It’s Not at Bad as You Think

Lamentations 3:21-31

21 Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:

22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
23 Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!”

25 The Lord is good to those who depend on him,
to those who search for him.
26 So it is good to wait quietly
for salvation from the Lord.
27 And it is good for people to submit at an early age
to the yoke of his discipline:

28 Let them sit alone in silence
beneath the Lord’s demands.
29 Let them lie face down in the dust,
for there may be hope at last.
30 Let them turn the other cheek to those who strike them
and accept the insults of their enemies.

31 For no one is abandoned
by the Lord forever.

Even in the midst of this person's lamenting they found it appropriate to acknowledge the faithfulness of God. This teaches me that no matter what may be going on around, not matter how bad it may seem, I need to remember that God is faithful and His mercy never ceases. Praise God!

This person is also acknowledging that the Lord is good to those who depend on Him. I see here a couple of times it also mentions waiting quietly or in silence. Setting time away with the Lord in quiet solitude is a great thing to do. We should strive to do it every day. During these times is when God will most likely communicate with you so that you can hear Him and know that it is His voice. You won't be answering phones, emails or faxes and you won't be watching TV or updating your Facebook status. It's just time for you and God to sit down and go over His plans for you that day or to review what happened that day.

A guy in my discipleship group gave me a great idea to use with the kids. When his children were younger they used to have what they called a God hunt. During this hunt the kids would recall a time during the day where God showed Himself in a small way to them. This taught them to look for God in the small things in life and not just wait on the big things to happen. If we realize that He is intimately involved in many areas of our lives, especially the small ones, we can then be able to grasp that when something big happens that He wants to be involved in that too. How cool is that?!?

It looks like this is what is happening with the person here. They are in the midst of a great time of frustration, loss and despair. Yet they found time to remember that God is good God and He cares for us. This is important to remember when everything seems to be going wrong. God cares for you more than you may care for yourself or certainly more than anyone else will care for you. Who else would send their Son to die for billions of people with no guarantee that they will acknowledge or even accept that act of love? You don't get much more caring than that.

I know for myself one of the things the Lord has had to work on in me is that when I see what I think is this mountain of a problem that I am facing that I need to refocus my perspective. He gave me two analogies to show this. I once had this "problem" I thought was HUGE and didn't know of any way to get around it or over it. God told me to picture this mountain coming at me. As it approached He told me to turn my body 90 degrees to the right. As the mountain passed by I saw that it was no thicker than a piece of paper. What I thought was this huge mountain to overcome was really nothing but a fake mountain. It had no depth to it and so I didn't need to give it as much consideration as I had. The other time He told me to look at the mountain as I normally would. He then instructed me to look up to heaven and then asked how big the mountain was. I noticed that the mountain was now no larger than a small little hill. My eyes were focused on the mountain and not on Him, that is why it seemed so large. When we focus on the problem it can get bigger and bigger until we don't know what to do. This is when we need to change our perspective of the mountain. Either we turn to the side and let it pass us by and realize that it wasn't as big as we thought or we look to heaven and seek Jesus, who will bring the mountains into submission so that they are as small as mole hills.

Proverbs 3:5-6a (MSG)
Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do.

These verses will go a long way to help us calm down and don't get too worked up over what we consider to be large mountains or obstacles in our daily lives. Trust God, Listen for His voice and don't try to figure it out on our own. He is waiting for us to come to Him so that He can counsel us on the right approach to handle the situation at hand.

Here is an example of that. Last fall I went to the Men's Advance with 200 other guys from my church. I went up there to seek God's direction for my businesses. I wanted to get some direction and insight into where I needed to go with them. I spent two marvelous days up there and didn't come back with the answers I thought I would get. God had other plans for me. On Friday night when I was praying after the session the Lord told me to start a discipleship group. Prior to going up to the Advance the Lord was dealing with me about being willing and obedient. With my businesses I was being obedient but was not willing. With discipleship I was willing to lead one but wasn't obedient to start one. So I started praying about the group. When should we meet, where should we meet, who should come, what should we study, etc. I was praying about this all day Saturday. Sunday morning I was reading the bible and praying about the group and the Lord told me what to do. He told me to hold it on Monday nights from 7:30 - 9:00 and I was to invite the men from the golf league I was in during the summer. I was to hold the group in my house from September through April and out at the course May through August. I set up a meeting with the Pastor at our church who oversees the men's discipleship groups and told him what the Lord shared with me. He encouraged me to do it and we set a start date. I never did get what I though I needed that weekend because God wanted me to change my focus off the problem and onto what He had planned for me. I have since gotten the direction that I was looking for, but I don't think I would have gotten it if I hadn't taken my focus off the "problem" and not heard His plan for me. What an awesom God we serve!

Lord I praise You and honor You today. You care for me enough to reveal Your plan to me. I thank You that You love me more than I love You. I thank You that Your will for me is to prosper and succeed. I thank You that Jesus came so that I can have and enjoy life in abundance to the full until it overflows. I thank You that You are a God of the overflow and that in all areas of my life You will overflow through me onto others. Holy Spirit continue to guide me and teach me about His love so that I can share that with others. I woship You and You alone for You are worthy to be praised. I love You. Amen.

Published by Erik L. Vakula
Daily Bread From the Word
Copyright © 2009 Erik Vakula, All Rights Reserved