To know Him!

I was greatly encouraged tonight by this podcast: When Life Doesn't Make Sense

Really what I needed to hear

as I drove home tonight I was having a pity party

Things aren't going the way I thought my life would go

and I was feeling forgotten, forsaken and alone. 

Then I came home and while I put away the groceries I listened to  Nate speak from Matthew 4:4 "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."

It was striking to me that this passage is a direct quote of the Old Testament passage in Deuteronomy 9 where it says

"And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD."

God didn't beam them out of Egypt like some Star Trek transport--He led them in the wilderness where it was hard and difficult and things didn't go their way all the time (if ever). But He did it so that they would depend on Him and so that they would know Him more.

When life isn't going my way it is important for me to examine why I think it should. My heart was given to the Lord Jesus Christ a long time ago and there is really only One Way and that is His way. 

Like the children of Israel I so often forget Who it is I serve. I become ungrateful and discontent--and do you know what the Lord  often used to get the attention of His ungrateful children in the Old Testament--He sent plagues among them and many of them died. Sobering to think about when I consider how often I complain. 

Another point that Nate brought out was this: If we only trust the Lord when He acts the way we want Him to we are not trusting God but ourselves. And so when I don't understand, I will choose to trust. Or as Sara Groves puts it--- 

"from this one place I can't see very far

in this one moment I'm square in the dark

these are the things I will trust in my heart

You can see something else

something else"

I was reminded of Elisabeth Elliot's quote that "what we don't have now, we don't need now." I must trust and obey my good Father--knowing that He supplies all my needs. 

And this period of not knowing, this period of waiting is so that I may know Him! This is all I ever need to know for "this is eternal life that they may know You (the Father) and Jesus Christ whom You have sent!" John 17:3. 

The last few stanzas of a poem I wrote once say it well

My Life Is Not My Own

There in a garden, long years ago

Another Man wept as His time came to go

The road before Him was dark and grim

And the burden He bore was my sin

But as He knelt in that garden and prayed

“My Life is not My own” He cried—“Thy will be done

The work complete!

My blood shall cover the mercy seat!”

Now I praise Him all my days

 for my sinful soul He saved

Here on the altar I lay my life down

Hoping only to win Him a crown

My life is not my own shall my motto ever be---

I now belong to One who is greater than me

He is my Lord, my King and Friend

Of His praise there shall be no end.

Waiting

I have been thinking a lot about waiting lately---

I was reading about David, after his anointing but before he became king. He was running from Saul and when he did not wait on the Lord but instead allowed fear to drive him, he lied and many lost thier lives for helping him. In the next chapter he stopped to wait on the Lord for His direction and the Lord led him clearly in the way that he should go. What a contrast.

Then I read Psalm 27:13-14 and the tears stung my eyes as I realized my own failing to follow these words. And yet my heart rejoiced in the hope that these words speak.

"I would have lost hope unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!"