Category: God’s character

Coronavirus · God's character · God's Love · trust

Trusting My Father

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This life has lots of hard questions –

Why is Covid still lingering?
Why hasn’t God taken it away?
Is He powerful enough to do so?

Last week I shared one answer to those questions. Today I want to give one more…

We won’t always understand God’s reasons for what He’s doing. Sometimes God is silent.  I think of Job’s trial when God asked him in Job 38 ~

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all.19 Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,

At those times (and there are lots of them in Scripture and in our lives), we simply trust God. How can we trust Him?  We come to know Him.

My dad didn’t owe me an explanation; he was father!  He did what was best for me.  Sometimes he did indeed surprise me by stopping into that custard stand, but there were more times when he drove right on by.

On a much higher plane, when we come to know Who God is in the pages of His Word, we will learn that whether He does what we want, or if He does something we don’t understand, we can trust Him! We wouldn’t complain or shake our finger in God’s face if we could understand that He was protecting us from danger, or preparing us for something even more difficult in the future.  

The Egyptians who chased after the Israelites didn’t have the blessing of the pillar of fire or the cloud to guide them; it was darkness to them.  God will reveal Himself to those that seek Him, but scoffers and accusers stumble in their darkness.

Today when I think of someone when I have ice cream you know who it is? It’s my dad! What a giver of good gifts. But God is even greater! Can God stop the virus? Of course.  Why hasn’t He yet?  I don’t know, but HE does, and I trust His character to do what is best for me.

Friend, you may be wondering why God is allowing some other kind of trial to go on in your life, you may have a question about His ways, but the answers shared above all apply. Open your Bible. See His character and trust Him as your Father who loves you more than you can ever imagine.

Refresh your trust in a loving, providential and righteous God.

Denise

Coronavirus · God's character · God's Love

Why Is God Allowing this to Continue?

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You may have heard me say this before, but I was blessed with a wonderful dad.  However, he did disappoint me from time to time.  I don’t know how he could’ve done it, but that’s the truth.  He just disappointed me!

When I was a child, there were times when I was sure he was going to take our family up to the frozen custard stand where we would all get sweet treats.  But I can’t tell you the number of times when we were in the car and I was sure he would pull into the little parking lot of that building, and he would drive right on by! How could he do that to a child?

As a little girl I could’ve come up with two conclusions – 

  1. He didn’t have the power to do it. No money for a 50 cent cone?  Nope.  That wasn’t true. He had a good job and was wise with his finances.
  2. He didn’t love me and didn’t care that I would suffer without that custard.
    Nope.  That wasn’t true.  He proved his love for me in much greater ways by his sacrifice for my real needs.

I never did accuse my dad of either one of those things.  You know why?  I knew him.  I had spent time with him.  I learned what he was like, and he was neither powerless nor unloving.  I simply learned that I could trust him.  I learned that in the time that he knew was best for me and my family, he would take us to get ice cream.  If he didn’t do it now, I knew there was a better reason, and I was okay with that, simply because I knew him.

I recently had someone accuse God of those two accusations in regards to the Coronavirus, saying that:
He either can’t stop it, or
He doesn’t care about people suffering.

The only answer to give a scoffer of God is God’s Word –  the written explanation of Who He is.  He has the Words of life. 

There are so many explanations I could share, but I just read this passage in Exodus 13,

 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter.

“No, of course He didn’t lead them the shorter path,” an scoffer might say! 

 “He took them out to the wilderness where they would wander and not have food and water!  He doesn’t care!  He loves to see people suffer! Or maybe He isn’t able to help.!”

Any time we come to a question about God, why He’s doing something or doing nothing,  we must look to His character for the answers. We have to learn what He is like. Is He just mean-hearted?  Is He not powerful enough to change things?  

In this situation, we need to keep reading.  The next verse says, For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” 18 So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea.[

Did you catch it?  There was danger on that closer/easier path! It would have been easy for the Israelites to think that the Via Maris was the best way to go; but the dangers of the way were too great, though they could not see them.  It was the road where Egypt’s military outposts were. God knew the people of Israel were not ready to face this yet (lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt).

God anticipated the dangers they could not see. 

Based on that verse, what do we learn about our God?  

  • He is providential!  He saw to things ahead of time and protected them from those dangers that they weren’t even aware of!
  • He is a God of love.  A God who didn’t love them would’ve let them get entangled in any kind of danger.
  • He is righteous.  He led them correctly.  He cannot do a wrong thing or have the wrong motive as you and I would!  Why?  Because He is righteous.

Refresh your trust in a loving, providential and righteous God. As a child, I could trust my father because I knew him. We can’t trust a God we don’t know. Draw to Him and learn of Him. We might not understand His ways, but we can come to know His heart.

Next week I’m going to expand on that last sentence. I hope you’ll come back for the conclusion!

In the meantime, wash you hands and remember He is in control.

Freedom · God's character · Truth

Lies We Believe About God

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Sunset aa

Isn’t it fun when we get to practice what we preach? I did that last night in regards to this very blog post. I’ve written this entire post twice (before this current attempt). Then something happened and the whole thing disappeared as quickly as a dandelion in the wind. No action would bring it back. What was I to do? I felt frustrated and irritated until I remembered the quote that has been permeating my thoughts in regards to thinking the truth about my God…

If you are irritable, frustrated or depressed,
it is likely because you are believing a lie about either yourself or God.

If I truly understand that the Lord is in control and knows my desire to publish this post about thinking truth, then I can let go of my attempts and just rest in His timing and His ways. It’s really okay. The world will not fall apart because RefreshHer didn’t get a post up at six this morning! That is the truth and it brings rest.

As I’m making my way through Nancy’s book, Lies Women Believe, Chapter two reminded me that there are many occasions that Satan whispers lies to us about God, as he did to Adam and Eve. If we’re not replacing those false statements with truth, we will be in great danger, because our belief about God is fundamental to everything in our lives!

Our belief determines our actions and our actions determine our outcome.

The book goes into several lies we are tempted to believe about God.

  1. God is not good. We might think God is good to others, but we don’t see His goodness to us because of ___________________. A cruel action by others, a crime, a disaster, or a hardship happens and some are tempted to question the goodness of God because, after all, couldn’t He have kept that from happening?
    The Truth – Of course He could have stopped it, but when Adam and Eve sinned, they plunged the world into sin and the result of that sin is everything I just listed. In His goodness, God sent His Son as the remedy! Titus 3:4,5 After that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. He provided an escape! He is good!
  2. God doesn’t love ME. When we sin we may feel we’ve pushed the limits of God’s love. We are tempted to judge God’s love by how we feel, but we have to tell ourselves the truth, that no matter how we feel.  God’s love is different from human love that is conditional and wavering.
    The truth – Jeremiah 31:3 – I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.
  3. God is just like my father. If a woman had a cruel earthly father she may feel God is in heaven waiting for the chance to knock her down. For the girl who could say what I heard a child say to me this week,I’ve never had a father love me in my whole life.This little child was only seven, but when you don’t know the love of a father, it can feel like an eternity. I had the joy of telling him that God loves him very much! I get the joy of telling you, too, my friend that God is a loving, caring Father!
    The truth – Hebrews 12:9, 10 Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection Unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
  4. God is not enough. We may be glad we’re on our way to heaven, but we believe the lie that we need a little bit of Jesus plus… It might be a relationship – a husband, or a child. Perhaps we think if we just had a few more cute outfits, a bigger house or more money, then we’d have all we need. One writer said,

    When you get to the place where this is nothing left but God,
    you find that He is enough    .


    Not many of us have absolutely nothing else but God, but one day we will all be in that place. As I recently watched a dear man in our church pass from this life into heaven, I got a clear picture of what it means to get to the place where you have nothing else but God. This man had peace in death. He had the joy of knowing he would see Christ soon and he stated that he was ready. He didn’t ask about all his stuff or his money. He was simply ready to go home.
    The truth – Psalm 73:25, 26 Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. My flesh and my heart fails, but God is the strength of my life and my portion forever.

  5. God’s laws and ways are too restrictive. When we desire to go after something that God has said NO to, we may be like that toddler who is determined to put his hands on the things his loving mommy has put out of reach, like a sharp knife. So we “grab hold of that blade” and suffer the consequences.
    Nancy brings out in her book a thought that was so interesting to me. She talked about how many women have issues with food. We don’t like telling ourselves No, and keeping a “good” thing from our lips, do we? Didn’t Eve’s sin deal with the desire for good food, too? Perhaps that’s why we, too, deal with food and eating indulgences that could be categorized as sin because we’re overeating or binging and purging, or not eating at all.
    The truth – Joshua 1:8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shall meditate therein. Then shalt thou make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. God’s laws are for our protection and ability to succeed as a child of god!
  6. God should fix my problems. We have a headache so we take Tylenol. We don’t like our boss so we quit and find another job. Our husband isn’t meeting our expectations, so we leave. We know how to fix those irritations and we think God should be ready to make everything better.
    The truth – God is more interested in my spiritual growth in the midst of that trial than about getting me out of that difficulty. So many of these truths overlap. We have to remember God’s goodness, His love and His care as a father. II Corinthians 4:17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh in us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

Let me close with this quote by Ken Collier of The Wilds –

You say what you say and you do what you do because you think what you think,

And you think what you think because you believe what you believe about God and His Word.

Everthing we do will come from our acceptance of the Truth – or lies – about our God.

What truth do you need to plant deeply in your heart today?

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God's character · Responding to trials

How We Turn Our Treasures Into Curses

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Treasures and Curses

When I was a 7 year-old girl, I really, really wanted a bike.  The children in our neighborhood rode their bikes on the sidewalks, and had such fun.  I knew I was missing out not being able to do the same!  So, for Christmas I asked, begged and prayed for a bike.  What a special surprise to find my longing fulfilled on Christmas Eve!  It was a purple/pink Schwinn with a bell and streamers.  I could hardly wait to join my friends, once the Michigan snow cleared.

Finally spring came, but there was just one problem – I hadn’t learned to ride a two-wheel bike yet!  My dad came to the rescue, doing what dad’s do best – holding onto my wobbly bike’s seat and running along side, yelling out instructions –

Keep your eyes in front – not on me.

Keep pedaling.

Keep your body in the center of the bike.

It was much harder than I imagined it would be! The afternoon when my bike met the tree trunk, and my lip the met the dirt, I was sure this bike wasn’t such a great idea!  Who thought of trying to stay upright on two wheels, anyway?! From that day on, when my dad would try to get me out to try to learn to ride, I’d run!  That bike wasn’t a special gift; it was a curse!

Yesterday’s post  showed us how Joseph’s brother’s assumed God was cursing them when they found the money for the food they’d gotten in Egypt was still in their sacks.  They assumed they would be severely punished for this.  When they told Joseph’s servant, he answered that God had given them treasure in their sacks. It was a gift of kindness, put into Joseph’s heart by their God! If only they could have seen the gift for what it was they wouldn’t have had to take that Pepto Bismol for their upset stomachs (okay, the Scripture doesn’t say that, but you know their stomach’s were churning in fear!).

What a difference a biblical perspective gives us!  Joseph’s brothers jumped to the same conclusions we do!  Consider how we respond in these kind of situations:

  • Those children for whom we prayed, begin a pattern of poor behavior and defiance, and suddenly the gift of motherhood has become a curse!
  • We moved into the house of our dreams.  It was roomy and big enough for our family AND for guests.  But we look at all the that hardwood and see so many floors to mop, and suddenly that gift of a house is a curse!
  • We prayed to be married, and he was the man of our dreams at the altar.  But over time we see his sinfulness and are disappointed.  He’s no longer a treasure; now he’s a curse!
  • We watched God give the perfect job and we were grateful.  But when we meet up with a difficult fellow-employee or two, that job becomes a curse!
  • To have a computer at home to work with eases so much – we can pay bills, shop or connect with friends, but on the day there is no Internet service that thing turns into a curse!
  • When we found our church we were thankful for its teaching, it’s congregation and it ministries, but when we see that not everything is done the way we think it should be done, those blessings are now a curse!
  • …You add whatever difficulty has touched your life recently.

All along, those things were all “treasures in our sacks,” only we didn’t have eyes to see it!  Instead we’re staring down in the deep well of the bag  and we become consumed with our own self-focused thoughts instead of what God could do in that darkness. 

If something seems to be a drudgery, a source of sighing and heaviness, or not what you wanted, take that need to the Giver of that blessing.  Ask Him to allow you to see with new eyes the joy of this gift, and what He can do in the midst of this time. A right perspective on the “hard things” in life can help us see that God is not against us, as a matter of fact, He just might be up to something really, really good!

When you have eyes of faith to look for the treasure, you’ll have peace while you wait.  You’ll have hope in your heart.  You’ll realize that that “thing,” whatever it is, truly is a TREASURE in your sack!

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