Sometimes life just stinks. Can you relate? Sometimes you look at situations in your life and you think how in the world did it get to this point? Am I alone in this?
My best friends and I have started holding each other accountable on a frequent basis. As new mamas, it's hard sometime to fit everything in a single day, and we were tired of not making our devotional times a priority. This has been a great challenge to me, as I have learned to form new habits and time management skills, but the greatest result has been watching how faithful the Lord is to meet me right where I am. Here's what he's been teaching me in some unexpected places, like the books of Hosea and Amos...
We have mostly all been told at one time or another that God's love is undeniable. That it is powerful. That it is all-covering, forgiving. And don't get me wrong, I love this aspect of God. But the Lord had other lessons to teach me these past few weeks. Just as God is love, God is justice. Yes, God will judge you. And he is not going to judge you by your own standards. He's going to judge you, me, us by HIS standards, despite our American mentality of "anything goes." Reading through Hosea and Amos, people who denied God went through some pretty wild stuff. And worse than the wild stuff? Those people were separated from God. They were separated from the love that is so characteristic of God. God pursues us even when we run from him, but he also promises punishment if we do not turn from our sinfulness. That's lesson one.
Lesson two: Because God is just, he promises to vindicate his people. God knows when someone wrongs you. He knows when someone makes a wrong assumption about you. If you are serving him, be promises to vindicate you. Normally I used the word "save" because it was a churchy word, but I have fallen in love with this word vindicate. I don't want to be saved from my sin, or from people who sin against me, I want to be vindicated! I want to grow and change and thrive! Jesus promises us that he will do that. Love and justice go hand in hand.
Lesson three. Okay. So lesson one and two were all fine and good. But I still felt like sometimes life just stinks. And you know what? It always will. We live in a world corrupted by the sinful hearts of mankind, and that will never change until the Lord's return. And my heart felt so heavy at the realization that there are some things in my life that may never be resolved this side of eternity. That brought so much sadness to my already-aching heart. As I have been praying I have been really trying to relinquish my anxiety and truly cast my cares upon my Lord. And tonight, it finally clicked. Last week my mom bought me a MudLove bracelet that says Esperanza on it, which means hope. As I was praying, I caught a glimpse of my bracelet (since I write out my prayers and I wear my bracelet on my right hand). This word, this one word, finally put together the pieces I had been learning the past few weeks. The Lord loves me. The Lord will vindicate me. My timing is not the timeline by which he works. I have to trust... to hope... in the promises that he has left for me. This simple realization changed the way I prayed tonight after a few days of higher levels of anxiety than I was comfortable with --
"Lord, let your hope- your esperanza - shine in my dark places."
We all have dark places. We all have hurts. We all have baggage. And we all have to answer for the sins that are not covered in blood through confession to God. But above all, we all have hope. And for now, for tonight, that is all my hurting heart needs to know.
What is the Lord teaching you this week?
