Wednesday morning I woke up groggy and irritable from a restless night of dreaming. As I got ready for work I was talking to God about my issue - trying to barter, I guess. The conversation went a little like this:
Me: "God, if the gifts are from You and we are supposed to use them to further Your Kingdom, why do they have to take such a toll on us. I wish I could wake up from a night of dreaming and be completely rested and ready for the day."
(Not that I don't believe that this isn't possible, I just don't experience it very often.)
As I put on my coat and grabbed my purse, my mind traveled off into another thought - Mary. I kept thinking of the sacrifices that she had to make in order to operate in the gifts that God had given her; and the conversation started up again.
Me: "What would I have done if I were Mary? When I was 14 years old I could barely even remember to feed the dog, let alone be engaged and pregnant with the Messiah. Would I have said "Sure, God! Put your baby in me!" Maybe I would have said yes if You could give me a painless childbirth, I think that's the least that Mary could have asked for."
As I walked outside and locked my door God stopped me: "It doesn't work like that. Every life changing decision, every earth moving ministry is birthed from the screams of a swollen, pregnant mother. If Mary didn't feel her hips shift open, if she didn't feel her body tearing apart she wouldn't have realized how precious was the gift that she bore."
Not only did Mary have to feel every bit of the pregnancy and labor, but 14 year old, nine months pregnant Mary had to travel from her home in Nazareth to Bethlehem to be counted in the census. I'm sure that at this point Mary, like most other pregnant women felt like she was going to be pregnant for the rest of her life, but God didn't intend for her to be pregnant forever.
When Mary became pregnant, the baby had to form, grow - Mary had to carry the baby in her womb long enough for Him to mature. Then - when her body could no longer contain the baby, God moved her to a completely different city. God allowed Mary to be pregnant in Nazareth, but He could not allow her to give birth there.
The prophecy of Jesus' birth in Micah 5:2-4 says: But you, Bethlehem, David's Country, the runt of the litter - from you will come the leader who will shepherd-rule Israel. He'll be no upstart, no pretender. His family tree is ancient and distinguished. Meanwhile, Israel will be in foster homes until the birth pangs are over and the child is born, and the scattered brothers come back home to the family of Israel. He will stand tall in his shepherd-rule by God's strength, centered in the majesty of God-Revealed. And the people will have a good and safe home, for the whole world will hold him in respect - peacemaker of the world!
If I were Mary, I would have bartered with God for a pain-free labor, but when I think about it, Mary may have had the most painful labor in all of history. Her fiance questioned her loyalty, she was most likely scorned for being an unwed mother, she was taken from her home, made to embark on an exhausting journey and forced to give birth in a stable. But no matter how hard or messy the journey got, God was ALWAYS with her - literally.
Sometimes the gifts we've been given look a lot less like gifts and a lot more like a series of unfortunate events, but we shouldn't look at these gifts as "favors" that we're doing for God. They are not favors, they are gifts - gifts that God has trusted us to carry and nurture. Even better than God entrusting us with His best is perhaps the knowledge that He entrusted us because He knew that we would be more than capable to see them through.
So Mary, don't be discouraged by the whispers, don't be offended by those who doubt you, don't despise the days of your swollen pregnancy, don't be afraid of the long journey, don't be ashamed to give birth in a barn, know that God is always with you and when the sun comes up you'll be holding The Promise in your arms.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Monday, February 8, 2016
Cleaning Up the Ark
Gen 8:1-2 (NIV)
"But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed and the rain had stopped falling from the sky."
It wasn't just raining on Noah. The Bible tells us that the flood was coming at him from every angle. Rain from the sky, water bursting forth from the deep in the earth - God was throwing everything at them, yet he had put them under his protection. Noah and his family still had to go through the storm, God didn't relocate them to the far off planet of Zebulan while he destroyed the earth. He could have, but he didn't. Instead, God gave Noah very specific instructions to build an ark; these instructions would not only save the lives of Noah and his family, but would also preserve all animal life forms.
Why didn't God just remove them from the situation until it was better? Why did Noah have to work tirelessly on a huge boat - something that had never before been built? I imagine that he was mocked, scorned, outcast, even called crazy and yet the Bible tells us that "Noah did everything just as God commanded him" (Gen 6:22).
Noah, his wife, their sons and their wives, along with all of the animals entered the ark and God shut them in...then they sat there and waited...and waited...and waited. They waited in a boat while everyone else, their friends, leaders of the community, the town criminals walked around. They waited in a boat while people walked by and chanted about "Crazy Old Noah" and his "Crazy Old Family". Maybe the kids had a dare going on: "I dare you three figs that you won't go touch it!" and yet Noah waited.
Finally on the seventh day the floodgates opened, the springs burst forth and the rain came down. Noah was in this ark tending to his family and animals while everything was being destroyed. His home, his friends, his mentors, the people he looked up to were all gone - and Noah was stuck right in the middle of it.
God could have removed him from the situation completely, but instead He put him right in the middle of if. Why? The Bible says that "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God" (Gen 6:9) Maybe God was rewarding Noah for his faithfulness, but there's more than that. Perhaps God needed Noah to be in the middle of it, to watch his world be destroyed, to see everything that could have destroyed him be destroyed right in front of him while he was safe (shaken, but still safe) in the ark.
Even after the rains stopped, the waves didn't. We think that the storm is always followed by calm, that God always has to be gentle as he's cleaning us up, but the Bible says he "sent a wind over the earth and the waters receded".
What kind of wind must that have been? A Bahama breeze isn't going to dry a flooded earth. This wind didn't make Noah want to pitch a hammock and hang out on deck. This wind had to be violent enough to make 40 days and nights worth of floodwater draw back. The Bible says "The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down..." (Gen 8:3).
The storm was over, Noah and his family and all of the animals had survived 40 days and 40 nights worth of raging floods, but now they had to survive 150 days with a wind strong enough to dry the planet.
Often times we think that the storms in our lives are the scariest, longest periods and that they serve no purpose, but I would contend that storms are quick, they are violent and can be terrifying, but it's the clean up that takes the longest.
God uses the storms in our lives to destroy the things that could destroy us. Sometimes he even warns us that they're coming and tells us to get in the ark...and there we sit, but just imagine if Noah had gotten tired of being mocked, tired of listening to his sons bicker back and forth, tired of smelling the filth of the animals. What if Noah had gotten tired of waiting and left the ark before the seventh day? He would have been swept up and destroyed with the rest of creation.
The Bible says that Noah was 600 years old when the waters began to rise and he was 601 when the ground was dry. 40 days and 40 nights - that's how long it rained, only 40 days and 40 nights. The rest of the year God spent cleaning up the destruction. Noah spent 40 days and 40 nights on the ark while it rose high above the tallest peaks and then he spent 150 days being tossed about by the wind before the ark finally came to rest on a mountain. He then spent another 4 months sitting in an ark on a mountain before he even opened a window to look outside.
See, it's not the storm that took the longest, but the clean up. The clean up isn't always easy, it isn't always pleasant, but it is always necessary. Don't let the enemy trick you into believing that the storm is the end of the test, if we don't let God clean us up after the storm we'll end up spending the rest of our lives on the ark.
"But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed and the rain had stopped falling from the sky."
It wasn't just raining on Noah. The Bible tells us that the flood was coming at him from every angle. Rain from the sky, water bursting forth from the deep in the earth - God was throwing everything at them, yet he had put them under his protection. Noah and his family still had to go through the storm, God didn't relocate them to the far off planet of Zebulan while he destroyed the earth. He could have, but he didn't. Instead, God gave Noah very specific instructions to build an ark; these instructions would not only save the lives of Noah and his family, but would also preserve all animal life forms.
Why didn't God just remove them from the situation until it was better? Why did Noah have to work tirelessly on a huge boat - something that had never before been built? I imagine that he was mocked, scorned, outcast, even called crazy and yet the Bible tells us that "Noah did everything just as God commanded him" (Gen 6:22).
Noah, his wife, their sons and their wives, along with all of the animals entered the ark and God shut them in...then they sat there and waited...and waited...and waited. They waited in a boat while everyone else, their friends, leaders of the community, the town criminals walked around. They waited in a boat while people walked by and chanted about "Crazy Old Noah" and his "Crazy Old Family". Maybe the kids had a dare going on: "I dare you three figs that you won't go touch it!" and yet Noah waited.
Finally on the seventh day the floodgates opened, the springs burst forth and the rain came down. Noah was in this ark tending to his family and animals while everything was being destroyed. His home, his friends, his mentors, the people he looked up to were all gone - and Noah was stuck right in the middle of it.
God could have removed him from the situation completely, but instead He put him right in the middle of if. Why? The Bible says that "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God" (Gen 6:9) Maybe God was rewarding Noah for his faithfulness, but there's more than that. Perhaps God needed Noah to be in the middle of it, to watch his world be destroyed, to see everything that could have destroyed him be destroyed right in front of him while he was safe (shaken, but still safe) in the ark.
Even after the rains stopped, the waves didn't. We think that the storm is always followed by calm, that God always has to be gentle as he's cleaning us up, but the Bible says he "sent a wind over the earth and the waters receded".
What kind of wind must that have been? A Bahama breeze isn't going to dry a flooded earth. This wind didn't make Noah want to pitch a hammock and hang out on deck. This wind had to be violent enough to make 40 days and nights worth of floodwater draw back. The Bible says "The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down..." (Gen 8:3).
The storm was over, Noah and his family and all of the animals had survived 40 days and 40 nights worth of raging floods, but now they had to survive 150 days with a wind strong enough to dry the planet.
Often times we think that the storms in our lives are the scariest, longest periods and that they serve no purpose, but I would contend that storms are quick, they are violent and can be terrifying, but it's the clean up that takes the longest.
God uses the storms in our lives to destroy the things that could destroy us. Sometimes he even warns us that they're coming and tells us to get in the ark...and there we sit, but just imagine if Noah had gotten tired of being mocked, tired of listening to his sons bicker back and forth, tired of smelling the filth of the animals. What if Noah had gotten tired of waiting and left the ark before the seventh day? He would have been swept up and destroyed with the rest of creation.
The Bible says that Noah was 600 years old when the waters began to rise and he was 601 when the ground was dry. 40 days and 40 nights - that's how long it rained, only 40 days and 40 nights. The rest of the year God spent cleaning up the destruction. Noah spent 40 days and 40 nights on the ark while it rose high above the tallest peaks and then he spent 150 days being tossed about by the wind before the ark finally came to rest on a mountain. He then spent another 4 months sitting in an ark on a mountain before he even opened a window to look outside.
See, it's not the storm that took the longest, but the clean up. The clean up isn't always easy, it isn't always pleasant, but it is always necessary. Don't let the enemy trick you into believing that the storm is the end of the test, if we don't let God clean us up after the storm we'll end up spending the rest of our lives on the ark.
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