Heartbroken

       It was a good day on Tuesday when I met my son after school to drive him to the mall to meet a friend at the theatre.  It was in the parking lot that I found the problem.  Well, I won’t get into specifics, but I caught my son with something that shouldn’t be- if you know what I mean.  This was an issue we discussed many times over the years and he knew my strong feelings towards it and that I considered it an ‘absolute no’, yet still he did it.  Anger hit first and a poor reaction on my part, but then I realized the issue hit deep inside me, in the core of my feelings.  I was heartbroken that he would do something that he knew I despised so strongly.

       It also broke the fragile trust I have in him in a particular area.  So, as I was driving home, all I could think about was my feelings, how painful it was, how much he hurt me, how could he do this if he loved me, didn’t he care?  Still dwelling on these thoughts about 15 min. later while driving home I heard my own inner voice that was like a sword in my gut, “Isn’t this how you’ve treated God so many times over the years?  You’ve probably broken His heart more than once doing things He despised.  You’ve hurt Him over choices to not obey or trust Him in your times of deepest need.”

       That remembrance caused the tears to flow as I thought of my own despicableness: all the times I never considered God’s feelings, or how much I was hurting Him by shoving Him out of my life when He didn’t do things the way I wanted.  Yet He never gave up on me.  He never shut me out; instead He patiently waited for me wooing my selfish heart back to Him.  Oh, why does He love me so much?

       First off, God is love (1Jh. 4:8).  The Father, Son and Spirit were together from the beginning (Gen. 1:1, Jh. 1:1) and complete within themselves- they didn’t need anything*.  But out of that perfect union came a desire to bring forth children to share their lives and love, just as we parents desire children here on earth.  Healthy moms and dads have babies with which to share their lives and love- not so their babies would love them, serve them, and praise them, yet many of us accuse God of creating us for these reasons.  He said, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love…” (Jer. 31:3)  Everlasting means always- so He has always loved us- even before we were conceived- and He will love us forever!

       As our Father, God will not stop loving us just because we do wrong things or stop spending time with Him, but this doesn’t mean He’s okay with our behaviour.  He made us with a full range of emotions, and we are made in His likeness (Gen. 1:26), therefore we know He has emotions, and He feels- over our attitudes and our actions just as our kid’s attitudes and actions affect us.  Though God, who is rich in mercy, has great love for us (Eph. 2:4) He is an active Father and as such can feel the pain of our actions.  

       So, while my son broke my heart, I guess it can’t compare to the amount of times I may have broken the Father’s heart.  Hopefully my son will learn from this experience and make some changes, just as I intend to change and be more concerned about my Father’s heart.  One day I will see Him face to face (Rev. 22:4) and I hope one of the things He says is, “Thank you Vicky for loving me so much.”

(Nothing)

shall be able to separate us from the love of God,

which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom. 8:39

*God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;  Acts 17:24,25

Oops, I Forgot!

       Confession- I’m a forty five year old with a poor short term memory- yes I’m seeing a doctor for the problem.  So not long ago I realized I’d forgotten to write a post.  Oops!  Considering I usually post 5 or 6 days a week and have since Mar. 2011, it really shouldn’t be something I forget, but…  Anyway, I thought I’d write about that issue today.

       Forgetting is not all bad- for me anyway.  I forget movies so watching them again is almost as good as the first time.  Sometimes I forget the bad things that happen and you can’t be mad at someone if you don’t remember what they did or said.  Rereading books always brings up new material.  Stress isn’t so bad when you don’t think of the stressful problems because you don’t remember them.  So you see, it is not all bad!

       There are far too many things written in the Bible about forgetting so I won’t write about them all, but here are a few I think are interesting. 

…For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house. Gen. 4:51  Joseph said God helped him to forget the hard times he’d been through.  I guess that’s a good thing we would also want as well.

Then beware lest thou forget the LORD…  Dt. 6:12  Warning, warning.  Deut. states at least four times not to forget God.  Why?  “…if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.” Dt. 8:19  Jer. 2:32 is about God’s people forgetting Him days without number!  Do we do that?

Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God…  Dt. 9:7  It is good to note that we should remember all the wrongs we’ve done to our God- I would hope it keeps us repentant and humble.

The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him; he shall be no more remembered; and wickedness shall be broken as a tree.  Job 24:20  In referring to sinners, Job speaks about their fate- dead, forgotten and worm bait.  That’s bad!

The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.  Ps. 9:17  Um… this one worries me a bit.  How about you?

That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:  Ps. 78:7  Sometimes I forget the things God has done in my life, and that is not good.  I really should write them down so I can look back at how far He’s brought me.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:  Ps. 103:2  There are many benefits to being in the Lord’s family, and we should not forget them- especially in difficult times- or hope will be lost.

Forget not His Word, statutes, precepts, law, commandments (7x in Ps. 119)  His Word brings life to our lives- without it we die.

Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.  Is. 19:15  If it were even possible for the mom of a newborn babe to forget the babe, it is not possible for God to forget us.  Woohoo!

For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.  Heb. 6:10  Good to know that if we are in His will doing His work, that He doesn’t forget it.  Truly, I am glad His mind is so good.

But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.  Heb. 13:16  The word communicate means participate/ fellowship and we aren’t supposed to forget to do this and to do good.  Sounds to me like we should remember to be like Jesus!

I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.  Is. 43:25   As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.  Ps. 103:12  The Bible does not say God forgets our sins- forgetting implies no memory left of the event and logically He can’t be all knowing if He forgets.  What it does say is He won’t remember them- in other words, He won’t recall them to the forefront of His mind- they are an infinite distance away from His thoughts of us.  He chooses to not remember- for those who are His children. 

Thank You Lord that You do not forget us, yet choose not to remember our sins!

Rain in My House

       One Saturday-about a year after we bought this house- I was enjoying relaxing in the kitchen, sitting in a chair and reading the cartoons on a bright, sunny day.  I decided to move out of people’s way as they went back and forth from the living area to the upstairs, so I sat directly under the ceiling fan out of their path.  No one bothered me as I sat there laughing and smiling at the graphics, safe in the middle floor of our 1930’s house.  I could hear my son using the washroom upstairs as it was directly above my head.  All of a sudden, cold water came pouring out over my head soaking me and splashing down onto the paper and the carpeted floor.  I screamed, everyone came running, and my hubby yelled for Nate to turn off the water.

       When he went to investigate what happened, he discovered the pipes under the upstairs sink weren’t joined properly and were being held together by duct tape which had finally let go!!!  Now, I’m all for fast ‘temporary’ fixes using duct tape when needed, but certain things should be permanently fixed as soon as possible, and this was one of those situations.  As I type this, there is duct tape and plastic keeping some of our tiles in our tub, but that’s okay because we’ll fix them soon after we find the items needed to do the job, but temporary fixes are just that- temporary.  They aren’t meant to last.  Surely they aren’t as strong as a permanent fix.

      Some of us do that a lot in life- temporary fixes.  Instead of getting to sleep on time, we utilize coffee as a ‘stay awake’ mechanism.  We stuff dirty pots and pans in the oven because we don’t have time to wash them and company’s coming over.  Our eye glasses have tape holding the arm on because we have no time to order new ones.  We grab a granola bar or muffin for breakfast on the go since we are running late for work.  Life is full of temporary fixes, and they do sometimes ‘tide us over’.

NOT a good fix!!!

       The thing is- we do the very same thing with our ‘spiritual’ life.  We don’t have time to study the Word, so we fix that with a 5 min. devotional every morning.  We’re too tired to make time in God’s presence through the week, so we settle for church service on Sundays.  We don’t want to possibly suffer rejection so instead of ‘making it right’ with someone we’ve offended, we just ask the Lord to forgive us (Mt. 5:24).  Grace at meals and a quick three minutes of prayer at bedtime replaces the ‘pray without ceasing’ that the Bible speaks about (1Th. 5:17).

       These are all quick, temporary fixes that may help us through the day, but they aren’t going to be permanent solutions we need for the kind of relationship we (probably) want with the Lord; after all, who doesn’t want to see God working in their lives fresh and new everyday!  But instead of permanently fixing our lingering problems, we quick fix them and are still unsatisfied with our lives.  It really comes down to how much we want a more dynamic spiritual life.  If we want it bad enough, we will permanently change a few things in our lives.  Let’s consider one quick fix of ‘quiet time’ with God:

Honor and majesty are [found] in His presence; strength and joy are [found] in His sanctuary.  1Ch. 16:27  Amp

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;  Acts 3:19 

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.  Ps. 16:11

The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.  Ps. 145:18 

       Look at all the wonderful things found in the presence of the Lord.  Who wouldn’t want them?  Yet we quick fix our time with God by other means.  No wonder we are not satisfied with our lives!  We want to be closer to God, but don’t do what it takes to get there.  One day our old duct tape fixes are going to fall apart and we are going to get rained on- in a bad way.  A better idea might be to challenge ourselves to a permanent solution today (Make a Change!!!), and I bet we will experience the abundant life Jesus talked about (Jh. 10:10).

Lord, please direct us in the path we should go…

In all thy ways acknowledge him,

and he shall direct thy paths.

Pr. 3:6