After the Rain

I was working the other night at the church when one of the little boys climbed on my lap to snuggle as we watched a movie. (I LOVE those moments!) He was curled up in a blanket and let out a pretty big sigh for a six year old. I asked him if he was sleepy, and he said yes. I asked him if he had a long day in school and he said yes. Then he followed it with, “My life is so HARD.” My eyes widened. “Really?” He’s six years old. SIX! And he thinks his life is hard. When I was six, I was playing with Barbie dolls, swinging on our extremely unsafe swing set, chasing butterflies and catching fireflies. Running after my dog, cuddling with my cats. Naturally I went to school, but even school meant reading, playing on the monkey bars and see-saw. It was art class! It was cupcakes to celebrate a classmate’s birthday, and being able to pick something out of the “treasure box” in Mrs. Connell’s class when you got 100% on your spelling test. I don’t ever remember a single moment in which I thought my life was “hard” at six years old.

My nephew is six years old. I wonder if deep down he thinks his life is hard.

There are days I’d swap places with a six year old in a heartbeat.

I hated to be the person that had to break it to him…but life does not get any easier.

On my way to work Monday morning, as I was once again driving in the rain I thought to myself, “I sure can’t wait to see the flowers in May that these showers are going to bring.” Little did I know that God was going to use that thought as a metaphor to speak to me that day.

The “hardships” of this earthly life aren’t getting any easier. Blame it on the economy, blame it on Generation “X,” blame it on the rain. (Sorry, I couldn't resist. And now, you too will have Milli Vanilli stuck in your head!) The bottom line is that life is hard. Sometimes life seems unfair and impossible to comprehend.

A friend of mine just expressed her pain to me in regards to some unhealthy choices her husband has been making. I recently learned that another friend of mine lost his brother last month. I was told of a parent who is struggling with her child’s deep desire to be liked in school and the extent in which she’s gone to “fit in.”

Amidst the emotions of feeling others’ pain, I was informed of another friend who, after several years of marriage and infertility tests had not been able to conceive…until now. Which is a glimmer of hope in a dark world.

I don’t know why some things happen. Sometimes I feel as though on this side of eternity we will never have the answers.

Ironically...(hardly) the daily devotional emailed to me on April 13, 2010 via Ron Hutchcraft ministries was titled, "Shrinking Your God."

One of the great names for Jesus in the Bible is the "Lion of the Tribe of Judah." When noted author C. S. Lewis created a character to be his Christ-figure in his "Chronicles of Narnia" fantasies, he introduced us to Aslan, the lion-king of Narnia. In Lewis' enchanting books, Narnia is a land where the animals speak, where the forces of evil are strong, and where Aslan, though only seen on rare occasions, is the dominant figure. Lucy is one of the children who's transported to Narnia. In one of the later books in the Chronicles, Lucy is finally reunited with the lion-king, Aslan. I'll let C. S. Lewis take it from here: "'Welcome child,' he said. Lucy said, 'Aslan, you're bigger.' And he answered, 'That is because you are older, little one.' 'Oh, not because you are?' Lucy said. 'Oh, I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.'"

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Shrinking Your God."

That is your King's plans for you - that every year you grow, you'll find Him bigger. That's the kind of God you have if you belong to Jesus Christ. You can never reach His limits. He has none. He is all those "omni's" the Bible scholars talk about: omniscient - there's nothing He doesn't know; omnipresent - there's no place where He isn't there; omnipotent - there's nothing He cannot do. The problem is this strange tendency we have in the more challenging times in our life: that the bigger the issue is, the smaller our God seems to be to us. The problem looks unsolvable, the need looks un-meetable, the mountain is unmovable, and we end up handling the hard times as if our God is too small to handle this one.

For all of us God-shrinkers, there's our word for today from the Word of God in Jeremiah 32, beginning with verse 17. It's a wonderful prayer, a powerful prayer from the prophet Jeremiah, and perhaps, the very prayer you need to be praying right now in the face of something overwhelming. "Ah, Sovereign Lord, You made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you. O great and powerful God, whose name is the Lord Almighty, great are Your purposes and mighty are Your deeds." Now listen to God's response: "Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: 'I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for the Lord?'"

Think about it: when your problem suddenly gets bigger than it's ever been, does it get harder for God? When the financial need is greater than you've ever seen, does it suddenly get harder for God to supply it? When your medical condition gets worse, does it get beyond what God can handle? If the person you've been praying for so long seems to be getting farther from God than they've ever been, did God's rescue challenge suddenly get a lot bigger? When the issues with your child or your spouse or your parent take a turn for the worse, is it suddenly harder for God to pull this out? For every question like that, watch my lips for the answer: No! "Nothing is too hard for the Lord" including your thing. It gets bigger and harder for us, but there's no such word as "hard" in the vocabulary of God.

When the ancient Jews saw the size of the people and the defenses in the Promised Land, they obsessed on how big their problem was. They totally forgot how much bigger their God was. And they ended up in the wilderness for a long time, and so do we. You may be stressing and sinking and even sinning right now because you're underestimating your God; you're under-trusting Him.

Faith is the key that unlocks all the great things God has for you. And He isn't about to let your faith stay the same size. He's in the faith-enlargement business. He's let something come into your life that defies human solution, that overwhelms human answers, so you can experience how big your King really is. When the bad news gets "badder," your God does not get smaller. He is still the Sovereign Lord, the great and powerful God. So, let yourself be overwhelmed by the God you have, and you'll find that nothing but Him is truly overwhelming!

From now on, when the showers and even the storms come into my life, I hope I can remember to focus on the flowers that will blossom in my life as a result. Maybe they won't blossom on this side of heaven, but I'm sure there will be fields of color when I make it home!

A Shared Post

Found this last week and thought I would share. Enjoy! :)

The Hammer In God's Hands - #5800

A Word With You - Your Hard Times
Friday, April 3, 2009

Is a hammer a good thing or a bad thing? I guess it depends on whose hands the hammer is in. If you put a hammer in the hands of our little grandson and turn him loose, you're not going to like the results. He's probably going to do some damage with that thing. But I've watched that same kind of hammer do some really good things in the hands of some skilled workmen; of which I am not one. At our home, at our office, I've seen a hammer used to build some things that are really useful. That same hammer in a child's hands, though, "Oh, look out, man!"

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Hammer In God's Hands."

Suffering, pain, hardship, heartache - those are some of life's hammers. You may feel like one of those hammers has been beating on you lately. What you may not realize is who's holding that hammer and what He's trying to do with it.

It was something the prophet Jonah figured out in the belly of a great fish. You remember the story: Jonah had been called by God to deliver God's message to the evil city of Nineveh. Jonah didn't want to. He tried to run from God, actually a whimsical thought if you consider it for very long, by getting on a ship to a faraway place. (Umm...God won't know about this place.) A violent storm engulfed that ship. It endangered the lives of everybody on board. Jonah knew the storm was for him, and he urged the sailors to throw him overboard so they could be saved. As he hit the water, he was scooped up and swallowed by what the Bible calls a "great fish."

Miraculously preserved in the belly of that beast, Jonah, it says, "prayed to the Lord his God." His prayer is perspective and it is our word for today from the Word of God. It's Jonah 2 , beginning with verse 2. "In my distress I called to the Lord, and He answered me. From the depths of the grave, I called for help, and You listened to my cry. You hurled me into the deep (Now notice, not the sailors, but You, Lord.) into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me." Notice here, Jonah looks beyond what people did to him and what the weather did to Him and he sees that those were just hammers in God's hand - not to destroy him but to build him into what he needed to be.

The hammer that hits us in our life can either break us or build us. If we'll turn to God when we're getting hit, looking for His purposes and His message, that hammer can build us into something we've never been before. If we don't turn to God when we feel the hammer blows, we'll get the pain but not the point. Ultimately, the suffering that we face is not from those people, or that condition, or the economy, or that situation that seems to be hurting us. It's either been sent by God or allowed by God, and He loves you enough to have His Son die for you.

Like Jonah, God could be using your storm to bring you back to some promises you made to God - promises you haven't kept. You told Him you'd go "anywhere" for Him, but you haven't. You made promises about your priorities (remember?), your family, your giving, your service to Him, but you've drifted from those promises. Maybe you told God you'd abandon some sinful ways, but your repentance has lapsed and you're drifting back to the old you.

But God is pounding on you with His loving hammer, trying to use this storm to wake you up and bring you back. It's taking the pounding to get your attention. C. S. Lewis had it right: "God whispers in our pleasure, but He shouts in our pain." These hits are, in the words of Psalm 148:8 , "stormy winds that do His bidding." Their purpose isn't to hurt you, but to heal you; not to wreck you, but to restore you. The storm isn't to blow you away; it's to blow you into God's arms!

Renewal

Renew
–verb (used with object)
1. to begin or take up again, as an acquaintance, a conversation, etc.; resume.
2. to make effective for an additional period: to renew a lease.
3. to restore or replenish: to renew a stock of goods.
4. to make, say, or do again.
5. to revive; reestablish.
6. to recover (youth, strength, etc.).
7. to restore to a former state; make new or as if new again.
(Definition from Dictionary.com)

I think with springtime arriving, the grass, trees, plants and flowers transitioning from brown to green it is a natural thing to think about this time of year.

This is a word that has been spoken in my heart for the past month or so. It seems as though every morning, I hear the word whispered to me as I get out of bed and begin my 45 minute drive to work.

Renew.

For some, a renewal process is difficult, maybe even painful. For me…a renewal process is comforting.

There are certain areas of my life I find myself renewing over, and over and over again. It is in these areas that I sense God’s presence the most. Typically, (in my life) in order to “renew” I must “surrender” and while that is one of the most difficult things for me to do, it is refreshing. It is the realization that my way gets me nowhere, and God’s way will get me where I need to be. When I can’t get it right, God gives me His grace to try it again. The refreshing part comes when the burden of carrying the stress is removed. It is in knowing that when I let go completely, God has the opportunity to move completely, without hindrance or resistance from me.

This week in particular, I have been pretty emotional with the thought of Easter approaching. This past weekend, I listened to one of my beautiful, little second cousins explain what Easter was all about. “Jesus died on the cross to take away my sins and then came back to life,” she said as she skipped through the parking lot on the way to the beach. My son came home from youth group and said that they watched a clip from The Passion of the Christ and I almost cried as I flashed back to when I watched it for the very first time.

The thought of all of our failures, all of our shortcomings, our sins…removed. To “restore to a former state; make new or as if new again. To revive; reestablish.” Jesus died a horrible death on a cross…for us and all we have to do is seek his forgiveness. To ask him to make us new again, and surrender our old ways.

I’ve been trying to be the person God has created me to be. I figure God deserves that much! And while I don’t understand a lot of what goes on through my journey in life I need to remember that He has a divine purpose for me. And when I start to question His purpose? He gives me moments like this:

This morning as I was driving to work, I looked to the east and thought, “NO WAY!” and God gently whispered… “renew.”

Every day is a new day, with new beginnings and new opportunities.

Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
-2 Corinthians 4:16