Hopelessness to Hope, Post 3

            The final definition of hopelessness is “incapable of redemption or improvement”. Let me speak to your heart a moment: you are of infinite value to your Father. He loves you with a love beyond compare, and He stops at nothing to win your heart. When we are hard-pressed by heartache and disappointment, feelings of worthlessness can begin to take root. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, because we are going to discuss this in a later chapter, but I do want to address it briefly because worthlessness is a by-product of hopelessness.
            One important step to regaining hope is to regain your sense of value. A person who believes they are doomed to failure will have nothing to hope for.

                        “What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin*? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.”                      Matthew 10:29-31

            If God is so intimately concerned with sparrows that He knows when one dies, how much more must He concern Himself with us? We are the treasure of His creation, the apple of His eye, the love of His life.

                      “You didn't choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.”                                                                          John 15:16

            God hand-picked you before the beginning of time. I am not saying that God picks and chooses who will be saved. The Bible states that salvation is a gift open to all when Christ died. What I am saying is that God foreknew who would choose to accept His offer, and He began at that moment to make plans for you. Those plans were not for you to be worthless, useless, and hopeless. Those plans were for you to produce lasting fruit that will bring you into intimacy with the Father. God chose you to have a productive spirit and anything else is simply disobedience.
            If you have accepted Christ’s offer of salvation, then you are already redeemed. If you have decided to allow Him to teach you, then you are on your way to improvement.

                        “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”               2 Corinthians 5:17                                                                                                

Hopelessness to Hope, Post 2

The second definition given for hopelessness is “not susceptible to remedy or cure”. Maybe you’ve been through all the treatments, taken all the pills, endured the painful procedures and still have had no success. Maybe you’re at the point that you feel beyond helping.

            Faith healing has been given a bad rap in the last few decades. It conjures up images of slick-haired televangelists promising a genuine miracle for a monetary donation. It is a divisive issue among Christians, yet it was a vital part of Christ’s ministry, and one that He intended us to continue. Jesus was a faith-healer… without the shellacked coiffure.

            We talked about this briefly in the chapter on Anger and Bitterness, and I promised you then that we would dive headlong into the controversial topic of faith healing. Some of you are squirming in your seats right now. The topic makes a lot of people uncomfortable, sometimes even angry for one main reason: there has been a time in every Christian’s life when our “faith” didn’t come through for us, and we can’t understand why. It’s easier to just say “God sent me a trial to endure” than to do the honest soul searching that we need to. We avoid the most important question, “What needs to change within me?”, because it might result in the realization that we need a radical transformation.

            I said before that faith—the kind of faith that cleanses lepers, opens blind eyes, and raises the dead—is not a question of mental assent. Faith is a lifestyle, lived out during the best of times so that it can be prepared for the worst of times.

             Let’s explore this topic of faith, referencing the Bible itself, because understanding true faith is a vital part of any Christian’s life, and one that I believe is terribly misunderstood.

            In Matthew 17:14-21, we read the story of the healing of a demon possessed boy.

                        At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, “Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn't heal him."

                Jesus said, "You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me." Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well.

                Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, "Why couldn't we cast out that demon?"

                "Because you have so little faith.” Jesus told them. "I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible."

 

          The disciples (and it may not have been the twelve) were unable to drive the demon from the boy, a feat they apparently should have been able to accomplish. Jesus explained to them that it was because they had so “little” faith. The term “little” here is not referring to the amount of faith they possessed. These men had plenty of confidence in the ability to drive out the demon, yet they were unsuccessful. That is because faith is not measured by quantity, but quality. Their faith was rooted in their own ability to command the demon, rather than in the source of that ability.

            Jesus then reveals to them that if they only had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could accomplish anything. This is further confirmation on the issue of quantity vs. quality. If this were not true then verse 20 would be a contradiction to itself—first, Jesus tells them their “little” faith is the problem, then He tells them the solution is to have faith the size of a tiny mustard seed? Again, Jesus was not pointing out their lack of quantity, but of quality. Their faith was insubstantial, lacking in substance, not measure.

            The next thing to notice is the comparison between faith and a seed. Seeds are amazing to think about. They are tiny in size, yet they can produce something as large as a redwood tree! A seed’s power does not come from its physical size, but from the energy and activity at work inside it. This is a great picture of faith at work in a Christian. I love the fact that Jesus choose to compare true faith with something so seemingly insignificant as a seed (which also stresses the fact that humility is a vital component in faith) rather than comparing it with something visibly powerful, like a raging river. Let’s look at these two in contrast, as we compare man-made faith (the river) to godly faith (the seed).

            First, a raging river is loud; it draws attention to itself; it awes people with its display of power and might. A seed is the opposite. It is silent, seemingly inactive. The farmer places it under the ground and no one but he knows it’s there; hidden from view, it begins its work, producing a power that would make the river jealous. Faith begins as a quiet work.

            Second, the river’s power is used to destroy. It eats away at its banks in order to satisfy its need for more. A seed creates life and grows into something that produces fruit. It replenishes the soil, rather than taking it away from where it belongs.

            Lastly, a river is ever changing. Its waters never flow through it a second time. It is unstable, undependable, and negatively reacts to storms. A seed, however, is steadfast and reliable—if you plant a mustard seed, you know what you will get from it. Most importantly, storms only cause a seed to flourish and grow.

            The mustard seed allusion reveals to us eight important truths about faith.

• Faith begins when we decide we want to allow God to develop it within us.
• Faith is planted in our hearts in humility and belief that it will produce what God says it will.
• Faith grows by fellowship with God. Just as a seed cannot grow without water, so too our faith cannot grow without the Living Water.
• Faith can only grow when we allow it to be planted inside us. It must be rooted in our spirit to produce. We cannot thrive off of someone else’s faith.
• True faith will produce visible fruit.
• Faith should never stop growing and becoming stronger and more productive. Jesus cursed the fig tree because it failed to produce fruit. (Mark 11:23-24) Faith without fruit is not true faith. We should cut it out of our lives or it will be done for us.
• Faith’s fruit should be useful to those around us, and nourish their spirit as it does our own.
• Faith produces more faith, the stronger and more mature it becomes.

                        So, we come back again to an earlier point: God has given us the power to overcome the world and all its ravages. It is the lifestyle of faith within us that gives us the authority to command demons, heal diseases, raise the dead… and change infertility. Sounds crazy, right? Well, don’t take it from me; take it from the original miracle worker, Himself:

                                    "I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works…”                           John 14:12

Hopelessness to Hope, Post 1

Hopeless-
             having no expectation of good or success; not susceptible to remedy or cure; incapable of redemption or improvement.                            (Mirriam-Webster)

 

            After reading the above definition, do you think you could easily be attached to hopelessness? Most women embattled with infertility or who have experienced multiple miscarriages find themselves in a state of hopelessness. With each passing year or heartrending loss, we slip further and further into it. Discouragement soon grows into despair, and the feeling that we are never going to be fulfilled permeates our heart.
           
            The first part of that definition defines hopelessness as “having no expectation of good or success”. After four years of trying to conceive, two miscarriages, and a series of failed fertility attempts, my soul had grown weary. At that point, it took more energy to keep up hope than to throw up my hands and say “I’m defeated”. Maybe you know what I’m talking about. There is a definite weariness of soul that comes from prolonged expectation and waiting. Jesus recognized this tendency.

                        "’Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.’"          Matthew 11:28-30

            Jesus, knowing that we would grow weary, invites us to find rest in Him. He’s offering to share your burden. The imagery here is of an ox being forced to haul a heavy load alone. By yoking it with another, they are able to share the burden and bear it together. That’s what Jesus is offering—to be involved, to share in your trials, to help you bear your burden and make it less wearisome. We “yoke up” with Him when we make it a priority to sit down and listen to what He has to say—when we let Him teach us instead of trying to figure it all out on our own. His credentials are humility and gentleness. Humility in that He, the Lord of creation, the all-knowing, all-powerful God, is willing to get down in the muck and mire to rescue you. He’s willing to involve Himself in the very sinful, broken world that sent Him to the cross two thousand years ago—for you; and He does it all with the compassion and gentleness of a loving Father.
            When we allow Him to teach us, to be our source of wisdom and strength, our weary souls will find the rest they have been craving, and our expectation of good will return.

                        “Yet I am confident I will see the Lord's goodness while I am here in the land of the living. Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.”                                                          Psalm 27:13-14

                   “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’”                                                                                                          Jeremiah 29:11

            Hope is a strong and confident expectation of things to come. It is knowing that God has not abandoned us to this life in preparation for the next. It is recognizing that the good things of God are for us here, in this present time, and not reserved only for Heaven. Why would we need mercy and grace in a place where the ravages of sin do not exist?
            God’s goodness is our invitation to heaven, not a party favor once we get there. It was His goodness that sent His son to suffer for our sake, to make a way that we might live in His presence now and in the life to come. Hope is being able to say, in confidence, “though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him”; meaning that there is nothing that can come against you that would cause you to doubt His good intentions towards you.

                        “The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.”    Isaiah 32:17

                         "But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.”                                        Jeremiah 17:7-8

                   “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”                                                                                                        Hebrews 4:16

Anger and Bitterness: Post 5

3. It is okay to grieve for a time.

I can sometimes be a little harsh, I know, so I want to take a moment, to remind both of us that grieving over our loss is not sin. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 reminds us that sorrow is an activity of a normal life here on this fallen, sinful planet.

  For everything there is a season,
    a time for every activity under heaven.
  A time to be born and a time to die.
    A time to plant and a time to harvest.
  A time to kill and a time to heal.
    A time to tear down and a time to build up.
  A time to cry and a time to laugh.
    A time to grieve and a time to dance.
  A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
    A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
   A time to search and a time to quit searching.
    A time to keep and a time to throw away.
   A time to tear and a time to mend.
    A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
  A time to love and a time to hate.
    A time for war and a time for peace.

Jesus himself grieved over the loss of a loved one. The shortest verse in the Bible is also one of the most powerful: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). It reminds us not only of the humanity of Jesus, but of His understanding of our need to grieve a loss.

Not grieving is just as unhealthy as remaining in grief. Don’t try to be “strong” and avoid your grief. This will cause many more problems for you. Understand and accept the fact that your heart needs to express its sorrow over the loss it feels before it can move on. Alternatively, if it seems that you have been grieving longer than is normal. How long is too long? Psychologists use a timeline of two months of intense grieving and up to eighteen months of active grieving for the loss of a loved one. If you have been grieving longer than this, or if you feel “stuck” in your feelings of grief, you may be having difficulty moving on. You may need to seek out a Christian counselor or other professional to help you address these issues. Find someone who will give you not just text book advice, but biblical advice as well. Within this group, I encourage you to be open and transparent, and share your heart. If you are grieving, don’t be ashamed to acknowledge it. If you are not, be ready and willing to “be a shoulder to cry on” for those who are going through the grieving process around you. You don’t necessarily have to have anything earth-moving to say, just a willingness to listen and a compassionate heart. Sharing our grief with others is important to our recovery.
  
“Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.”  Psalm 30:5

But just as grieving is natural, moving on is also natural—and necessary.

4. God has given us the power to overcome the world.
This power is founded in the blood of Jesus, and inherited by our adoption into the family of God.

  “For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.”  I John 5:4

  “Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you.”  Luke 10:19

  God has given us the power to overcome the world, but we rarely exercise it. Why? Because it’s costly. It costs our flesh its indulgences. Because to exercise that authority over the world and its ravages, we must live a life devoted to God and steeped in His holiness. That’s a life that our flesh doesn’t easily surrender to, but that our spirit is longing for.

  “My soul yearns for You in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for You.”  Isaiah 26:9

The Bible tells us that if we have faith like a mustard seed, we can move mountains. No doubt you’ve heard that many, many times, but if you are anything like me, you probably believed that it was saying: “if you believe it enough, you can do anything”. But faith is not a question of mental assent. Faith is so much more than just believing something hard enough; it’s a lifestyle. Faith is lived out every day, not just in the moment we need it. Although I really want to expound on that thought, we will reserve that for a later chapter.

 5. We are called to a higher calling.
We have been called to bring hope to a world that is perishing in hopeless darkness. How can we do the things that matter for eternity if we are preoccupied with our own hurts?

“You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”   Matthew 5:13-16

I am in no way making light of the hurt that you or I have felt at a miscarriage or years of unsuccessfully trying to conceive, but I am trying to remind us both that we died to this life, and that our real life is hidden with Christ (Colossians 3:3). There are people perishing all around us, in need of the hope we can give them, and we simply don’t have time to waste in bitterness and regret.

For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness.”   Ephesians 5:8-10

Bitterness is truly a worthless deed of darkness. It has no place in the life of someone who has been redeemed by the shed blood of Jesus. The world desperately needs the light we have inside, but if we keep it hidden under a shroud of depression and anger, we are not going to be able to fulfill our destiny as Christians.

I am not asking you to forget your experience, or the desire you have to be a mother. I am asking you to remember your higher calling in it all; to temper duty with desire. I am asking you to remember that we are still in the middle of a battle and those around us need us to fight.

Anger and Bitterness: Post 4

            Bitterness is our obsession with our own hurt. It is choosing to live in a state of pain for the rest of our lives instead of seeking out the joy and peace God desires for us. Looking at it that way, it seems absurd that anyone would choose such a fate, but some of you have done just that. I once heard that bitterness is rooted in hate, psychologically linked to the same emotion that results in murder or suicide. That is a powerful and disturbing thought. If you recognize that you are mired down in bitterness, resolve yourself now to the task of removing it from your life.
             Let’s visit some important truths in regards to bitterness.
           
            1. First, you need to realize how vital it is that you remove bitterness from your life.
                        It’s already been said: bitterness destroys lives. It destroys marriages and it destroys families. But, bitterness is also comfortable. It becomes familiar. It makes a person feel self-important and in control. This can be the most difficult part to let go of. When we’ve walked through a situation in which we had no control, the feeling of being able to control our own anger is tantalizing. It makes us feel powerful when, in fact, it is stripping us of our very life, making us weaker by the day.

            2.  God is not the author of your pain.
                        We discussed this somewhat in chapter one. God does not inflict pain into our lives as a method of testing our loyalty to Him. He doesn’t need to. The very fallen, sin-filled world we live in thrives on death and destruction, and heaps it upon every chance it gets. There are many people who would vehemently disagree with me on this point, but I reference only the very nature of God to draw this conclusion. He is good. He is love. He is light. He is a Creator, not a destroyer. He sent His own Son to bring us life. If God was the bringer of death and heartache then they would have existed in the world from the beginning. But they didn’t. They entered the scene with our Enemy, and when we invited him to stay, so, too, did they.

The hardest thing to deal with in any life is the question of why. Why did this terrible thing happen to me? If you don’t believe in a higher power, then your answer is simply because it is in the very nature of existence. A bleak, and hopeless outlook. But, if you do believe in the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator, your question of “why” is bound to be conflicting. If God is all-powerful then why didn’t He stop this from happening? How many times I asked that myself. I didn’t believe that God killed my baby, but I didn’t understand why He didn’t intervene when I knew He could have.

If I’m going to be honest with you—and I have no choice but to be—I am still searching for the answer to that question, as billions before me have done. There comes a point in life when we have to mature in our faith and accept the fact that there are some things we may never fully understand, not matter how badly we want to. This is one of those subjects. God invites us, however, to seek Him in these matters, to search out His heart and His comfort, and He promises that we will find peace in Him, with or without the answer we were looking for.

"'In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,’ says the Lord. ‘I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes.’” Jeremiah 29:12-13

 I love the end of that verse: “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes”. Bitterness certainly keeps us held captive in its grip. It keeps us from moving forward, from progressing past our hurts. Only the strength of God can set us free; and not only does he give us back our freedom, but He restores our “fortune”—the worth and value a life of bitterness strips away from us. He reminds us that we are His, and He is ours, forever.

Anger and Bitterness: Post 3

Unresolved anger will eventually cool into bitterness. A bitter person is one with few friends. They lash out at anyone and everyone from the depth of their misery. They live a joyless and wretched life that dwells constantly in past hurts. You may have known someone during your lifetime that was consumed by bitterness. Such a person constructs walls around themselves and refuses to let anyone in. A bitter person is selfish, inconsiderate of others, withdrawn from society, irrational, and indifferent towards everyone. 

“Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can fully share its joy.” Proverbs 14:10

 

"I cannot keep from speaking. I must express my anguish. My bitter soul must complain.” Job 7:11

 

"I am disgusted with my life. Let me complain freely. My bitter soul must complain.” Job 10:1

 

“Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.” Hebrews 12:15

These verses represent a snapshot of what bitterness looks like in a person. Once the root of bitterness takes hold, it is difficult to remove it. 

 

Bitterness destroys a person’s relationship with God. It makes them unable to accept His unconditional love for them, and makes them unable to love Him in return. Ray Burke, in his book Anger--Diffusing the Bomb, says that each time he counseled those who doubted God's love for them, he discovered that somewhere along the line they harbored bitterness against God, themselves or someone else. When this bitterness was finally dealt with and resolved, their ability to accept God's love and forgiveness was restored.

 

Bitterness is not only damaging to us spiritually, but it also affects our physical and mental health. In the book None of these Diseases, S. I. McMillan says, “anger, unhandled, will show itself in at least 50 diseases." Dr. Norman Wright, a Christian professor of psychology at Biola University, also attests to this fact. God has constructed us, he says, with a tube about 30 feet long that begins at our throat and runs to our rectum. That long tube, disturbed by bitterness and anger, produces things like colitis, diarrhea and ulcers. When we are angry and do not handle it properly, there are physical consequences.

 

A biblical example of bitterness is played out in the life of Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth. It is interesting to note that her name meant “Pleasant”.  Naomi’s story is similar in many ways to our own. She suffered the loss of those she held most dear. After moving to a strange land from her homeland, Israel, with her husband and two sons, she was in the tragic position to witness the deaths of all three within ten years. The book of Ruth records her comments to her daughter-in-laws, revealing the target of her anger:

“Things are far more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord himself has raised his fist against me.” Ruth 1:13b

Naomi was a woman obsessed with her tragedy. All three women were in the same position. They had all lost those dear to them, yet Naomi’s bitterness had so overwhelmed her that she felt the need to compare her suffering with those around her.
           
"’Don't call me Naomi,’ she responded. ’Instead, call me Mara, for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me home empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has caused me to suffer and the Almighty has sent such tragedy upon me?’" Ruth 1: 20-21

God had become the author of her pain and the object of her anger. God had taken away her husband and her sons, and she held it against Him. Five times in these three verses she held God accountable for her bitterness. She was so bitter, in fact, that she even changed her name to mean “Bitter”. This is an important picture of the effect bitterness has on a life. It changed Naomi so drastically that even her very identity was altered.

No Rest for the Praying

"You who call on the Lord give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest..."                                                  
Isaiah 62:6b-7a

I want, therefore I ask... or whine, or scream, or cry, or pout, or just give up.

We all have wants... sometimes it’s those fleeting, purely fleshly wants that aren’t designed for any real happiness; but at other times it’s those deep desires of the heart-- the things who's absence leaves us feeling empty, unsettled, and unfulfilled. For some of us, that's the desire to be a mother, for some it may be healing, for others, salvation for a loved one. These are the desires that should, and usually do, drive us to seek out the answer from God-- at least, for a while.

When I want to see something happen in my life, something that I acknowledge is beyond my physical control, I'm quick to take it God. (Ideally, I should take everything to Him first, but that's a topic for a whole different discussion!) I usually start out good, but endurance is the real problem. I pray about it for a week, maybe two, maybe even a month, but, eventually, I'm bound to give up.
I'll admit, sometimes my attitude has been to wonder why I should continually pray for the same thing, when I'm praying to an all-knowing God. Doesn't the Bible say He already knows what I need before I ask it? Should I really have to ask the same thing of Him day after day after day? Sometimes it just seems so redundant.

There's truth in those thoughts. God does know us so intimately that He knows every need we have before we even know we have it. God is aware of, and sometimes even meets our needs without us asking Him to. Despite these truths, the Bible tells us to be faithful in prayer and we have to wonder why.

I think the real reason is in the nature of prayer itself. Prayer isn't for God's benefit, but for ours. When we pray, we are acknowledging God's sovereignty in our life. We are confessing to Him and to ourselves that we need Him; that we are incomplete without Him. Prayer is meant to strengthen our faith and our trust in God by deepening our relationship with Him.

Of course, then we ask how we are supposed to trust God when our prayers seem to always return unanswered. I, myself, am so guilty of asking this very question. Prayer is meant to be a conversation, not a monologue. Have you ever tried to talk to someone who wants to ask you lots of questions or present you with plenty of problems, but is never willing to stop and listen to your answers? Both of you walk away feeling frustrated-- they are frustrated because they feel you gave them no help, and you because the help you tried to give fell on deaf ears. That is so often how our prayer life plays out.

Prayer should be about speaking and listening. In speaking to God-- in telling Him about our troubles and asking for His help-- we are putting down that rebellious part of us that wants to take on the world alone, that wants to make it through life unassisted and therefore, unaccountable. When we pray, we are giving our spirit the opportunity to commune with our Father, to be strengthened and renewed by His presence, and to feel the wonder of His love and concern for even the most mundane of our troubles; but, then, we must also be willing to listen for His reply.

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.
Jeremiah 33:3 

God has the answers we're looking for, but how willing are we to be still for a few moments and listen? How willing are we to put aside our grasping and clawing and clamoring to just listen to what He has to say?

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord..."
Jeremiah 29:11-14

God has a master plan for each of our lives, and we cannot know it from beginning to end. Sometimes the things we want fit into that plan right away; sometimes they don't fit in for many years to come; sometimes, they don't fit in at all. No matter what the answer is, God hears our prayers, even when we want to believe He isn't listening. He's always ready to take our hands and speak peace and comfort to us as He tells us of the plans he lovingly crafted for our life.

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

How do we respond to the answers we receive to our prayers? The verse above is the key to how we should respond. When God answers our requests with a 'yes', and we have what we ask for, we rejoice. When the answer seems to be 'not yet', we keep praying--we give ourselves no rest-- until it's answered. When the answer is 'no', we praise Him anyway, knowing that His plan for our life is greater than anything we can ask or think, and that, despite the disappointment and heartache we feel, He has promised that He will work everything out in our life for our good.

To many of us, the thought of a 'no' to that request so close to our heart seems like more than we can handle. In my own life, I've received some joyous 'yes’s', some frustrating 'wait’s' and some heartrending 'no’s'. It isn't ever easy to accept God's plan when it doesn't coincide with our own, and God doesn't fault us for being disappointed. He wants us to take those disappointments to Him, too, and let Him speak to our hearts about His love and care for us. If we are willing to listen... even when we don't want to hear what He has to say... we can find a peace that will give us patience and hope in every situation.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7 

 

 

Anger and Bitterness: Post 2

 Days later, after the initial shock had worn down to a dull ache, my heart began to open itself up to negotiations. I felt empty, unsettled, and unsure. There was a song that kept bringing itself to memory during that time:

Hide me now under your wings
Cover me within your mighty hand.
Find rest my soul in Christ alone
Know his power in quietness and trust.
When the oceans rise and thunders roar
I will soar with you above the storm.
Father you are king over the flood.
I will be still and know you are God.

The very one I felt had betrayed me was also the only one I knew could comfort me.
His heart was grieving with mine.
               
 “Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, ‘Are you also going to leave?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.’" John 6:67-68

God was asking me: “Are you going to turn your back on Me?” Lord, to whom would I go? That thought struck me with such power that I began to weep. He alone had the words of life. Anywhere else I would find only more death and devastation, nothing but hopelessness when I was so desperate for something to believe in.

God was not the author of my despair. He hadn’t given me what my heart was so desperate for only to snatch it away in some cruel test of my affection. My anger was directed at the very one Who most intimately understood and shared my pain. It was like the pain He feels when one of His creation slips away into an eternity of darkness. He never had the chance to hold them in His arms and tell them just how much He loved them.

He could identify with my loss.

True Fasting

Many churches begin the new year with a period of fasting... at least, ours does. It's a great concept, but the problem is sometimes two-fold: one, we don't really understand what fasting is, and, two, we limit it to a couple weeks a year.

Several years ago, I was reading through the book of Isaiah (which is one of my favorite books, by the way!) and came across this passage regarding fasting:

Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Isaiah 58:5-8

Sometimes we, and myself included, think that fasting means just giving up something for a day or a week, or maybe even three. It means going about our normal life with the absence of whatever it is we chose to fast—food, television, dining out, video games, soft drinks, etc. The point is to eliminate something that has a strong hold over you day by day. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Most of do watch too much t.v., play too many video games, spend too much money going out to eat, or find ourselves addicted to caffeine. Eliminating or reducing the influence of those things in our lives is a great cause, but what do we fill their void with, instead?

Sadly, I must admit that, here on week 2 of my 3 week fast, I have spent very little time filling my fasting void with God.

Fasting is meant to be a time of self-denial, of humility and repentance for sin. The purpose of eliminating what has the strongest hold over us is to clear the way for our mind, body, and soul to join in uninterrupted attention to God. Fasting is meant to be a two-part action: giving up our flesh and then giving in to God.

The Israelites in Isaiah’s time were having a hard time with this concept, too.

‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
    ‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
    and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
    and exploit all your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
    and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
    and expect your voice to be heard on high.
Isaiah 58:3-4

Now, true, most of us aren’t involved in fasting-induced brawls, but the point is still the same: you may fast in your flesh, but is your spirit unchanged? The Israelites fasting was only skin deep. They were willing to give up the physical for a little while, but they weren’t willing to surrender the rest. And then, they wondered why their quickly uttered prayers remained unanswered.

God then asks a very poignant question: “Is this the kind of fast I have chosen?” Is it the kind of fasting we see Jesus participating in in the desert? Did He just lie around all day, complaining of how badly He wanted a coke, wondering what was happening on His favorite shows, or making a list of all the restaurants He was going to hit up after His fasting was over?  No. He spent His days communing with His Father, praying, and refreshing His soul. His fasting was an outward expression of His inward renewal.

God tells us in this passage what fasting is to Him. It is an everyday action of seeing God’s will accomplished in the earth, of providing for those in need, of defending the helpless, of showing love to the broken hearted, and leading our families to follow after Him. It is the embodiment of the righteous in Matthew 25:34-40:

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

So, I encourage both of us, if you are going to fast, do it right! Give up your Pepsi and your life! Take the money you're saving not dining out and use it feed the hungry instead. Spend the time you'd normally be watching T.V. reading your Bible or serving others. And, when the fasting period is over, don't leave it all to do again next year. Make it an everyday part of your life, and an expression of the goodness and love of God at work within you.

Anger and Bitterness: Post 1

            Anger is a natural part of our human existence. We’re angered when things don’t go our way or when we feel we’ve been treated unfairly. We’re frustrated when we strive to achieve a goal that seems just out of our reach. Women who live through infertility and miscarriage walk through a cycle of emotions, but probably the most powerful is anger.
            When it began to be apparent that conception was not going to be an easily achieved goal, I began looking for someone to blame. Sometimes it was me, sometimes it was my husband, but most frequently, it was God. As with most problems in life, it is easier to be angry at their existence than to do what’s necessary to address them. There were times I remember sitting on the bed, rocking back and forth, burning tears streaming down my face, screaming: “I hate myself.” And I did. I hated this body, this feeble, dysfunctional body I was inhabiting. I was angry at my inability to control my own circumstances. I was angry at myself for wanting a child in the first place.
            Sometimes it was my husband that felt the brunt of my anger. If he could just be a better sexual partner, perhaps our chances of conception would be greater. It seemed to me sometimes that he just didn’t share the same desires as I did; that having a child wasn’t that important to him. And I was angry that he didn’t seem to be suffering as much as I was.
            Most of the anger I felt was directed at God. I had good reason, I thought. He was the one who created me. He was the one who gave me the desire to be a mother. He was the only one who could do anything about my situation, and He seemed to be sitting on His hands. This anger intensified after my second miscarriage. The day I found out that the pregnancy was failing, I attended a prayer meeting service at our church. Many  men and women of God were there—people who were known as effective prayer warriors—and they prayed over me and my child, imploring God to intervene and calling forth life within the tiny embryo that was struggling within me. I left in full confidence that I was about to witness a miracle.
            But days later, I left the OBGYN’s office in a flood of confusion, and anguish. My pregnancy, the one I had waited so many years for, was over. There was not even a trace of the tiny mass of life that had so quickly sprung into existence and faded away.
            I had been betrayed. My anger burned so hot that I could feel it’s warmth rising up into my face and expressing itself in my tears. I had trusted God for a miracle and none had come. We wrestled with one another for days. I knew in the midst of it He was trying to speak to my heart but my ears were closed. What could He possibly say that could atone for this breach of trust between us?
             It is important that I mention one thing: I tell this story as it was. It is tempting to sugarcoat it, to gloss over the uglier parts of my bitterness towards my Creator, but that wouldn’t do you or I any good. I do not condone my attitude during this time, but I also know that many of you reading this have wrestled with theses same thoughts and feelings. They are situations we hesitate to mention in our Christian circles because we are afraid of how we will be perceived, so we go about pretending that we don’t fight them until one day they consume us. The truth is that we are reactive creatures who too often find ourselves in a volatile situation. The head knows that God is good, but the heart is easily affected.
                        "Is God's comfort too little for you? Is his gentle word not enough? What has taken away your reason? What has weakened your vision, that you turn against God and say all these evil things?”                                                                                                     Job 15:11-13

Timing

When you’re trying to conceive, timing is an ugly word.

Well, maybe not at first, but by the time you are diagnosed “infertile”, it’s a word that signifies your consistently failed efforts. We obsess about it, we fret about, we read about it, we second-guess about it; we just can’t stop thinking about it. Time passes us by as we wait for the right time.

Timing is all about plans and schedules. For us, it’s all about waiting for that perfect 48 hour window in which we can reach again for the desire of our heart.

But the thing about time is, while we always seem to think it’s under our control, it never truly is. Time belongs to God. He created it; He perpetuates it; He planned out every moment of it; He’s unbounded by it. Time can’t be mastered or controlled or bottled up. It can’t be bent to our own will, or made to conform to our plans. It trudges on, with us or without us, as it has since the first moment of its existence.

As humans, we live our lives subjected to time, and those of us struggling against infertility feel it slipping through our fingers with each failed attempt. We begin to wonder, then, why God’s timing doesn’t seem to match our own. “How much longer, Lord, until you fulfill my longing? When will I realize the desire of my heart? Why don’t You, the Master of time, make it mine?” Month after month, the questions erode away our patience and hope until we are left with bitterness and despair as our only companions.

As a Christian, we believe that God has a plan for every moment of our short time on earth; but when His plans and our plans don’t seem to coincide, we can’t help but feel that He’s refused to answer our most pressing request. We grow impatient and we grow weary. We grow angry, and we refuse to listen to that still, small voice that’s whispering, “just wait”.

God always fulfills the desire of our hearts, but sometimes it’s not in the way we think it should be. I've never given birth to a child, but I have three beautiful children in my home who bring joy to my heart each time they call me Mommy. They didn’t come to me in the way I had planned for them to, but they came nonetheless. God didn’t use my timing, but His own. He’s really good at changing our best-laid plans into something better than we ever imagined.

God promised in Psalm 37:4 to give us the desires of our heart. I made sure I reminded Him of that frequently while we were trying to conceive. “You promised, Lord” I would say, “And you are not a man that you should lie, so You have to keep Your promise.” To me, that meant a pregnancy and a healthy baby, but God saw something deeper in my heart, something not even I could yet recognize. He saw the true desire of my heart—a desire I didn’t even know existed.

That’s not to say that my heart didn’t long to be a mother. Most certainly it did, and that longing was God-ordained. The confusion came in, not because what I wanted was wrong, but because I was looking to the fulfillment of that desire as the ultimate source of my joy and purpose. Having a child was A desire of my heart, but it wasn’t THE desire.

Today, I realize that the deepest desire of my heart is to serve God in the way he created me to. As weird as it might sound to say, I am beginning to be grateful to Him for my infertility because of all that it has opened up to me, not only in my own life, but in the life of others who are hurting. My infertility brought me to a deeper relationship with God than I think I would have had if I had been fertile. I don't think God created me to be infertile, but, in knowing the limitations this sin-infested world would place on my body, he lovingly crafted a plan for my life around it, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

His timing is perfect.