Heart Tracks - Lord Of Our Sorrows....And Joys!

David begged God to spare the child. He went without food and lay all night on the bare ground.....Then on the seventh day, the baby died." 2 Samuel 12:16-17

I recently heard Betty Robison, the wife of James Robison speak about the deep sorrow of losing their daughter to cancer. She spoke of lying before God crying out to Him, asking why, pouring out her heart in deep mourning. She said that in that place, He spoke to her, comforted her, and gave her the strength to get up, and go on. She said, "And when I got up, He was there." That's a beautiful statement, but as she said it, another thought came to me, and that was that He was not just there with her, standing above her, He was there with her....on the ground. As she lay in the deepest sorrow she had ever known, He lay there with her. Wept with her. He entered into that sorrow at it's deepest, and shared all of it's pain with her. When He is with us, He is completely with us. In the deepest sorrow or the highest joy, He is there. Completely. The key for us is, will we allow Him to enter into it, join us in it? He does not come where He is not welcome. The God who lay down with her, was also the God who called her up to Him. He will seek entry into our lowest place, and then call us up to His highest. He comes to us by invitation. We come to Him by the same.

David was a man who knew the highest joy, leaping and dancing before the Lord. I believe fully that as he did so, the Spirit leaped and danced with Him. In his times of laughter, pleasure, seemingly unending joy, the Lord was there, sharing, participating, living in it with Him. I think many of us struggle with this idea, but as David leaped, so did His Spirit. As David danced, His Spirit did as well. We struggle with this, as we so often seem to only see Him as a somber, unsmiling God. I don't believe the disciples knew Jesus in such a way. Christ called Himself the Man of Sorrows, and no one knows the depth of sorrow as He does, but I believe Him to be the Lord of Laughter and Joy as well. And it is His longing to enter into our greatest heights of joy as well as our deepest pits of mourning. But we have to bid Him enter. When He does, He will lie with us in the deep darkness, and dance with us on the mountain peaks.

David also knew the depths of sorrow. The loss of sons, the betrayal of loved ones. The abandonment of those he trusted most. Many had sympathy with him, compassion on him, but only the Spirit of the Lord could enter into that place with him. Those days spent before Him, lying on the ground, pleading for his child, were times spent in the full company and ministry of His Lord. That baby died, but when David arose, His Lord, who had been on the ground with Him, also rose up with Him, and then called him up to Him. Scripture says that upon receiving the news he never wanted to hear, he went in and worshiped Him. That is only possible for one who is living in and with Him at all times, the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows. David knew intimacy with Him in those places, and in all places. Do we? Do you?

He's not only with us in such places, but all the ones in between, and oftentimes, those are the most difficult. The days of sameness, dreariness, the seemingly unchanging. All we feel, experience, He feels and experiences with us. It's all part of the journey, but His promise is that wherever the journey takes us, He will use it all to take us home...to Him, as we go with Him. He's extended the invitation to us. Have we extended it to Him, the Lord of both our sorrows and joys?

Blessings,
Pastor O