Let the insolent be put to shame, because they have wronged me with falsehood; as for me, I will meditate on your precepts. Psalm 119:78
There are those who have it in for one of God’s servants. They will misconstrue what he says, find ways to make him look bad to others and envy his joy. When he enters a season of God-appointed suffering, there will be private rejoicing in the house of his adversary.
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. Psalm 56:3
We can watch our children suffer from many causes. They may get sick just because we live in a fallen world. They may groan under the consequences of their own choices. If they have followed the call of God on their lives, we will see their faith tested. Perhaps we’ve walked a similar road and we know how crushing testing can be. There will be moments when we cry out, “Lord, it’s hard to trust You with my child. Please strengthen my faith!”
As I watch my child come to the end of their resources as Jesus did in the desert of His testing, I will do about anything to end their torment. But the worst part of divine shaping is not the physical pain but spiritual anguish. To see childlike faith crack into pieces rocks a parent’s heart. I stay on my knees and ask God to preserve my child’s confidence in His love and promises.
Wait for the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land; you will look on when the wicked are cut off. Psalm 37:34
In the midst of desert experiences, the call to wait on the Lord can sound hollow. I want to know how long suffering is going to last? King David doesn’t throw out this challenge without personal experience. He had to wait over a decade to inherit his kingdom and had to also wait to see God’s purposes come to pass against his enemies.
James calls me to remember the prophets. As an example of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. James 5:10 Abraham received a promise but he never saw it fulfilled in his lifetime. Knowing that, would I ever say, “What a fool!” Instead, his faith inspires me. He believed that endurance would yield a nation, even if on the other side of his own death.
What about a parent who prays for a lifetime for the spiritual return of a child? Fifty years of praying amidst little encouragement can appear to be futile. Yet, when that child returns to God, yet when that child comes to Christ, would they say that their patience in prayer was wasted? Continue reading “Patience. The Virtue of a Fool?”
The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1
Many have prayed for the will of God, followed His voice, and experienced complete disillusionment when they found themselves in hostile surroundings. They blame God for being unloving or they blame themselves for being poor listeners. Hostility within the will of God is common and should not surprise God’s children.
Some years back, our family lived in a hostile environment. We begged, daily, for release. We were willing to move anywhere and do anything to escape our surroundings. Surely, we reasoned, God wouldn’t want for us to endure such a place. Yet, every request for a move away was met by the silence of God. Continue reading “Living Amidst Hostility”
I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue. Psalm 66:17
There are many times I don’t know how to pray because I don’t know what God’s purposes are for a certain situation. If I know I’m going to lose my job, do I bear down in prayer to keep it, or do I just assume God is using that loss to lead me somewhere else? If I’m experiencing a tragedy, do I ask God to take it away or do I assume that, like Job, God has ordained this chain of events to further His glory in some way?
This is where a prayer life gets stuck. I don’t know what to pray for because I don’t know the will of God. Because I don’t know, I can abandon prayer altogether. That would be, and has been for me, a mistake. Continue reading “Crying Out Is a Holy Expression of Faith”
Daughters of promise 