Heart Tracks - Who?

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
Ephesians 1:17......"In our pain, we go to God and continue to ask Him, 'Why?' He may never tell us why. At some point, we need to stop asking Him why, and instead ask, 'Father, this is my reality. What do you want me to do in it?' " Lynn TerKeurst

When pain, loss, sorrow, and suffering hit us, it's human to seek relief, escape from it all. We want it to end. We also want to know why we're in that place to begin with. Sometimes it's the result of our own bad choices, though too often we're not ready to admit that. It's easier to blame others, even God for it. But very often, we find ourselves in the midst of a heartbreaking wilderness that we're in even as we wholeheartedly follow after Him. Nothing makes sense, and all of it is so unfair. We can easily fall into the role of victim, and though we may certainly have been victimized by the actions of someone else, it is never His purpose for us to live the role on a day to day basis. That's why, if we truly hope to live out our calling as being "more than conquerors," we have to come to the place laid out by TerKeurst. We need to accept that no matter how unjust, this place is our reality, and we need to understand just what He wants to do in us in the midst of it. This is where walking in His wisdom and discernment becomes the priority. We need to see and understand everything from His perspective and not ours. Then, in the midst of that reality, we begin to learn how real He is, and how unlimited He is in the midst of our present circumstances.

Paul Billheimer wrote a classic book titled, "Don't Waste Your Sorrows." Too many of us do. We walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and not only do we fear all evil, we neither see or learn anything in the journey. All we can see is the shadow of death, and so we don't see Him, or hear Him either. We just want it to be over. His desire is to bring forth both in and out of us, the silver and gold of His Life. Paul prayed for the growth of wisdom and discernment for the Ephesians because in his storm tossed and often "shipwrecked" life, he'd come to view his life and situations from the vantage point of His Kingdom, and not his own understanding. Paul went to Rome knowing the terrors that awaited him, but he went in trust because he knew he was being led by a good God that he had full confidence in. In his prison cell, he did not fill his days with asking God why, but instead sought Him in the atmosphere of that cell. From that cell flowed life, His life, that continues to minister to us two thousand years later.

You may be walking through the darkness of pain, suffering and need right now. God is not immune to it. He feels and shares it with you. You may want to know why, but it is very likely that He will never answer that question. Yet He will supply unlimited guidance to the ones who accept their current reality and seek to know His heart for them in the midst of it. He has a purpose for us, even when our lives seem to have no purpose at all. When our lives and circumstances make no sense at all. James Robison said that we need to stop asking why, and instead ask, "Who?" Who is Lord of all, even in the darkness.

Who holds our lives in His hand? Who loves us beyond description? Who is the One who will get us through, and get us home? Who is the One who will fashion more and more of the life of His Son in us? Who? The Father, through His Son, by the power of His Holy Spirit. That is Who, and that is enough.

Blessings,
Pastor O