Shipwreck

I was reading in Acts 27 this morning of the Apostle Paul’s shipwreck experience. My breath halted when I realized I was saying to myself, “Yes, this ship is definitely sinking.”  The parallel…. of situations and struggles currently running rampant in my life right now... to a sinking ship in a storm, was too close. 

Your emotions can get so raw, your thoughts so scattered and tired, and it just feels like you’re going down.  

I won’t elaborate.  I don’t need to. The details don’t matter nearly as much as the Truth we both need in those times. And when it’s how I FEEL vs what I KNOW, His Truth is what I need to know.  His Truth will carry me through. It will carry you through too.  

God revealed to Paul that the ship was going to sink.  But He also told him that if everyone just stayed on board and did not try to abandon ship they would ALL survive. They all reached the island shore safely. Please take time to read this amazing account.   

The natural tendency and easiest thing to consider when life gets too much is to “abandon ship”; find a way to avoid the inevitable, escape the pain somehow.  Trusting God for the way of escape, which may mean seeing the ship go down so to speak, and just grabbing hold and hanging onto His promises, is not so appealing and doesn’t always make sense.  God told Paul in this instance it was exactly what everyone needed to do. But how do we do that exactly when life’s blows hit us hard and heavy? When decisions are weighty and we don’t know which way to turn?  

The promises of God are so very real, they are trustworthy and strong, timely and relevant.  We have to determine to hold onto them, believing that God’s way is what He will honor and is what we most need.  He could take our circumstances and certainly could intervene in so many ways. But there are so many lessons to be learned in it all.  Christ wants our full attention and obedience to His word and ways. There is always more of Christ to know and love, and our hearts and hurts need to heal.  

        “So take courage!  For I believe God. It will be just as He said.”  Acts 27:25

Do you grasp the power in those words?!  Paul was able to say, with a literal shipwreck looming, I BELIEVE GOD!  IT WILL BE JUST AS HE SAID. Those that could swim were told to jump and swim when the ship started to break apart.  Application? There may be something He equips you to DO that will make a difference. It will direct you, help you, heal you.  Do you pray? That’s certainly something we can all DO. Others that could not swim were told to find a fragment and hang on. They would float to safety. Application?  Resting in His Divine providence for us, staying in His Word, waiting for His healing work in us, will bring safety and assurance. He will carry us to the place we need to be.  

Sometimes it is pretty evident that a shipwreck is looming in a life that will change it forever --a sudden death, a terminal diagnosis, a struggling addicted child, a job loss or financial disaster, false accusations or work-place bullying, a declaration of divorce.  Do I blame God? Do I abandon God? Or do I believe God, that His good purposes in me can and will be accomplished (Philippians 1:6)?

No, we do not always escape suffering and loss. But help and healing for our hurting hearts is where God’s unfailing love is so evidenced. I have found myself at times, sitting in my front room in the quiet, with just the glow of soft light, letting Him love on me.  I can’t say anything. But I listen, and wait. Sometimes in tears, sometimes numb, His word begins to come into my thoughts, it rises up in my heart and memory, these promises and Truths I have read and cherished...and I let them wash over me.  

Let this fill you with peace and comfort and enabling grace today.  Jesus has you. We have His words to cling to. They are profound and powerful; life-saving, life-changing, soul-settling.  They are the way of escape from the torment of all the turbulence of life’s storms.  

Pray with me...Oh God, it’s time for You once again to stretch my faith, increase my confidence in Your word, strengthen my resolve to praise You in my storm, and keep me ever leaning into Your grace!  Jesus, if all is lost, You are enough. Your unfailing love is overwhelmingly enough. Your word is life and light. Your joy is unspeakable. Your presence with me is peace.   

The ship may be sinking, but there is a quiet calm shore just on the other side of this storm.  

And Jesus is already there.  

“The Lord has told you what is good, and this is what He requires of you; to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”  Micah 6:8

Yes, God requires something of His children.  

To do what is right.  To love mercy.  To walk humbly with Him, our personal God.  I cannot require or even expect this from others, even other believers.  But I can yield myself completely to One that will reward what He requires; who will equip for what He expects.  I can commit to living out this Biblical mandate, and be emboldened and empowered by His grace to actually be able to do it.  

To do what is right.  This is not “right” according to me.  This is “right” according to a holy God.  Scripture, in the book of Judges, records the chaos and darkness of a people that “did that which was right in his own eyes”.  When one is left to determine what is right for himself in any given situation, we are on a collision course to destruction.  In other words, somebody always gets hurt.  And it is often the believer that suffers, the one that has a whole-hearted desire to fully follow after God, the one that truth and integrity and honesty and kind consideration really matters to.  And that’s often enough to discourage some, making them question the God they serve.  Why??  That’s the question when wrong gets the upper hand. It’s a tough pill to swallow when wrong appears to win.  And it’s not a new question.  

    “You have said terrible things about me, says the Lord.

But you say, What do you mean? What have we said against you?  

You have said, What’s the use of serving God?  What have we gained by obeying His commands…?”  Malachi 3:13-14

But the child of God does not need to struggle with these questions.  The faithful servant that has embraced grace, has experienced the reality and unrelenting love of God, the one that loves and serves Him because He first loved them, that child can throw themselves into the open arms of a great Savior that confirms over and over again that He is enough and there is everything to gain in Christ.  Jesus, in all His tender compassion, His forgiveness, the acceptance and belonging that is found with Him, the sweet comfort of knowing He will never leave or abandon His own, the overwhelming peace that is often impossible to explain but is very, very real...He is enough.  And He has revealed himself through His Word, the promises are true and relevant.  So never back away from doing right.  

    “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”  (Philippians 1: 21)

    “In His favor is life; weeping may endure for night, but joy comes in the morning.”

(Psalms 30:5)

To love mercy.  This is a tough one, but again, nothing He requires is beyond His enabling grace to accomplish.  Why is this so tough?  Because mercy defined means it is extended to the undeserving.  It demands that we relinquish the right, even the desire to retaliate, to wish that those who wrong us suffer accordingly.  When everything in you is screaming “you should pay!” it means giving that too, to Jesus.  And believe me, He can be trusted to do right by His children.  

“He [Jesus] did not retaliate when He was insulted, nor threaten revenge when He suffered.  He left His case in the hands of God who always judges fairly.”  (I Peter 2: 23-24)

Jesus left us this example and the rest of I Peter is full of encouragement and reminders of God’s faithfulness in providing for, comforting, blessing, those that “suffer for right’s sake” and do not return evil for evil.  He will hold you until the hurt heals.  He will bring you to the place that you LOVE mercy, because you are reminded often that He extends it to you on a regular basis.  He is full of mercy...unfailing love...and we can abandon ourselves to that unfailing love because it is eternal.  And, to take it a step further, we can love others this way because of Him.  Love Mercy!

Walk humbly with your God.  There is no other way to walk with God.  We can know God.  We can know about God. We can talk the God-talk.  But to walk with Him?  To have a vibrant, intimate, personal relationship with Him that alters our egos? To live as Jesus lived?  “To cast down every imagination and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ”?? (2 Corinthians 10:5) We are so often so full of ourselves.  What we want, how we feel, what we need...our future, our friends, our reputation, our...our...our..; me, me, me!!  Stop for one moment and say with John, “He must increase, I must decrease” (John 3:30).  Jesus will never be who He can and should be in your life until you are not the most important person in it.  Stop living for yourself.  Start living for Him!  And remember, it’s not just about “walking humbly”, but walking humbly WITH YOUR GOD.    

      “Pride and arrogance, and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.”  Proverbs 8:13

He has shown you what is good.   To live a life this way...doing right, loving mercy and walking humbly with God, this is the good life.  We don’t have to question or debate what “good” is.  He has graciously explained it, made it known.  It is no mystery, it’s simplicity is just not always appreciated.  And the fact that it is required?  We’re the better for it.  It’s the better way.  

By His grace, no regrets. None.

"Fruitful in the Land of my Affliction"

Our youngest son Seth and his wife Rebecca have been on an incredible journey.  Their oldest child, one of our precious grandchildren, Ephraim Josiah, was born with….wait, first things first…he was born, and he lived.  He lived beyond what anyone had thought possible from a medical perspective.  Ephraim will be four years old on the 18^th of May. 

What a bright, beautiful child he is.  He has been through so much in his four years.  God has seen fit to sustain him with very minimal kidney function.  And even though there have been surgeries and procedures, medications and treatments, he has survived major setbacks, and thrived.  Now it is clear and a decision has been made to begin moving him through processing for a kidney transplant.  Seth, his daddy, is the first donor candidate and will soon begin the process as well. 

Rebecca emailed me today with a preview of Ephraim’s logo with COTA (Children’s Organ Transplant Association) that will be ascribed with the message “fruitful in the Land of my affliction”.  My thoughts went immediately to the Scripture in Psalm 119.

“It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn Thy statutes.”  “I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.  Let Thy merciful kindness be for my comfort.”  Ps. 119:71,75,76

Good? Good to be afflicted?  What a paradox.  But God specializes in those.  And I am so glad.  I would not want to even consider accepting the truth of it otherwise.  He is faithful, so I can trust Him.  I do that through faith, not dwelling on how I feel.  Knowing God is altogether Good, and that all He does He does with divine kindness that is beyond my ability to even understand, is the comfort that sustains. 

It is not just possible; being “fruitful in the land of my affliction” is a reality.  Ephraim is.  And he is not the only one.  God is great and God is good.  When we are confident that we are walking with Him, we can be confident He is with us in any and every affliction.  There are no accidents or mistakes with our loving Creator God and Savior, only divine appointments. 

Rest in Him.