Not Forgotten

I read through what I normally read in this early morning hour.  My Bible plan is always first.  Followed by two devotionals.  Experiencing God Day by Day and Morning and Evening.

Yet there's times when out of several hundred songs, the Spirit brings one of them to my mind and is emphatic about my sharing it.

I know of many people going through some severely rough patches of life.  Hospital stays, work trials, even demon possession.  Life is hard.  It was never meant to be that way.  Adam and Eve had a perfect, trouble free world.  Then they disobeyed.  Sin came and nothing has been the same since.

It's a hard truth in the life of a believer sometimes when all is brought down to "Thy Will be done".  We want to try to present a case for what we think before the Lord.  To try to sway His decision. 
We don't like what we see and are begging for it to be different.

It's hard.  I have had countless times in my life when, in spite of my pleas, it still was a matter of His Will be done.  

Does it mean our prayers weren't heard? By no means!  My dear reader.  The first truth you need to believe is that God is not your personal Genie.  Whatever may befall us, He has a thousand times as much information on whatever we are facing than we do or could possibly comprehend.

We don't understand and if we are honest  we cry out desperately with our hearts "But why???" When that which we face is so difficult.

God's not ignoring you.  In all that I have faced, at some point afterwards, He graciously showed that by no means was I ignored. 

We all think that as we are, so should we be in the Spiritual sense as well.  We can reason, think, comprehend much.  The truth is...we begin all over when we come to Christ.  We start out as babies.  Realize the truth of 'born again'.  We grow from there.  We are taught of God.  We learn to crawl.  To eat, to be clothed...by the Holy Spirit.  We learn to walk, to see, to talk, again, by the Holy Spirit.  We learn how to behave, to live from the Holy Spirit.  Every child in the physical world has to learn what is acceptable and what isn't from their parents.  We are going through the same in the Spiritual world.

Does a child automatically understand what the word 'No' means?  Do they automatically respond with inexpressible joy when told that?  Hardly.

They have to learn to trust.  So do we.

I am only beginning to in my own walk with God.  He and I have been together many painful lessons together.  I, like many of you, are born with a stubborn streak.  Repetition drives home the lesson.

The more I obey the more He shows me.

One of the greatest things is when He is joyful towards me when I finally understand something.  

Thy Will be done.  Isn't always joyful.  It's watching others suffer, it's our own suffering.  It's days that seem to have no sunshine in them that seem to stretch on forever.  Daniel has always been a favorite of mine to read.  He and his people were taken from home to live in another country.  Taken.  Then the only things they had left, their names and convictions, their captors wanted to change.  They changed their names but by holding to their convictions on whom they believed, God honored them.  Their hope was not in this world.  Their hope was on the Throne in Heaven where nobody could do anything about.

Where's your hope?  Life is probably hard for you right now, but child, lift up your head, God's not ignoring you, hope in the Lord.  His promise is that His love will never fail you.  Never.  Reach out your arms for the embrace you crave from Jesus.  My all time favorite picture is of a man doing just that.  Jesus firmly hugging that man...hugging me. Whispering to me that it's going to be alright.  He has everything well in hand.  Be anxious for nothing.  Trust me. I've got this.