It is the natural inclination of a person to always want to "fix" things, and do so themselves. The idea of giving up is not really in our nature. What do the scriptures say?
I Peter 5:5 Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. 6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: 7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. 8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. 10 But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. 11 To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
There are a couple things to note here. One is that there is no promise here of an instant fix, or some sort of miracle as you would think of wanting. When we humble ourselves and cast our cares upon Him, the promise is that in DUE TIME we may be exalted. Part of humbling ourselves would be to trust that God knows the DUE TIME and to not fret about those cares. Our adversary would love to get us all caught up in worry about things of the world and steal away our peace, joy, love, and witness. We can resist those temptations knowing that even though we do suffer for a while, we will be made perfect, established, strong, and settled.
Jesus says in Mathew 11: 28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Jesus here hands out an invitation to those who are overcome with the cares of this world and the problems they present. He says to look to Him, not necessarily to solve all the problems you are worrying about, but that instead of being so stressed about them, so burdened by them, so overwhelmed; you will find rest in Him and through Him. If we look to Jesus and learn of Him instead of focusing on our problems, we are promised rest for our souls.
When we take upon the yoke of Jesus, He is leading us. His ways lead us to peace and rest within our souls, even though all around us chaos may reign. Through Him we find rest instead of weariness, hope instead of heartbreak, peace instead of tumult, love instead of anger, caring instead of hostility. He leads us to those good things if we humble ourselves and take His yoke upon us. Then we need not worry about the other stuff. Yes, we still have to do things, and bad things will still happen, but we will no longer let those things overwhelm us, or take our focus. We will remain in peace if we keep our eyes on Jesus.
Have you ever gotten mad at God? There are times where things just don't seem to fit together like you thought, or you did not get the answer from Him you expected, and life just is not going at all smoothly. I'm not talking about something superficial like you didn't get that new car you asked for. I'm talking about gut wrenching issues, agonizing hurt, after long periods of time pleading. Something that just makes you drop to your knees and scream, Why Lord?
You may be wondering, why Lord. why do the evil succeed? Why do they get away with it? How long, oh Lord, must I deal with this or that situation? Why is it that I never seem to come out on top, Lord? Why is it that I have been alone so long waiting? Have you not heard me? Can't you see that I am hurting? Why have you not delivered me?
I think many of us get to these desperate heart aching points in our walk where we just cannot see or understand the plan God is working in or through us. Times where we almost can't find any words to express the anguish that we are feeling or the desperation that we are experiencing. What are we supposed to do? How are we to carry on when it just seems like the world is falling in on top of us and the bottom has dropped away?
I've been facing such situations recently, so as much as this is sharing with others, it is also a little therapy for myself here. All those types of questions are swirling around in my head, and I am asking and pleading, wondering when is it going to end? What am I supposed to do?
I got a word before the intensity of the situation I am in ramped up several hundred degrees.
Galatians 6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
When we are upset and troubled, even wounded deeply to our core, we still need to carry on in a way that is pleasing to God. He made a promise to us in that verse. We can't let our pain become so great that we begin hurting others. We need to keep our focus on God and doing what is right, treating others as we ourselves want to be treated, doing our jobs to the best of our ability, being honest, not being a gossiper, etc etc... If we do those things, we have a harvest coming. We might not know when it is or how it is, but we can rest assured that it will come when it is ripe and ready and perfect for us.
I wish I could say that I have been a perfect soldier in this, but really, it is kind of a hard thing to do. We are hurt and upset and do some things that don't necessarily help, or think we can do something about it and forget that God is the one in control. We can get caught up in our emotions and reap some consequences we'd rather not. That is the hard part about the "faint not" in that verse. We can make things worse when we get like, I got this God.
I think that when we get past the initial "WHY GOD WHY?", we can settle back and look to the word for the practical applications of "how, Lord, how?" Maybe God will bring some useful verse to remembrance like He did for me with the above verse, or we may stumble upon a teacher on the radio or TV that has a message that speaks to our situation, and we should of course look through the word and meditate upon what it says. The instructions on what to do can be found there.
Another hard thing that we should be learning to do in tough situations is learning to trust God even more. It is all well and good to trust God when things are going well, but when things happen and appear to be at their worst, that is when we really need to knuckle down with some serious faith and determined faith that says, despite what I am seeing and feeling, I know that that harvest is out there getting ripe and I have no doubt that if I do as the word says, the blessing is promised to me by God, and God keeps ALL his promises.
Something just isn't right. For the past several days, in fact, nearly a week now, I have been feeling very unsettled. Things have been bothering me, annoying me. My patience is very thin. I have been finding myself going around upset. This is not like me. Normally I am a very positive person, upbeat, happy, and making jokes. What is going on?
Seems like lately I have been bombarded with stupid. Not just your average everyday stupid, but some real hardcore stupidity. I got people who don't care about their job, doing things wrong and it doesn't even concern them. I've got vandals messing up my work area. Things are breaking and not getting repaired. I have multiple bosses giving conflicting orders and me taking the blame from each for doing what the other said do. People are acting like jerks for no reason.
Recently it has just been like a tsunami of stupid has flooded into my life and I seem powerless to be able to do anything about it. I'm being battered by the idiotic debris and sucked under by the turbulence of imbecility. I'm trying to gasp for air as I bob above the surface for a moment only to be pushed under again by some other ridiculousness pushing me down. HELP! Dwayne the bathtub! I'm dwowning!
Psalm 46:10 (a) Be still, and know that I am God:
Amid all the turmoil and craziness that continues to overwhelm me, I took my 15 minutes break, grabbed a chair, and sat silent in a closet, praying and thinking. No great revelation came to me, but a peace came to me that I had mot felt in a while. I was calm again; relaxed. I felt some of the joy return. I was energized. The weirdness no longer worried me.
I think that is just a little mini lesson for me to do what I often forget to do, and that is just to be still and know the God is God. He is in control of it all. He knows what is happening always and when we love, trust, and obey Him, He will cause everything to work to our benefit. So how is all the recent madness going to be worked for my benefit? haven't a clue. That is for God to do.
Psalm 28:7 The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.
