So Many Unanswered Questions
Imagine with me that you are running a 5K race and 60 feet from the finish line, you are ordered to not move another step. Do not sit down and no way to finish. Just stop. Breathe and recover while you wait. Drink some water. Here’s a towel.
That’s often how it feels when God holds you in a place of waiting. The finish line is within reach, and yet you are held back from completing what you know needs to be done. God is asking you–do you trust Me? Can you rely on My plan for your life? They are plans to prosper and not harm you. To go forward right now will harm you, Child.
Back to the running scenario…while you stand there, a catastrophic earthquake happens. With your towel and water in hand, you see the earth fall away all around you. The finish line is gone. And you are standing there alone among the rubble. Your feet are on the only solid ground you see. If you had sat down, you would have fallen, and if you had continued to the finish line, you would have died. But now what? You are saved from destruction, and destruction is all around you. God has taken the seemingly insignificant event and shown you the weightiness of it.
Yet, you are rooted on solid ground. This ground will hold. And help? Well help is on the way. Though you do not perceive it.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Matthew 6:25 ESV
The first week of quarantine felt like an extended Spring Break. Then the 2nd, 3rd and 4th week happened. I don’t know, but I began to feel like it was all so unreal. Had I entered the Twilight Zone?
But it was real–very real. And as the weeks progressed, my family began to operate at a different place. Nothing was rote anymore. Everything was weighed and considered. What we expected is not what often happened–who would have thought that there would be shortages at the grocery stores and that how we did everyday life would be so impacted? I never once expected this to be part of our lifetime.
As Believers, we all find ourselves unearthed in this pandemic, yet our feet are rooted on solid ground in Jesus Christ.
Have you ever dug a deep hole and found an old artifact? You wonder where it came from and what the story is behind it. Maybe it is valuable. Perhaps it is just trash. But the value can be determined.
God, Our Heavenly Father, has Answers for You!
As we have been digging over these many weeks, we are finding our own artifacts. Some of them are lost, healthy life-skills we once saw as part of our every day landscape–walking with family, planting gardens, swinging on the porch, going on picnics and playing games until late–or watching birds build their nest and later feed their new family! We are rediscovering the simplicity of life at a slower pace. And many of these wonderful times are treasures of inestimable value!
“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Matthew 6:26 ESV
God is taking care of our every need. He is giving us life and developing in us godliness, as we are training our minds to trust this race to him. He is marking the path out a day, even a moment at a time.
These are the days where we are building complete trust in God in the midst of all our questions. He wants to go through it all with us, each part. He has a plan for rescuing us from the catastrophic landscape. He’s providing a way through.
In the midst of the unearthing of this time, I know some ugly things have cropped up in our lives, as well. Worry and anxiety have compounded. Our tempers have flared. We have left some scorched earth with people we love, tearing the fabric of our relational ties. We have found solace in binge watching, over eating and other addictive behaviors. Perhaps we have even have let our idols run our lives. We have forgotten our very good God, who controls every circumstance of our lives.
“We tear down arguments, and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:6 BSB
We can misplace our trust sometimes. When we recognize it, these are the things that have been unearthed in us that we really need to throw out. At this point, we can plant our feet again on the solid Rock that is Jesus, by tearing down the lies and trusting in, knowing only, Jesus. In the middle of it all, He comes to tend to our brokeness and restores us to finish the race — on the path He Himself has marked out for us. Look around again and you will see He has marked the way home. In fact, Jesus is coming with us!
SCRIPTURE
“And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” Matthew 6:27 ESV
ABIDE
Father, we are standing in the middle of a moment that we would like to rush through and move on from, but I ask you LORD JESUS to not let us be in a hurry. Sift through it all with us and show us the way forward in faith and trust in You by the power of Your Holy Spirit. And LORD? Please grow me in my faith today. I trust you to each bit of rubble and choose to awaken my heart to see the treasures in the ruins. Bind them to my heart, so that I may carry them forward as we walk through this place together, hand in hand.
OVERFLOW
Who can I come alongside today by writing a letter, sending a text or making a phone call to let them know that they are not alone during these days? Follow through on who God prompts in your heart this moment. Yes, even them. Don’t go another step in your journey ’til you have been obedient.
Writer
Holly loves being the wife of Chris (for 29 years!) and mom to Noah (22), Kylie (20), Tabor (17) and Sydney (13). God has gifted Holly with a love of all things creative — from painting and wall-papering to scrapbooking and design work — as well as a love for all people. Recently, she has laid down her web designing cap for her writer’s pen, which is her favorite form of art, especially communicating the love and work of Jesus in a way that reaches across all divides. She serves weekly at a local, federal, women’s prison, as one of a team of three, teaching a faith-based parenting class. It is her highest joy, seeing these women “get it”– Jesus loves me, yes even me! She carries the stories of people in her heart and she prays for them, even many years later, anticipating the day she will meet them again to hear the great things God has done in their lives. She lives to tell, in every season, God is faithful!
Leave a Reply