Winter 2010 Newsletter
Recently I went through a period of a few weeks where I was just wanting God to answer my questons about where I was at in my life and the things that were most important to me. I felt like I was stuck waiting for an answer that may or may not ever come, almost as if He didn't care. I ended up talking to one of the girls on my team and she challenged me to think about why I was worrying about something I couldn't control and why I had thought that God didn't care. She reminded me of Psalm 37:4, which says "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart".
I realized that I wasn't surrendering. I wasn't trusting that God had everything under control. Instead, I was creating a larger burden in my mind and spirit by worrying about what God was doing. Once I surrendered what was going on in my life. God started showing me in little ways that He was in control. Financially and in other ways, He came through! I was able to accomplish the things that I care about the most, and grow more in my relationship with Him.
Just about everyone who has heard the story of Job in the Bible knows that he suffered greatly through losses of family, prosperity, health and respect of his so called friends. Most will also recall that he never cursed God and that, when everything was over, he was restored to his former position with double of everything he had before his trials.
So why am I talking about surrender using a story like this? Let me ask something of you. Define surrender. The most common answers would be related to things such as, sacrifice, having to give up something, submission to someone or something, or some variation of these. You might still be wondering what this has to do with Job.
In the first and second chapters of Job Satan went before God to gain permission to persecute Job in every way possible by taking everything he had from him. Most people are of the persuasion that Job didn't have to surrender anything during his ordeal. Most would say that he had no choice, and that everything was taken away from him. When we use Job as an exapmle for life, its typically when you or a loved one is going through a really difficult time. We use his story as encouragement to push through to the end where God has something better for us. I don't believe that it is faulty to use hos story in such a way, I've used it many times myself in that way.
We have a skit we do called "I Surrender". It depicts three people in real life situations where God asks them to lay things down and surrender them to Him. Two of the characters refused to surrender to God because of their own wants and desires while the third character, despite their hurt and confusion, chose what God wanted.
We do the skit to music and one of the lines in the song is "I'm giving you my heart, and all that is within. I lay it all down for the sake of You my King. I'm giving You my dreams, laying down my rights. I'm giving You my pride for the promise of new life." I want to focus on the "laying down my rights" part. Throughout the book of Job, after everything had been taken, Job is trying to find out why these things had happened. He doesn't curse God or get mad at Him. He just wanted to know why he had been subjected to this situation. As Job asks why, his friends tell him that it was because he had done something horribly wrong and God was punishing him. Job doesn't think of anything that would provoke God to such anger, but his friends still were against him.
The entire story follows this pattern. Chapter eight is when things start looking up. God speaks. He doesn't console Him and tell Him it will be ok. No, in fact His reply is this:
"Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you will answer Me"
Think what it would be like to be Job at this point. He needs God's help and God finally shows up and not only does he ignore Job's wonderings, He tells Job to get ready for HIS questions. God begins to grill Job with questions that Job can't even begin to answer. Instead of being mad at God. God shows him that there are things in life that happen and that people will go through, but that doesn't take away from the fact that God is still God and in control.
In Isaiah 55:8 God says, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and neither are your ways My ways." There are going to be things that we go through in life and we will want to know why. Job demanded an explanation and never got one, yet he was content with that. He surrendered his right to know why. It was only after Job admitted that he didn't understand that God restored him.
God has something better for us in our trials. Yet sometimes we are so consumed with wanting to know reasons for our troubles. We aren't willing to surrender our right to know, thus slowing down the process of moving forward.
I just want to say thank all of you who helped me make this tour amazing for me. You have all been an amazing blessing in my life and I pray you allow God to continue to use you in the lives of others'. I am still in the process of raising funds to stay in the ministry and I am extremely greatful for any support that God may lead you to give. Thank you all once again! God Bless!
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