness to go along with this without impatience or annoyance.
Some might think, Of course. You should be darn glad you still have your husband, glad that he is here for you to help. They are right, and I am, but I am also aware of my own selfish and proud heart. I like to decide my agenda and plan my activities. I like to pace myself, think of what comes next. Now all of that is impossible, and I know without a doubt that apart from grace, I couldn’t accept these changes, at least not easily.
Today’s devotional verse is 1 Peter 5:5. It says, “Likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’”
This tells me the reason I need to submit to my circumstances. It is not only to be helpful and generous with my time and energy, but also that pride does not have an opportunity to interfere with grace. If I refuse submission, I would dearly miss out on a great blessing from God.
My husband needs me right now, but I know how much I need grace all the time. This verse shows me that if I, in stubborn pride, refused to yield to his needs (even in my thoughts) and insist on having my own way, I would cut myself off from the grace of God and nothing gives me a greater horror. I see grace as God revealing Jesus Christ to me in such a way that I am changed to be like Him. Apart from grace and apart from seeing Jesus, I would be stuck in the tyranny, stuck in the darkness of a selfish heart. Again, the thought of losing grace is a great horror.
Bob’s heart will heal, but forever bear a scar. That is the way of a heart attack. My heart will never be the same either. That is the way of grace. Through my heart attack, the old me is losing something in it’s struggle to have control. That is a good thing.
It also puts a different spin on Psalm 73:26 which says, “My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Today, the new me rejoices that the Lord is the strength of my heart. Because that is true, the normal me is failing but He is stepping up to take His place and be what my heart needs.
How could I not believe that God heals after watching my husband in the past few years?
First, he had pancreatitis and could not digest fats. He took enzymes so he could eat without problems. During that time, our pastor said he would have a prayer time for healing every time he preached on a text that was about healing. He called the elders to the front of the service and they prayed with and for anyone who went forward.
My husband, an elder at that time, prayed for several people. He never mentioned his own ailment to anyone, but it seems God healed him during that first healing service. Even though it is not supposed to just ‘go away’ he no longer has pancreatitis.
He’s had a few other things that required medical attention. People prayed for him, and his healing came extremely quick, faster than normal. Then he was diagnosed with CLL last June. Since then, people began praying about that. He has had no symptoms, and at this time, seems completely unaffected by this chronic form of leukemia.
Now this heart attack. He got into the hospital within forty-five minutes of his first symptoms, which was good, but was given a triple overdose of blood thinners, which was bad. Nevertheless, he was alert throughout, even during the insertion of the stent in his heart artery. He got up from that process and walked to the Gurney, much to the surprise of the medical staff. During all that time, people were praying.
At the moment, he is downstairs unloading the dishwasher and making breakfast. He is obeying orders that forbid him from working or driving, but is walking, taking calls, catching up with his e-mail, and feeling wonderful. It is almost as if last week did not happen.
While doctors, and good general health and self-care play a part, Jesus is the healer. Mark 6:56 says, “Wherever He entered, into villages, cities, or the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged Him that they might just touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched Him were made well.”
Whenever I read about the healing that Jesus did, I notice one thing. He didn’t pick and choose; He healed “as many as touched Him.” Sometimes people pray for healing and when it doesn’t happen, they fear they didn’t have enough faith, or they were not asking right, or they have done some horrible thing and God is mad at them. However, Jesus didn’t pick only ‘good’ people to heal; He healed whoever came.
During our infrequent healing services at church, the pastor carefully points out that God has not changed. He still heals, and we must believe that He can, but we must also trust His decisions. Some sickness has a purpose behind it. In another church in another part of the world, another pastor explained that God allows sickness sometimes so He can heal it and be glorified, sometimes to chasten sin, sometimes to draw people closer to Himself, and sometimes because that is the method by which He is going to take a person home to be with Him. He may not heal because being sick is part of His plan for that person.
What has been affirmed to me this past week is that when dying is not your turn, it is not your turn. God controls life and death. My husband, had he not been cared for so quickly, would have died. The blood thinner could have killed him. But God has His hand on all of this; He put it into Bob’s head to go quickly to the ER, and somehow He kept that attack and even the blood thinner from doing what they were trying to do. It was not his turn.
Why does God heal one person and let another die? That is too big a question for me. Someday I will know. Right now, I know that whatever He does, it is based on a knowledge and a mercy that will take an eternity for me to understand and appreciate.
Every time I hear someone talk about a “thorn” in their side, they are talking about an annoying person that they have to live or work with. They complain about the irritation and consider themselves a victim. However, yet the source of the label “thorn in the flesh” has far more behind it than being irritated.
This saying comes from 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. I’ve often thought this passage contains one of the most important yet unknown and unpracticed reality in the Christian life.
It says: “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
The Bible doesn’t identify Paul’s thorn. It could have been a physical problem, but some think that it is a demonic being used by Satan to influence someone Paul knew, maybe an enemy of the Gospel. Whatever it was, God allowed that “thorn” to be there for a reason.
Most of us, me included, want the thorns out of our lives and, like Paul, ask God to remove them. I’m almost certain that most of us miss the point (no pun intended) of what God is doing. He hasn’t made a mistake by putting us in a tough situation or with an antagonistic person. In stead, He wants us to learn an amazing reality; weakness is a good thing.
Before I became a Christian, I was capable of handling anything, and if a problem was beyond my abilities, stubborn strength saw me through. The experience of a failed marriage knocked me off my perch. In that weakness, I was ready to at least listen to God.
At first, He simply loved me, but over the next years and to this day, He keeps showing me that being weak puts me into a unique place. Here, in weakness, I can experience grace, power, and strength from Him.
In Paul’s life, the thorn was to keep him from exalting himself because of the amazing things God was showing him. My thorns are here to keep me from relying on my human strengths. I’m hard to convince, even though Jesus said, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing.”
That “nothing” is about the will of God and things of eternal value. I can still write a story, paint a picture, figure out a problem, and balance my cheque book, but I cannot accomplish anything that changes the eternal destiny of someone, or makes me more like Christ apart from His grace and power. This happens only when my strength gets shelved, made weak, put out of the way. Then He is not hindered and can do His work through me.
I’ve learned that thorns in the side have a purpose. Fighting them means I could be fighting God. Instead of begging for relief, I’m learning to seek His strength. What does He want to do with me? How can His power be seen? He will work and He will use me, but not through my strengths but my weaknesses. This is a huge lesson that many Christians never learn. All of us want to be strong and enjoy that feeling of strength and confidence. We don’t like being weak.
That points to another part of the reality that is not in the verses, but it is nonetheless true. It is about how I feel when God’s grace is sufficient and He is giving me His strength. While others tell me that God has used me, I’m mostly unaware of that. All I know is how weak I feel, how unable I am. Logically, if God is giving me strength in my weakness, it seems I should feel His power surging through me, as the verses indicate, but that is not how it works.
We walk by faith, not by sight. We think the power of God in us will produce great self-confidence, the same kind of self-confidence that our own abilities give us. The great secret is that when I am weak, I feel weak, and if in that weakness I obey God, then His strength shines forth, but I don’t even see it.
I’ve assumed He has good reasons for doing things this way, but the only one I can think of is that the grace He pours on me in weakness is for other people, and not for me anyway.
Update: Bob felt well enough to go to church yesterday, but he noticed that singing took a lot of energy and had to mostly "mouth the words." He also noticed that talking was tiring, and even though being there blessed him, he understands that he needs to limit social interaction for a little while. This is going to be difficult for him. Even though the damage is not extensive, the doctor said his heart will take 4-6 weeks to heal.
An old apple tree on a farm we used to own was not producing fruit. One day I took a saw and some clippers and pruned it. Before going after the tree, a little research showed me that the best way to do it involved cutting out old and dead branches. It needed to be thinned so “a bird could fly through it” rather that simply nipping off the tips of the branches.
That year the tree didn’t look so good. The next year it had little blossom and no fruit, but the year after that was amazing. The tree bloomed profusely and bore the apples we’d hoped it would.
Since then, I’ve discovered every tree is different. Some require pruning in the spring. For others, fall is better. Some need to have the tips lopped off because they have become spindly and that type of pruning forces them to become bushier. Some need great care because they bleed sap when they are cut, even after the growing season. I’m not an arborist, but now know that without a little knowledge, pruning a tree without some understanding of the nature and habits of that tree could kill it.
Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit” (John 15:1-2).
Jesus is not talking about trees but those who are connected to Him by faith. He is also not talking about peaches, plums and pears, but about spiritual fruit. Galatians 5:22-23 offers this partial list: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
Anything that is like Christ can be called spiritual fruit. Every time I obey Him I’m producing fruit. Every time I do my own thing, I’ve become disconnected in some way from the true Vine. John 15:5 says, “He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” so I don’t want to drift away. However, abiding in Him means that inevitably He will go at me with an axe, a saw, or a pruning knife.
Getting pruned is part of what it means to be a Christian. When I first started this great adventure with Christ, there were lots of things in my life that were either sinful or had little or no eternal value. Whack! He pruned them. Those I don’t miss. Sinful habits, stinking thinking, stubborn attitudes, stuff that bothered even me but I couldn’t seem to stop doing, were happily taken care of by the Great Vinedresser.
Other things that came under His knife seemed more valuable. It was only after He cut them out of my life did I realize how much they hindered me from a close walk with Jesus, and from being like Him. I also am learning that He knows His trees. He knows what to do with me, and when. His pruning is not painless, but it is effective.
He keeps snipping. Right now I’m aware of some branches that must go: a tendency to point fingers without remembering that most of the time I’m guilty of the same things, a stubborn procrastination that is rooted in lack of self-confidence — forgetting that He is my confidence and source of strength, and a selfish reluctance to serve others when I’m “busy” and don’t feel like it.
I’m sure there are more. A tree hasn’t a clue where the pruning needs to be done, and I am also generally clueless. I do know that it will happen, that it usually is unpleasant, but afterwards there is fruit. I might not even get to enjoy the fruit, but someone will benefit from it, and God will be glorified. For that, I need to be willing to welcome those clippers.
A simple phenomena occurs when an object is placed so light shines on it. That object both reflects some of that light and casts a shadow. The reflection and the shadow are not the object nor the light, but it says something about both of them.
Christians are supposed to reflect the light we have been given from God. That light is Christ who called Himself the Light of the world (John 8:12). When He shines in our lives, we are supposed to reflect His image and be like Him. The only way I can do that is walk in the truth that He gives me, and when I do, He can make His light ‘bounce’ off me into the lives of others. By that ‘reflection’ they will know about God.
The Old Testament prophet Hosea used a different metaphor to illustrate the same thing. He says, “Those who dwell under (restored Israel’s) shadow shall return; they shall be revived like grain, and grow like a vine. Their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon” (14:7).
The people of God (then and now) are supposed to cast a shadow that makes them people of positive influence. Whether by our light or in our shadow, we can draw others to God and be an influence for new life and growth. The word “scent” in this verse is literally “remembrance” indicating that every thought of us should be as pleasing as the aroma of a good wine.
Sounds good, but in reality, many people do not react to Christians that way, or at least to their notion of Christianity. Our reputation is not always like “fine wine” but too often muddied and unpleasant. Sometimes that is a result of the way some Christians behave and we ruin the reflection, but more and more I see us trying to overcome the false way we are represented. Not everyone who claims to be a Christian is one, and unfortunately, the fakes get more press. They also become, in the minds of the masses, what Christianity is all about.
Everyone knows about the rogues and the fundamentalist nut cases, but how many people know about Iris, or Agnes, or Mary, or Ivan, or Steve or Mike? These are real people that live their lives in the light of Christ. They reflect His beauty to those around them. They are humble people who would be surprised how much their shadow influences others. These people, and many others like them, “smell” good.
However, the Bible is clear that those who live godly lives will be persecuted. In our country, many forms of persecution that happened in Bible times would be illegal. For that reason, we don’t get direct attacks. Instead, we suffer such sideways blows like misrepresentation. Instead of being recognized for goodness and truth, we stand in the shadow of false teachers who label themselves “Christian.” These people often wind up in the news for saying and doing the opposite of what real Christians say and do, and their ‘shadow’ has its influence, even on true believers. We become hesitant to identify ourselves for fear others will think ‘fake and hypocrite’ because that is the only kind of ‘christian’ that they know.
God does say that those who genuinely walk in His Light will shine like lights in this world, and that Christ will be seen in them. When Joe Public doesn’t recognize or refuses to honor that Light, we are not supposed to demand our rights, cry foul or complain about the unfairness of it all. Instead, we are to demonstrate God’s longsuffering patience, and keep on casting reflections and shadows.
The bottom line is that Jesus said what happened to Him will also happen to those who believe in Him. That means that if I am going to shine or cast shadows for Him, I might make a difference to some, but I am also going to get shot at by others.
Update: Bob said this morning that getting eight hours sleep is really noticeable. He hasn’t done that for a long time. He will be off work for four weeks, but is bored already and this is only Day Two.
“I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for My anger has turned away from him. I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall grow like the lily, and lengthen his roots like Lebanon. His branches shall spread; his beauty shall be like an olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon. Those who dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall be revived like grain and grow like a vine” (Hosea 14:4-7)
God treats rebellious Israel with incredible patience and grace. Not only will He heal, forgive and restore them, but He will make them beautiful and give them influence over all those living in their shadow.
We have backsliding family members. They made commitments to the Lord, but are not following through, just as Israel did not follow through. At times, I become extremely burdened and discouraged because I see no change in their lives. Sometimes I cry, “How long, O Lord? How long?”
Yet the promises of God are certain. If not, who can have any hope? When He says He will do something, Scripture affirms over and over that He does it. His actions are at the right time and totally effective. He never does anything half way, nor does He make mistakes. It is God’s track record that encourages me regarding our backsliders.
Today I am going to pray using these verses. God, you promised this for Your people Israel. I know that You love them with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3). You also declare Your love to those who trust You, even those who fall away for a time. Because You promise to restore Israel, I am counting on You to restore _____ and _____, not only forgiving them for their backsliding, but bringing out the beauty of Christ in them, and enabling them to glorify You and be a light and an influence in the lives of their friends . . .
Update: Bob is home, and as I suspected, making lists. Our granddaughter said, “We need to divide his chores” but she is at work most days, so most of them will fall on me. He is trying to behave but the heart muscle has no nerves; he cannot tell if he is hurting it or hindering the healing. As God restores his physical health, I need grace to be tactful and patient, but I just might follow my daughter’s suggestion and get some handcuffs!
