Doubting Toast
"A woman who had never known anything but the goodness of God, questioned His goodness toward her."
These words were spoken to me last night and it was the 2x4 I needed to the back of the head. She wasn't talking specifically to me or about me, but this nugget of wisdom about Eve in the garden made me take pause, a hard one. In fact, I really didn't hear much of what was said afterwards.
It's been a rough couple of weeks in my world, and it's coming from all different directions. It hasn't been just one thing, but a host of challenges to which God has been calling me to task: my disbelief is truly just unbelief.
Ouch. Major ouch.
At the beginning of each year, I take time away to pray about what the Lord has for me in the coming months. This year, when I heard what He said to me, I laughed at Him. I laughed like Sarah laughed. There is no way in the natural that the things He's been speaking over me for years would come to fruition this year. I just can't see it. I don't see it. In utter disbelief, I said, "I'll believe it when I see it." God has done more healing in my heart over the last 5 years than some experience in a lifetime, but it has still been riddled with my humanness: second guessing the desires that He, alone, has placed in my heart, and I'm toast.
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Time and time again, I've seen His faithfulness. I've seen His grace in places where I did not deserve favor and mercy where I should have been subject to the negative consequences of my choices. I am in no way let off the hook, but I am well aware of just how worse a situation could have been without His mercy and His love.
Not just the love He gives but as John says, "God is Love." God walked among us in human flesh as Jesus. God, unhindered and unhidden, walked with Adam and Eve in the garden. Eve had no framework that included failure, mistrust, or lack of faith. She knew God intimately, and I dare say probably more intimately than she knew Adam. All of her needs were met, and yet. Yet, out of her free will she made an unwise choice. That right there is the state of the human condition, and what all of us, with or without a relationship with Jesus, experience. But, that is not the end of the story.
It is so easy when we get wrapped up in our own circumstances to forget that He is looking for us. He desires to walk in deep, deep intimacy with us, and for us to know that He doesn't leave or abandon us. We fear abandonment, rejection, not measuring up to whatever imaginary standard we set ourself against, and expect our own failure.
Our fears are cast out by His perfect Love and unfathomable peace.
Because of Jesus, God sees us through the work of the cross and the completed redemption in His resurrection. God loves us too much to leave us in our faltered state, so He trains us, guides us, but He does not punish us. Jesus bore that for us. It's a very human response to doubt. Eve doubted. The real question that was posed by my pause is:
How much influence do we allow doubt and unbelief to have in our lives? Does doubt and unbelief have enough influence to lead me away from the very thing God has for me? In other words, are we allowing our unbelief to be something where we have to take control, react in pain, numb our hearts from what God is teaching us, and later regret our actions? Am I reacting out of fear or am I responding out of love?
He's reminding me that if I am running from a place where I see patience, faithfulness, understanding, hope, self-control, love, peace, joy, goodness, kindness, and loyalty, I should be running towards it. Why? The source is the Holy Spirit's work through and through.
If I find fear, anxiety, destruction, loss, and death of the fruit the Holy Spirit's influence, then run straight into the Father's arms. The enemy of our heart seeks to steal, kill, and destroy the fulfillment of God's will and desire for us.
I am in no way saying that life will be a cake walk, where we experience sweetness without hard work. It won't be, that's a Biblical promise. It means that we face daily, sometimes hourly, battles and making a commitment to fight the unseen. Defending our hearts from death is not easy. Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
Seek the refreshing and healing in the work that Holy Spirit is doing. I love the imagery in Ezekiel 47. God is doing a new work, and the flow of this work brings life not loss. We have the same choice Eve did: we can choose to alienate ourselves out of fear from the One who is Love, or we can chose to alienate ourselves from the serpent's deception.
I choose to alienate myself from deception and doubt, and rest in the Lead of Love.
Stirred and not shaken,
Ruth
PS - Thank you, Lisa. Your wisdom never ceases to challenge and encourage me.
Lead of Love
by Caedmon's Call
Released: 1997 (that was a great concert, just sayin')
by Caedmon's Call
Released: 1997 (that was a great concert, just sayin')
Looking back at the road so farThe journey's left its share of scarsMostly from leaving the narrow and straight
Looking back it is clear to me thatA man is more than the sum of his deedsAnd how You've made good of this mess I've madeIs a profound mystery
Looking back You know You had to bring me throughAll that I was (all that I was)So afraid of (so afraid of)Though I questioned the sky, now I see whyHad to walk the rocks to see the mountain viewLooking back I see the lead of love
Looking back I can finally see (I'd rather have wisdom)How failures bring humility (than be)Brings me to my knees (a comfortable fool)Helps me see my need for Thee
Looking back You know You had to bring me throughAll that I was (all that I was)So afraid of (so afraid of)Though I questioned the sky, now I see whyHad to walk the rocks to see the mountain viewLooking back I see the lead of love
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Aaron Tate
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Aaron Tate