Shining Light Into Darkness

Lately I’ve been reading through different Old Testament books – no particular order, just looking at them with new eyes.  And on this day that during my lifetime has become less and less about good clean fun and more and more about the work of Satan, I wanted to share what this fresh look at really old stories has been teaching me.

My approach to the Old Testament this time around has been to skim the details (instead of getting bogged down in them) and look for the hand of God throughout the history, the laws, the wisdom, and the prophecies of this part of the Bible.  I have been underlining every instance where God speaks and every time that the events of life are attributed to God’s work.  Even though I am a seasoned Christian and Bible student, this approach has opened my eyes to new truth.

Admittedly, the Old Testament narratives were written by people who were biased: they believed in God’s sovereignty and wrote their stories in an effort to proclaim that to others.  I happen to believe their stories to be true; but, even if they’re not, the way they are told reveals something important about the people who wrote them.

Time and time again I have underlined actions of God and words of God: God redeemed (Deuteronomy 24:18); the Lord heard (Numbers 12:2); the Lord spoke (too many references to cite!); the Lord gave (Judges 1:4); the Lord God of Israel fought (Joshua 10:42); God sent (Genesis 45:7); the Lord saved (Exodus 14:30); the glory of the Lord appeared (Leviticus 9:23); God keeps covenant and steadfast love (Nehemiah 9:32); the Lord established (2 Samuel 5:12); the Lord had visited his people (Ruth 1:6); God makes everything (Ecclesiastes 11:5); the Most High rules (Daniel 4:32); the Lord answered (Job 38:1); God searches (1 Chronicles 28:9); the Lord listened (1 Kings 17:22).  There are so many more!

As these underlined words now leap off of the page, I am struck over and over with the reality of God’s sovereignty as well as other more personal traits.  I might not always understand how he chooses to work, but there can be no question that he does work in our world as well as the ancient world.   Most of all I recognize his faithfulness and example as a true promise-keeper.  And while not everyone (in either the ancient world or our world today) chooses to recognize and acknowledge God’s sovereignty and follow his leading, the writers of the Old Testament books chose to record their stories in light of the greatness of their God.  There was never any question regarding God’s sovereignty, even in a book like Job.  There is a lesson in that for all of us.

Does everyone I come in contact with see the God who rules my heart?  Do all the stories I tell about my own experiences clearly point to the One who directs my path?  Do I set an example in my daily life that shows others how much I love my Lord?  Is God’s sovereignty unquestionably accepted in my life, and is this what I model – even when life’s circumstances are hard?  Only through Christ’s work on the cross and through the process of daily sanctification can we answer these questions the right way, because even the desire to do what is right is initiated by God (Philippians 2:13).  But, thanks to his power, we have everything we need to live godly lives (2 Peter 1:3-4); and we can trust his promises because he always keeps them.  So go tell your story – with God as the main character – and boldly shine his light in a world of the enemy’s darkness!  

Days Gone By

I’ve been working on a couple of projects with old pictures lately that have made me think about how much has changed in my lifetime.  At the risk of sounding old-fashioned – or worse yet, just plain OLD – I have to say that I don’t think everything that has changed can be classified as progress. 

I won’t go as far as to call my childhood “the good old days”, since there are good and bad things about every generation and every time in our world’s history.  It seems that we humans aren’t able to ever hit the perfect happy medium – the pendulum always swings too far in one direction or the other.  But, despite some of the negative things about the era I grew up in (like legalism, ignorance regarding racial and social issues, the pitfalls of the American Dream mentality, etc.) here are some of the things I miss from my childhood:

 

Life was definitely simpler.  Our pre-technology world helped us to have lower expectations than most people have today.  Those were the days of shared toys with siblings instead of everyone having their own.  They were the days of finding joy in the simple things – nature, books, bikes, and swings.

 

The world seemed safer then as well.  The 24-hour news cycle hadn’t yet begun, so we definitely weren’t as aware of everything going on in the world.  But parents didn’t have to worry about what might happen if their children were out of sight.  I went door-to-door and sold Girl Scout cookies – not something a 9-year-old girl could do today!

I know I was protected by my parents, but I think most kids in those days were more innocent than those being raised today.  The whole atmosphere of the world was more innocent.  There were things that grownups knew about that I never heard about as a child – things that were considered “adult” and not for innocent eyes and ears.  Sadly, that is much harder to accomplish while raising children in today’s world.

One of the reasons the world was different way back when is because more people shared the same worldview, which was largely based on Biblical values.  Even though everyone didn’t attend church or claim to be Christians, there was still a shared value system with a much narrower view of right and wrong than what we have today.  Parents were respected because they were adults, and they had the right to choose how to raise their children without being questioned by doctors, schools, and others.

I know that younger generations believe the world has improved because we now talk about things like tolerance and equality, and everyone can pretty much do or be whatever they want.  But the events of recent weeks should convince just about everybody that, like all previous generations, we still haven’t rid the world of everything that is evil or needs to change.  Only God can do that – and he has chosen to hold off on completing that task so that more people will have the opportunity to turn and follow him (2 Peter 3:9).  The good news is that there is always hope because God always keeps his promises (Psalm 145:13)!  No matter what things in the world look like, we can be thankful for that.

The Best-Laid Plans

I had planned to post something last week.  I even knew exactly what I was going to write about.  And then life happened and my husband spent three days in the hospital.  Fortunately, he is doing well and it was nothing life-threatening.  But it was the kind of thing that annoyingly stole our week!  Interestingly, I don’t think it was a coincidence.

A lot of pieces in my life seem to be converging with each other right now.  First of all, last week was the anniversary of 9/11 – a day when completely unexpected things that we couldn’t control happened in our nation.  The past few weeks have held some unexpected and out-of-our-control health concerns for my husband and me.  Our pastor began a new teaching series to help us understand why it matters what we believe, and I am leading a Women’s Bible Study starting this week on spiritual warfare.  And during the past week or so I have also been reading the book of Ecclesiastes. 

What ties all of these things together?  The enemy is always on the alert for ways to distract and devour us (1 Peter 5:8) – but God is always sovereign and has already won the victory (1 Corinthians 15:57).  Finding the balance in our minds between these two truths is the key to daily peace and joy.  Let me explain.

When bad or difficult things happen, it is easy to take our focus off of God and look exclusively at what went wrong.  It is also possible to focus too heavily on the enemy’s work in our world.  Satan does inspire evil in the hearts of all of us, and he seeks to destroy anything good that God is doing in the world and in our lives.  He leads people astray into false ideas that leave God out of the picture; and he attacks our thoughts, our bodies, our relationships, and any other area that we are vulnerable.  Focusing only on the enemy’s work can lead us to a place of despair like that expressed in portions of Ecclesiastes.

But that is only one side of the story.  Although the writer of Ecclesiastes often sounds depressed, he also has given us a few verses with strong support of God’s sovereignty – as well as reminding us that God has put eternity in our hearts.  Even in his despair, the writer acknowledges God’s hand in everything and his ultimate victory over evil – no matter what life looks like at any given point in time.  It is a good lesson for all of us.

I know the enemy wants to use the events in my life over the past few weeks to distract me from being fully prepared to help other women learn how to fight him off with the armor of God.  I know he wants me to come to battle unequipped and frustrated.  I know he wants me to rely on my own strength to be ready for this week’s Bible study lesson, and I know he wants me to doubt God’s sovereignty over everything and his ability and desire for me to be victorious.  It’s the oldest tool that the enemy uses – “Did God really say . . . ?” (Genesis 3:1).

But faith demands that I choose to look beyond the enemy’s attacks and fully trust God for the outcome.  God is on my side, so who or what can be against me?  I have felt overwhelmed by the things that are out of my control recently; but God is neither surprised by these events nor overwhelmed.  He just wants me to lean into him and receive his joy and peace and the strength to complete the tasks at hand.  Feeling overwhelmed and out of control is actually a really great place to be – because it keeps me out of the way so God can do his work and shine!