Steadfast

Even people like David, Moses, and Abraham, giants in our faith, had difficult times.  They struggled with this sin nature that we all carry inside.  They had hurts that seemed to them too much for one heart to bear.  Yet, they made it.

I wonder sometimes how they did it, how even when life was the most difficult it had ever been they found the strength to hold on.  David explains it pretty well in his Psalms:

"In You, O Lord, do I take refuge...you are my rock and my fortress...I trust in You, O Lord...O, how abundant is your goodness...Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me..." Psalm 31

All of Psalm 31 that I didn't write down were bad things that kept happening to David, things that were wearing him down and making him feel abandoned, but David keeps coming back to the Lord with gratitude for the things he has done and trusting him to continue proving his steadfast love.  David had his priorities straight.  First, worship God.  Second, everything else.  I think an adjustment might be in order.

Truth

'Beware, your sin will find you out!' - Paraphrase of Numbers 32:23

I cannot count how many times I heard that from my dad growing up.  He always had a verse from the Bible to back up what he was admonishing me about, and that one was for the stuff I had done that he hadn't found out about yet!

The older I get though, the more I realize just how wise my dad is.  And it's not just knowledge about the Bible.  It's common sense stuff, too.  I hope I have that good of a head on my shoulders when I'm his age.  He was right to quote that to me, it resounds in my head every time I do something wrong.  He's reminding me subconsciously that even if I think I got away with it (like cutting the cat's whiskers with scissors), I really haven't.  Even if someone on earth never knows what I've done, God knows.

As I was reading in 2 Corinthians 13 this morning, my dad popped into my head again.  Paul is telling the church in verse 8, 

"For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth."

The truth always comes out, always wins, always rises to the top of whatever situation.  Paul is reminding me that honesty really is the best policy.  What's harder to remember?  The truth or a lie?

Or a lie that covered up a lie that you told the other day to protect another lie you told last week which was really just a rearranging of the details to cover someone else who lied for you two years ago to cover up something you did and just now had to lie about again because the first lie was told and if you told the truth now then the first lie would have been a waste of time because then everyone would know that it was really a lie?

Who wants to live like that?!  How much harder is it to just tell the truth?  You have to live with the consequences of either decision, except that if you tell the truth then the consequences are over with a lot sooner...

Come and Listen

I was talking to someone yesterday who is struggling with the internal battles that Paul talks about in Romans 7:

"We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it."

He sounds a little schizophrenic, but he's right!  I feel the same way sometimes.  We all feel that way sometimes, and this person is right there.  Oh, how I empathize!  I felt like I could really say, "Been there, done that," and mean it.  I could speak from my own life yesterday because I have definitely been there.

Interestingly enough, the Life Journal reading for today seemed so applicable to yesterday's conversation.  In Psalm 66:

"If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer.  Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!"

Wow, that speaks to me.  It is so encouraging that God doesn't turn away from us.  That even when we fail, if we cry out to him, he comes and loves us anyway.

And then in 2 Corinthians, Paul is talking about how God comforts the downcast and that sometimes our sin brings deep sorrow to our hearts, but that sorrow leads us to a clearer view of who God is and what he is about.  That sorrow produces "earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done."

Paul - you are a genius!  Why are you so encouraging to me?  Oh, yeah, because you're a real person.  You don't try to hide behind some mask.  We know you struggled with sin, we know you messed up, but you still kept doggedly on toward the prize.

God, thank you for an example like Paul!  A real man, with real issues, who just plain got it.  Thank you for speaking through him into my heart.  I need that encouragement sometimes.