destroyed
This just isn’t how it’s suppose to be… Have you ever felt that way?
Perhaps it is the sting of sin… and everything in you screams that this can’t be right.
Or, maybe it’s crazy-hard circumstances that make your heart long for the return of Jesus… just so it stops hurting.
Sometimes I find myself saying “It’s not suppose to be this way” when I see the incredibly heart wrenching hurt in this world. Or, when I feel a hurt deep in my own heart.
This isn’t how it is suppose to be, right?
Last week I learned of Steve Stern’s passing into the arms of Jesus.
You may not know Steve.
I didn’t know him personally… we followed each other on twitter and I only knew his story through his wife, Bo – but, the impact he had on my life was profound nonetheless.
Steve’s wife, Bo {author of Beautiful Battlefields}, shared at our women’s retreat in 2013. At the time, Steve was about 2 years into his battle with ALS. I remember Bo sharing a tender moment when she broke down in Steve’s arms sharing that she just couldn’t do this…
You know… that feeling when the world is crashing all around and you can’t make heads or tails… When you don’t know which way is up and you just know you can’t handle this journey you are on.
Steve pointed his wife to a passage in Luke…
Luke 7:20-23 NASB
20 When the men came to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, to ask, ‘Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?’”
21 At that very time He cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits; and He gave sight to many who were blind.
22 And He answered and said to them, “Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the gospel preached to them.
23 Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.”
John the baptist is in prison and his followers go to Jesus to tell Him… probably thinking that, if Jesus is who John the baptist says He is then He will get John out.
He doesn’t.
They thought Jesus would fix it. Isn’t that what He was suppose to do?… come and fix everything? Make everything wrong, right again?
Instead, Jesus tells them that John knows who Jesus is.
He knows that He is GOD… and then exhorts them by telling them to not be offended by what God is doing and how He does it.
whoah.
I have a choice with how I am going to respond to the circumstances in my life.
I can trust my King. I can trust that the things my Lord is doing in my life and around me are well within His loving arms…
Or I can choose to be angry and bitter by how I am treated in this world…
I can choose to be angry and bitter about my circumstances…
and according to the world’s standards, I might very well be right to choose that.
But HE is God.
I am not.
What if the healing doesn’t come in this life on earth?
What if circumstances don’t change and it continues to be hard?
What if this journey seems to only offer suffering?
Do I still hold fast to what I know to be true?
Can I still know that He is King?
Can I still trust His love for me?
He still IS the God who fixes things… but, maybe His fixing looks very different than my fixing.
Hmmm…
Will I be offended even if the healing doesn’t come the way I think it should?
vs. 23: “Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.”
We spent last weekend camping at Ft. Stevens park on the northern Oregon coast… on the beach are the ruins of an old ship that grounded in 1906 after hitting unexpected winds and currents on it’s way from Mexico to Portland, Oregon.
No one was lost in this shipwreck… and after everyone was safely rescued, the Captain of the Peter Iredale gave the ship a last toast:
“May God bless you, and may your bones bleach in the sands.”
{Ha!}
Oh how my response is when I feel wrecked or abandoned.
That ship can just sit here and waste away. thankyouverymuch.
Did you know Paul was shipwrecked?
In the book of Acts, we find the shipwreck Paul experienced. In this story, Paul was given the foreknowledge that the ship would be wrecked but that those on board would survive and “only the ship would be destroyed…”
Acts 27:22-26 NIV
“But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. 23 Last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me 24 and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.’ 25 So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. 26 Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island.”
All around me may fall apart.
Dreams may be shattered.
Life may look like it isn’t how it is suppose to be.
I may feel abandoned and struck down.
Things might not go as I plan or desire…
But, “only the ship will be destroyed”
I may not get the “why” and I often don’t understand how everything my Lord is doing will work it’s way out…
But, In this storm – in this life…
although full of crazy-difficult…
and circumstances that utterly ruin me to the core…
“only the ship will be destroyed”
..and I can rest in knowing that this God is the same God who takes the stuff that “isn’t suppose to be” and makes it into something more beautiful than I could ever dream.
What if my ship is wrecked and abandoned?
What if nothing seems to go the way “it’s suppose to go”?
My Lord is still one who is proven trustworthy.
Nothing is ever wasted in the hands of our King… forever may He be my King.
“Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.”
Such wise and true words… It’s so hard when we are going through the shattering loss, pain and disappointment. But there is something that changed in me when I learned that things could go terribly wrong, and God was still good. Unshakeable faith is a choice we make over and over, even when terrible tragedy overwhelms us…he is still there, and he is still good, even if we never see the good in what has happened on this side of eternity. Thank you for sharing.