Where the Light Shines Through 5
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When Life is Not Normal
When Life is Not Normal
When times get tough and we come through unscathed, the temptation is to say “God was watching”. But does this imply that when we dont come through unscathed He wasnt watching? He always is! Even when the end result is what we consider negative.
1 But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
3 For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you.
4 Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.
5 Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you.
6 I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth,
7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
I
In times of crisis - Have you ever had a chance to share life with someone who was in a time of crisis?
Look past the chaos to the God of all creation. He will show where the gospel fits in the storm.
Dr La Noue at Ground Zero. Page 397 to 402
In times of crisis - Dr La Noue at Ground Zero. Page 397 to 402
Hurricane Harvey - There assembled a response team, brothers and sisters eager to help. They had their boats, trucks, chainsaws, trailers, cookies, muscles, time, and prayers ready for those hit hard by Harvey.
Our daughter turns two today, and we are delighted by her every day. I wonder today about the world - and the country - she is growing up in. We are doing our best early on to cultivate her curiosity and kindness, but are we doing enough to model what it means to not only pursue justice, but to humanize the pursuit of justice with grace, strength and dignity? There is work to be done.
At this moment I despair that all she will know of this world - this country - is a toxic, angry, reactionary, and well-armed tribalism.
May we never settle for this as parents. May we never settle for this as human beings. May we practice all the more a boldness which actively confronts fear and violence with hope and love.
Will our children be safe? Will we be safe? Will our world be safe?
We desperately want to know.
And yet life with God is not, and never has been, about being safe.
“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”
He doesn’t promise we won’t experience fiery seasons and difficult days. But He does promise He’ll be with us. He is at work in all things for His own glory, and our good—whether the hurricane is named Harvey or Hazel, marriage or parenting, health challenge or job insecurity, racial unrest or international tension. To know He is near, in control, and good, is all we really need to know. We’ll survive anything, as long as we know that He is with us and for us.
My message is: God makes sense of the chaos. But I can only get through the chaos when I trust Him. Everything on earth is temporary. God operates in the eternal. If I can only see the temporary, the chaos will never make sense. God calls us in the chaos. Just as God used a rainbow to speak after the flood, He still shows up in the middle of the chaos to speak to us.
In times of grief - you lived through grief for someone else’s benefit. (write down the greatest grief you have lived through)
Dont Waste Your Life (cancer)
We waste our crisis/grief if we don’t hear in our own groanings the hope-filled labor pains of a fallen world.
We waste our cancer if we don’t hear in our own groanings the hope- lled labor pains of a fallen world.
We waste our cancer if we do not believe it is designed for us by God.
We waste our cancer if we do not believe it is designed for us by God.
17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
In times of transition
We waste our crisis/grief if we do not believe it is designed for us by God.
11 Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold.
We waste our crisis/grief if we believe it is a curse and not a gift.
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—
We waste our cancer if we believe it is a curse and not a gift.
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
We waste our crisis/grief if we seek comfort from our odds rather than from God.
9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
We waste our cancer if we seek comfort from our odds rather than from God.
https://document.desiringgod.org/don-t-waste-your-cancer-en.pdf?ts=1439242114
Veda Chapman story
He raises up leaders and brings down leaders ().
He accomplishes His plans for His people, regardless of who is in charge (, NLT).
He can work through all things, even our struggles, for the good of His people ().
His desire for us is to continue sharing our faith and praying for our leaders ().
