A Mighty Hand to Hold

“The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way;
though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the LORD upholds his hand.
(Psalm 37:23-24)

It is a lie to believe that following Christ, or becoming a Christian is the end to all hard times and struggles.  The truth is, often the hard times, for some, appear to increase with Christ.  The struggles and temptations (now that the Holy Spirit has opened out eyes to their presence in our life) seem to bombard us.  And, if you’re anything like me, born again christians will eventually realize that even as a follower of Christ, they will continue to sin.

A little stressed and confused, this verse became sweet encouragement to my eyes.  The reality of God establishing our steps points to His Soverignty in our lives.  Now, while I do believe God can and will give us over to our sinful desires for a season, God’s soverignty is often at work guiding and directing our lives…sometimes the path is clear and free…sometimes the path is rocky and hard to see.  Nonetheless, God is still there guiding the steps we take.

Vs. 24 is pretty sweet too…it starts out “though he fall”.  UH, hello….we’re talking about the “righteous” in this section…and yes, even the righteous fall.  As Christians parts of our journey will be difficult to traverse.  We might not even want to move forward for the uncertainty in our footing scares us.  The incredible thing is that regardless of our inevitable “fall” or stumble (as my version puts it) God’s hand is there to hold us up.  It is strong, mighty, and ever-present.

When that happens, what happens to the righteous?  I can’t help but imagine that it’s the blood of Christ working as we stumble along.  David tells us that the righteous will not be cast headlong.  Even as we stumble, once considered righteous in the eyes of God…he will not cast us out.

I love this.  in a Psalm that spends it’s 40 verses contrasting the righteous and wicked…David tells us that once God has grabbed our hand, He’s not letting go.  How is that possible?  Well, back to Christ.  It’s through him that we are made righteous, nothing we can do on our own will elevate us to the status of “righteous”.  I might also challenge that the opposite is true – once covered in the Blood of Christ, nothing we do has the ability to nullify the righteousness granted by Christ.  It is only through God’s grace, Christ and faith that we are made clean, and I’m not sure if we can out-do (on either end of the spectrum) the work that He has done.  When (and yes…we most certainly will) we stumble, God’s hand will continue to hold up His Child…thanks to the Blood of Christ.   No other hand has that kind of redeeming and sanctifying power…it’s only by God and through God that we are able to remain “righteous”…and we should rest assured in that reality…especially when we walk (or stumble) along those rockier parts of our journey.

Thoughts on David

My church is going through a series on the Life of David right now.  For whatever reason I never picked up on this until yesterday and I found it wildly ironic.

 The Title of the series is something along the lines of:

The Life of David:
Humility. Integrity.  Faith

 Where is the irony?

 I made this realization as the pastor was recapping the scriptures from last week, providing the context for the scriptures he would cover today.  He was speaking about David and Bathsheba and Uriah. 

 Humility, Integrity, Faith?  Are you kidding me?  He got lazy, slept with a woman, got her pregnant, tried to cover it up, and when all else failed…he killed her husband!  How is that for holy???

 Maybe those qualities are easy to see in some of the other popular David stories: fighting Goliath and not killing Saul while in the cave.  They are fitting for certain parts of his life, but certainly not His entire life.  Can they?  Seriously, what is it about David that he is still labeled as a man after God’s own heart, even after the incredible moral failures described in scripture?  I think of others in the bible that, at pivotal points, proves themselves to be a disappointment to God and to people, yet God continues to use and do great things to and through them.

 Does this then mean that for me, and for all of us, even in the aftermath of moral failures, repetitive (or not so repetitive) sin, God can still use us to Glorify His Name?  It doesn’t make sense. 

 It’s a little comforting to know that it doesn’t make sense. 

 After thinking over those three terms and the life of David, I followed the Pastor’s leading to Psalm 51 where I found this prayer of David:

“Create in me a pure heart, O God;
And renew a steadfast spirit in me.
Do not cast from me your presence
Or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.”
(Psalm 51:10-12)

 As the service moved into communion, my heart stayed on these words.  I wanted to scream them as loud as I possibly could.  As if volume was suddenly a direct correlation to how much I really meant it.  

 “grant me a willing spirit”.  A spirit willing to fight my flesh and my ridiculous propensity to sin, to fight for God and to know Him more, to fight as if I believed that I can actually win over the battle before me.

 

AFTERTHOUGHT:  I should have included this in the blog at first…

the beautiful thing about God is His grace, especially as seen through His work on the cross.  Because of What God did we can overcome and not be tainted by our fallen nature.  We truely can be redeemed, renewed, and restored.  We can be men and women after God’s own heart.  What can’t happen is for us to out-sin the work that God has already finished through Christ.  We struggle, we fall, we stumble, but at the end of the Day Christ died for us.  Even in the middle of our deepest, darkest moments, God still found us to be worth Jesus to Him.

Finding God Around The Coffee Maker

“And I – in righteousness I will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.
(Psalm 17:15)

 God is beautiful.  This weekend was an amazing weekend with friends, fun, music, good conversations, and good fellowship.  At the same time, I experienced deep within my soul, a battle I thought I had long overcome…a battle over me and specifically, my identity.  It came on ever so softly, but through some very honest conversations with my accountability partner and a dear friend of mine, I realized the fear that was beginning to seep out from me was rooted in that battle and that perhaps, must to my dismay, the war was not over. 

 Last night I found myself humbled and in awe of God and his desire to speak to us.  He does not settle for mediocre, almost there, children.  No, His sanctification is persistent and is one that penetrates deep within to cleanse and transform us from the inside out.  I recognize that any wisdom and knowledge I may have today is only by Him…and is for the Glory of Him, I see this because in moments like this weekend I am reminded that I’m still a work in progress and have a very, very long way to go.  God has brought me so far, but still is not satisfied with the sin and chains that remain.  His work must go on…as hard as that might be…He will not stop until He has made right all that sin has made wrong. 

 Last night, through the story of David and Bathsheba I was challenged to look at my own heart.  Our hearts must be filled – either with God or something else – it MUST be filled.  David, in the eve of his adultery, and in his own passivity, allowed His heart to become filled with things other than God.  The result of that, we see, were his adultery, his lying, deceit, and even plots for murder as described in 2 Samuel 11.  Introspection found me as the question, “what is filling your heart today?” echoed in my mind.  I want it to be God, but the fear and insecurities that surfaced this weekend reveal that maybe He’s not what I’m filling my heart with right now.  I resonated with the link of passivity or complacency in David’s life and in my own life right now.  This honest look reminded me as to just where the stuff this weekend had come from and challenged me to again start filling my heart with God and his word.    

 I refer back to my opening sentence:  God is beautiful.  I may not see all that God is doing.  I know that He has been trying to work in a specific area of my life…the one I keep most closed off for a while now.  Looking back almost a year I can see His Spirit subtly trying to penetrate, purify, and redeem a specific part of my life (maybe my own passivity is linked to my desire to keep that areas “hidden” from God and the work of His Spirit). 

 Have I mentioned how persistent God is? 

 Today, in the beautiful way that is God’s alone, He reminded me that even in the moments where I am most passive…His Spirit continues to work.  My reluctance, my fear, my insecurities, my own desire to run – none of that is greater or bigger or more powerful than the will of His love for me, the movement of His Spirit, nor the work of His hands.  As I stood around the coffee maker this morning, a co-worker of mine shared about the wonderful weekend he had on a leadership retreat this weekend.  I began working with this person in my last position.  Since 2006 I have watched him and his family begin to seek God more seriously and have witnessed the fruit of God’s faithfulness and a joy that only the Spirit can bring.  I have watched that joy grow in His eyes.  Today, I met that joy again.  Coming off of a time of fear and confusion with regards to things that had been stirring around me, the faithfulness of God in this man’s life, met me in an unexpected, but much needed moment.  I don’t fully understand it, but peace overcame me, and I was able to take in the hand of God and trust that He’s got it all under control…in my co-worker’s life…and even in mine. 

 I thought the verse from Psalm 17 was fitting for the moment.  I saw the face, the hands of God standing around the coffee maker this morning.  The fears that lined the pages of my journal last night faded away and once again I became satisfied in knowing and believing all that God is.