This morning while reflecting on God’s goodness two songs came to mind. “Be not dismayed what ‘ere betide, God will take care of you. Beneath His wings of love abide, God will take care of you. God will take care of you, through every day, O’er all the way. He will take care of you. God will take care of you.” and “Does Jesus care when my heart is pained too deeply for mirth and song? When the burdens press and the cares distress and the way grows weary and long? Oh, yes, He cares, I know He cares. His heart is touched with my grief. When the days are weary The long night dreary I know my Saviour cares.” Isn’t that the truth? Sometimes we operate with recency bias. We are consumed by the stuff that are very much real and very much happening right now but the stuff doesn’t negate that God cares. We have to process what we are enduring with that fact, that truth, that principle that God really does care for us.
I remember early on during pre-marital counselling my spiritual dad and mentor Robert Smith said to us do not worry about who will walk away in this season, they have to leave so that those who will help you can take their seat at the table. This is something I will never ever forget and will apply to every season of my life. The constant in every season is God and His loving care towards me. What changes is how the care manifests. The new hands and feet of God in the earth. Robert put into words something that I had experienced in the past but have been experiencing with increasing frequency in recent years. In my times of greatest need, God has provided loving and reassuring care through people and in places I least expected. Some of that has blossomed into beautiful friendships. Some of those friendships are continuing right now and some were short lived. Not because we weren’t compatible but because their assignment was completed. Some just provided help in that instant and that was it.
My hope today and this weekend is that as you reflect on your life, may God so open your eyes that you see how He has been taking care of you even in the loneliest and darkest moments of life. Stop being angry at who should have helped but didn’t. Get over the ones you expected to help but they didn’t or aren’t helping. Our Sovereign God and Father, in His lovingkindness, wisdom and omnipotence knows why He chose this hand for this season. Don’t shun it. Don’t run from it. Ask God for the grace, wisdom and knowledge to embrace and walk in and with the help He has sent in this season. Whatever He does, is so that He gets the glory and not man. So the help He will send is not a self glorifying one that will brag and boast about how they made you or built you up. At first it might seem like just manna. It might be just a raven. But we dare not despise the small beginnings or the outward appearance of the help our Father sends. We will be grateful for all of it and for all of them. We will not get overwhelmed by thoughts of how to payback the help but allow God to guide because it is God Who sent them and therefore He will bless them for their obedience.
Can we broaden our perspective? Can we open our hearts and minds? Can we stop being so caught up about what others will think because we accepted help from unlikely sources? The King of glory came to earth through a dirty vaginal canal into an even dirtier manger, wore a crown of thorns on His head and allowed His own creation to drive nails into His hands and feet, just to prove how much He loves and cares for us! Don’t we EVER dare doubt His provision, providence, care and compassion. We are not forgotten! We are not cast down. No everything is not as we would want it. No all the bills aren’t paid. Yes we still love people who just don’t or are incapable of loving us. BUT JESUS STILL CARES! AND HE IS STILL WORKING IT OUT! We just need to understand how to let people go. Let the old help go so the new help can come. And even for the constant help, the ones who are our ride or live friends, we still cannot hold on to them more tightly than we hold on to the Lord Who is our one true Source. As the benediction rightfully says PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW! We could easily replace the word blessings with help and instead sing PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL OUR HELP FLOWS!
Reorient your focus to the true Source. In Psalm 121 David says I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help! My help cometh from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth…and might I add everything under the earth, everything above the earth, everything in the earth. We serve a really good God let us honour Him today by being receptive to the help He sends our way.
Will you change your perspective regarding God’s help today? How has He been showing you that He cares? Will you spend some time this weekend in repentance for ignoring or not being grateful enough for His help? Will you work harder to look more to Him than even the help He has sent? Will you learn to let go of the help that no longer serves in your transition to, and in, the next season? Can you really trust God to send the help you need by the deadline, instead of getting all worked up about it? Will you, instead of always seeking to be helped, ask God how you can become His hands and His feet to someone else?
GML
P. S. It is sooooooooooooooo great to be back!
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