Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: TRUST (07/21/16)
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TITLE: Carried by God | Previous Challenge Entry
By Sara Daigle
07/26/16 -
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I took his hand, this small child of mine, and led him to the fence. Beyond the wire thistles stood tall and cow pies hid in the weeds. Who knows, perhaps even snakes slithered in the grass.
But there were black berries just beyond. I encouraged him to follow, and he did. Standing before tall thistles, he bravely lifted one leg after another and navigated his way through, where I stood in pride over his effort and bravery.
We made it through, his hand holding tightly to mine, and there they were, those luscious, gigantic, purple berries we savor each summer. He laughed and chatted and ate the wondrous purple right down-- but then, we had to return the same way we came. This time he was tired, and as we neared the thistle patch, I stooped and picked him up. He wrapped his little arms round my neck and clung tightly as we both conquered those evil little prickles.
I set him down on the other side. He stooped low over a flower and chattered with delight, already oblivious to what we had just navigated.
I stood there, pondering. I love him, love him with a depth I can't even describe. Is this how Jesus feels about me?
I have to believe it is, but even more. I'm honored He uses a mother's love to describe His own, but somehow it seems too much, still, that He should love me with such passion. That I should be able to trust Him even more than my own son trusts me. That He knows how much I can take, when I need to walk right through these thistles in my life, or be carried right above them where they can't even grab at my heels.
He knows how to take me to the other side. My son trusted when I asked him to walk through, and he trusted when I carried him. He knows mama. He knows my love. Daily, we smile and laugh and hug and talk--- he knows me.
And when we know God, when we are held by Him and life turns into relationship more than religion, this is when we absolutely know we can trust. We talk with Him, we host His Spirit, we are loathe to part with His presence because we've found Him to satiate our very souls from the depth of our being.
It's all in the knowing. We trust because somehow we know He is good, like Job did when his children died and his belongings were stolen and he fell sick with boils. Even his wife asked him to curse God and die. But Job? Never! He knew, like I know many years later, that God is good, that He is not to be compared to circumstances or people in a fallen world, that He reigns far and high above.
But Job didn't know he was on trial before the God of the Universe and the powers of darkness. He really didn't know, friends. In reading his story, we know all about it and sigh with relief that Job dared trust. But we read the after math, the grand culmination of Satan's defeat when Job dared say, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”
Satan had tried every way to get him to say the opposite. I'm fascinated that God is willing to take risks, enormous risks, for His power to be displayed. Each time He allows trial in our lives, we must know that God is risking His glory so His glory can be fully known.
For it's down there, right there in our lowest points, that we finally lift our eyes high. We are human, and if there's less need for something greater in our lives, we become creatures of habit living our lives on this planet, sometimes unaware there's a battle to fight and a victory to win over the powers that are.
The Leader of the Army allows us to enter battle, to fight along side Himself. In the depths of our own helplessness, we follow His command. In our shattering, we lift our eyes high to His healing.
And when our eyes are lifted high because we would be destroyed if they gazed low, we find truest life. We find Him to be The Life, the Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, of all true joy.
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