Prayer Request
Somewhat pursuant to my last post, one of my favorite quotes contains the line, "God is God. I dethrone Him in my heart if I demand He act in ways that satisfy my ideas of justice."
I read The Shack a month or so ago. While the imagery was a little beyond where my mind usually dares to tread, the sentiment tracks right along with where I am. I do not pretend to comprehend the mind of God. I really think that if I did begin to think I understood why certain things happen I would (if not dethrone Him) take Him down a notch and elevate myself quite a few notches. I'm just not prepared to do that just yet. So, I'll just rely on the themes of God as revealed through scriptures, especially through those scriptures wherein He reveals Himself in earthly form. Those themes point to a God who is LOVE (I don't exactly get that, but I'm trying) and who wants His kingdom to be established through justice (again, trying) . This does not seem to be a God who revels in pulling the rug out from under us. It does, however, seem to be consistent with a God who wants to take on our struggles. But even in this case, it is not so much that he takes them away from us as He shares them with us and bears them with us.
On the other hand, if we start thinking that God takes things away from us in the sense of things we own, then we may have missed the point about who actually owns anything. If we have relenquished all we have to God (how noble of us since everything is His anyway), if we are living lives of sacrifice to God, how would we own anything He could take? And yet, things happen in our lives that make us feel like we are, in fact, facing struggles we wish He would take or losing things (people, status, belongings) we wish we could keep.
One of those things is going on in Kendra's family right now. Her step-dad, Ed, was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. Monday we went to Lubbock to hang out with the family while Ed had surgery. Sadly, while they were in surgery they found a great deal more cancer than they had originally expected. His pain coming out of surgery was also pretty severe. Pathology reports on the additional biopsies performed with the surgery are not in yet.
Kendra's mom, Marilyn, finally left the hospital to get some sleep the other night. During the night, however, someone broke into her car and took her portfolio holding all of their credit cards, social security cards, ID and several hundered dollars cash. Obviously she did not intend to leave such things in the car, but she was understandably distracted.
Anyway, it has clearly been a tough week and we fear tough days lie ahead as well. So if you have a minute, lift up Ed and the family. Depending on where you come down on the last post, you may be asking for God to take away Ed's infirminty or asking that God not take away Ed. But either way, I hope you also remember, "Blessed Be the Name of the Lord."
I read The Shack a month or so ago. While the imagery was a little beyond where my mind usually dares to tread, the sentiment tracks right along with where I am. I do not pretend to comprehend the mind of God. I really think that if I did begin to think I understood why certain things happen I would (if not dethrone Him) take Him down a notch and elevate myself quite a few notches. I'm just not prepared to do that just yet. So, I'll just rely on the themes of God as revealed through scriptures, especially through those scriptures wherein He reveals Himself in earthly form. Those themes point to a God who is LOVE (I don't exactly get that, but I'm trying) and who wants His kingdom to be established through justice (again, trying) . This does not seem to be a God who revels in pulling the rug out from under us. It does, however, seem to be consistent with a God who wants to take on our struggles. But even in this case, it is not so much that he takes them away from us as He shares them with us and bears them with us.
On the other hand, if we start thinking that God takes things away from us in the sense of things we own, then we may have missed the point about who actually owns anything. If we have relenquished all we have to God (how noble of us since everything is His anyway), if we are living lives of sacrifice to God, how would we own anything He could take? And yet, things happen in our lives that make us feel like we are, in fact, facing struggles we wish He would take or losing things (people, status, belongings) we wish we could keep.
One of those things is going on in Kendra's family right now. Her step-dad, Ed, was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. Monday we went to Lubbock to hang out with the family while Ed had surgery. Sadly, while they were in surgery they found a great deal more cancer than they had originally expected. His pain coming out of surgery was also pretty severe. Pathology reports on the additional biopsies performed with the surgery are not in yet.
Kendra's mom, Marilyn, finally left the hospital to get some sleep the other night. During the night, however, someone broke into her car and took her portfolio holding all of their credit cards, social security cards, ID and several hundered dollars cash. Obviously she did not intend to leave such things in the car, but she was understandably distracted.
Anyway, it has clearly been a tough week and we fear tough days lie ahead as well. So if you have a minute, lift up Ed and the family. Depending on where you come down on the last post, you may be asking for God to take away Ed's infirminty or asking that God not take away Ed. But either way, I hope you also remember, "Blessed Be the Name of the Lord."
2 Comments:
Praying for you family today.
Blessed be his name!
We are praying for them as well. It seems not too long ago when Kendra's mom opened her house to us when we went for a visit after camp. Man, that was way too long ago! Blessings...
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