Believe!
01/01/2006
Sometimes it seems if I touch a certain place in my heart,
it will hurt. It has been so painful in the past, I am afraid to venture
there—so I hesitate, but I am finding when I go there now, the pain is gone.
Where is it?
Has the call to believe drowned it out?
Could it really be possible to have a pain so great not only diminish, but even
disappear? It’s not that there are not tears that rise to the surface, tears
that come because a heart misses, because a chair is empty, because a life is
no longer lived on this earth…those tears will last through the years, maybe an
entire lifetime. A person so loved will never be forgotten…but the pain that
was so intense, that was so suffocating, that wanted nothing more to do with
the things of this earth, is gone.
In its place are a deep peace, a quiet resolve and a heart filled with gratitude.
It seems impossible…to laugh, to enjoy, to move on and to embrace this new way of being, especially during Christmas--a time when families draw near to one another.
I know what it means to get through a day enduring the pain, taking it to God, telling Him of the heartache that can consume a grieving soul, but what does one do with such a peaceful emotion? One that seems foreign, not quite right…really.
How does a family find that peace which surpasses understanding promised in God’s Word? Would that peace even be possible without the hope of an eternal life that has been promised to those who will believe?
In reading John this morning, those around Jesus asked Him,
“What does God want us to do?”
I closed my eyes and asked God that very same question.
“What do You want me to do God?”
Don’t we all ask that question at times in our life?
We want to do God’s will, but most times we don’t even know what His will is…but
the answer to the question was there in the next paragraph, “Jesus told them, ‘This
is what God wants you to do: Believe in the one he has sent.’” (John 6:28-29 NLT)
But what about all our “to do” lists? What about all the things that seem to be required to make a day a day worthwhile? What about all the preparations we made for Christmas, for the family that would be coming, for the food that would need to be provided? What about all the gifts that needed to be wrapped, and the decisions that needed to be made? What about the house that needed to be cleaned, isn’t all that necessary too, God? How can You simply say, “Believe” when we ask You what You want us to do?
So many hearts were hurting this year, probably no more than any other year, but as we grow older, as we know more people it seems there are so many battles going on that will rob a soul of the joy Jesus promised us. As I listened to the Christmas music and the words rang out, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” I knew that there were many hearts that could not embrace such sentiments right now.
I answered the calls that came to the front desk at our church. I passed on the inquiries from people who were in need, hoping that the person responding to them could ease the suffering a bit, the hopelessness a bit, the loneliness a bit…I heard the desperation in the voices, homes that would be lost, presents that would not be under the tree for the children if help was not received, tears that were being shed because all was not well in their world. People of all kinds, of all ages, all needing one thing…God’s provision.
We all need to know that someone cares, and ultimately, that Someone is our Lord. Presents can put a smile on the face of a child, but it can be fleeting. A warm meal can put a smile on the face of the homeless, but it will pass. A ticket home can put a smile on the face of a young college student, but they must return to school…
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry again. Those who believe in me will never thirst.” (John 6:35 NLT)
There’s that word “believe” again. Can it really be so simple? Doesn’t it have to be more complicated than that? I mean, look at this world we live in? It is very complicated. Try buying a new car and look at the stack of paperwork that needs to be filled out, signed and approved…not to mention the mountain of paperwork involved in purchasing a home!
Relationships are complicated, rearing a child is complicated, deciding on a career, a major, a spouse, where we want to live and what we want to do are all complicated things to work through…decisions, decisions, decisions, with rarely a simple answer to any of it!
Except, to BELIEVE!
But what does that mean and how do we go about it? The crowds around Jesus were looking to Him, wanting answers, wondering what comes next, and Jesus said, all my Father wants you to do is to believe that I am the One He has sent to the world to save you! He said, “Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that I, the Son of Man, can give you. For God the Father has sent me for that very purpose.” (John 6:27 NLT)
But, we even try to complicate that! The crowds said, “You must show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What will you do for us?” (John 6:30 NLT)
“What will you do for us…?” It’s all about us, isn’t it? All about our needs, our wants, our desires, our plans, our etc…etc…etc… What do we pray most times? I know I pray about what I think I need, what I want, what comes next, what would You have me do…and yet God showed me something very different about even attending church recently, something I have seen and experienced many times but something that did not become a revelation for me until God willed it to be so.
I entered into a church service that was designed, if you want to call it that, to give to God. It was a time to praise, to worship and to thank Him without restraint or time limits. If the message was never preached, so be it, it wasn’t about the message. If the announcements were never made, it seemed to not matter. We were there for one reason only, to give ourselves to our God. To offer Him everything, and expect nothing in return…but for God to give us nothing in return would be like our children coming to us and pouring their love all over us and having us ignore them…that’s not the way of a loving parent and that’s not the way of our loving Father. When we give Him our everything, He gives us more than we could ever hope for or desire, He fills every part of us with His joy--and as I walked away from this time with Him it was like He was reminding me once again how very backwards we turn things in the world He created. We get the cart up there before the horse more times than not, and we wonder why our hearts are so empty and sad, why are lives are so joyless and miserable, and why our relationships are such a mess…
In reading Psalm 50, the Lord tells us all the things He does not want or need from us. He tells us how every bird, every animal, every field belongs to Him. How if He were hungry He would not even mention it to us because everything in the world is His. Then God goes on to tell us what He does want more than anything, He wants our true thanks. He wants us to trust Him in our times of trouble so that He can rescue us so that we can give Him the glory. He says that giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors Him.
But what do our hearts say to that?
Most times, we say, “No.”
Why?
Because it’s just not complicated enough for us. It’s much too simple. We can’t
just go to God in our prayer time and tell Him, “Thank you. I love You. You’re
awesome!” There’s got to be more to it than that…but that’s another one of the
devil’s lies, because he doesn’t want us praising and thanking our God. The
enemy does not want the strength of our Mighty Lord to lead us, he wants us to
put the cart up there first filled with all the things on our “to do” list and
try to pull it along with our own strength, down the rocky paths we choose.
“If you keep to my path, I will reveal to you the salvation
of God.”
Psalm 50:23b (NLT)
That is what God was revealing to me after praising and worshipping Him…when we follow His advice; He saves us, not only eternally in Heaven, but each day here on earth. After our son, Phil, died, my heart cried out the very words of David in Psalm 51:8 (NLT), “Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me—now let me rejoice,” God continues to reveal to me how that is done if we will simply give Him a chance to work in our lives by believing.
We don’t want a broken heart, we don’t want to feel such pain, we want life to be good and fun and easy, but it rarely is, so most times we are disappointed…but should we be? As I sat with a friend just recently who is going through very difficult times in her life, I listened to her story, to her pain, but what I saw was the light of God in her eyes. I could sense that her love for God had grown over the years because of the struggles she has had to endure. Is that a curse then, or a blessing in her life? Most times it feels more like a curse, like God is punishing us, like we have not repented for our sins and God must be working them out through such fiery trials, but are we getting the cart before the horse once again? I have to believe it is because God loves us so very much that He will place these difficulties in our path causing us to call out to Him for help, so we can see His miracles along the way and BELIEVE as we should!
I have been called to believe…to believe that our son lives in heaven now, to believe that he loves it there and does not miss us one bit. I have been called to believe that I will see him again, that Jesus died on the cross to give us all that Hope. Jesus said, “I assure you, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.” John 5:24 (NLT)
Once again, we are called to believe! It is written in the Psalms, it is written in the very words of Jesus, so why is it so very hard at times? Maybe because at one time we all believed in Santa, but we found out Santa was not true. Maybe we also believed in the Easter Bunny, but we discovered that to be a lie also. How about the Tooth Fairy? Another big lie! Maybe we are afraid if we give our hearts to anything so fully again, like we did when are hearts were young and impressionable, we’ll find that we’ll be disappointed once again because it was “just the man behind the curtain” instead of the great Wizard of Oz… Maybe that’s why the Devil leads us down all these paths of fantasy, only to burst our bubble when we get old enough to know what’s real, so that we will be less willing to give our hearts fully to what we cannot see but must believe with all our hearts…that our salvation is in Jesus Christ--that He is the only true and lasting joy in our lives!
Santa’s joy slowly diminishes as our new toys grew old, the Easter Bunny’s pleasure disappears once the chocolate is gone, the Tooth Fairy fades into the background of our childhood--as young adults these “truths” become lies, so how are we to believe that the joy of our Lord will always remain?
Watching “The Polar Express” the other night with our family, we enjoyed a wonderful movie about a young boy who no longer believed in Santa. As they put it, he could no longer hear the Christmas bells ringing, and so he boarded this train to the North Pole where he discovered that Santa was true and if he would only believe, then he would be able to hear the bells again. Of course, he saw Santa with his own eyes, but then as the movie was coming to a conclusion and he was back home again, he began to doubt as to whether it was a true or just a dream he had had. What was most interesting to me was that in the end (and don’t read this part if you have not seen the movie and don’t want to spoil the ending), when the Christmas bell was found and he and his sister could hear it ringing, his parents could not…because they did not believe. If their child had told them about the bell, that Santa was still real to him and always would be, they would have chuckled inside because of how ridiculous it was to them now as adults…
If we take our children to church, if we make sure they are brought up in a Christian environment so that God will be real to them, but have abandoned our own belief, what will it mean to them? Will they think it is only for children? Will they too get caught up in the things of this world, leaving the stories of old in the Bible behind--thinking that the Son of God is just a sweet Christmas story used to bring families together to celebrate a day with presents and a turkey? If God is not real to us because we have “grown out of” having the faith of a child, very likely they will follow the same path we are on and the day may come when they will not believe either. Not because it is not true, but because as adults we are not willing to abandon our hearts to God, to continue to praise Him and thank Him for all that He is doing in our lives.
We stop believing…but God does not stop being!
“You search the Scriptures because you believe they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me so that I can give you this eternal life. Your approval or disapproval means nothing to me, because I know you don’t have God’s love within you. For I have come to you representing my Father, and you refuse to welcome me, even though you readily accept others who represent only themselves. No wonder you can’t believe!” John 5:39-44 (NLT)
After accepting Santa, and the Easter Bunny, and watching the joy they brought to us disappear as young adults, we are not so willing to continue on with the baby Jesus story and the joy He “supposedly” brings either…if we give Him our whole hearts even into our adulthood, what if He disappoints us too?
Others may say, “You still believe in Jesus? What a fool you are! Don’t you know that He is only a story your parents told you and it is no longer to be believed? That’s for children…for the young, for the weak.”
Is it?
Is it for you?
Do you still hear the bells of heaven ringing, or have they dimmed through the
years because of hardships that have come your way…wondering where God is in
all of it? How can a loving God, if He is real, possibly allow this in my
life--in the lives of those I know?
Where is the kindness He is known for?
Where is the joy He promised?
Why am I so lonely and tired?
Where’s the excitement that used to fill me?
How I long to be a child again…
We spent Christmas with our boys, with their wives and with
their children. What an amazing time it was! As I sat in our Christmas service
and listened to the music and heard about a global Christ, not just an American
picture of the Jesus we all grew up with, I could not help but marvel at the
goodness of God. With our new little granddaughter in my arms, the tears that
came were not ones of sorrow, but of joy. She is so fresh, so untainted by the
world around her as her every need is met. When she is hungry, she is fed. When
she is wet, she is changed, when she is tired, she sleeps. Her smiles come easy
and her big bright blue eyes are filled with innocence. As I look into her eyes
I know it will not always be so…childhood passes and heartaches come. We must
pray for our children and lead them into the Truth of our Lord so they will
always believe and know His hope and joy!
We bring our children to Santa, so they can sit on his lap, get a picture taken, and tell him what they wish for for Christmas. We don’t think twice about the fact that Santa cannot grant them their wishes because we know what their wishes are, and we will take care of their every need. We don’t have to depend on a man in a red suit at the mall to do that.
In the Bible it talks about the “day some parents brought their little children to Jesus so he could touch them and bless them…” Then “the disciples told them not to bother him,” but “Jesus called for the children and said to the disciples, ‘Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.’” (Luke 18:16 NLT)
“Such as these…” Jesus was speaking to all of us in that simple phrase. He was speaking to His very disciples too, He knew the ways of man and He knew how hard it is for us to believe as adults, and so He went on to tell them, “I assure you, anyone who doesn’t have their kind of faith will never get into the Kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:17 NLT)
Without the faith of a child, we will not hear the bells of heaven ringing. They will slowly fade into the background of our childhood, just like the Tooth Fairy, possibly never to be heard again. They will be drowned out by all the things we “must do” as we hurry on our way and by all the complicated things we must work through. When Christmas Day comes and the songs ring out, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” we will say “Bah, humbug! There’s no such thing as Santa!” And, we’ll be right! There is no such thing as Santa, or the Easter Bunny, but there is the Son of God! He has never left us, He is not some myth, He is alive and well and offering us eternal life through His death on the Cross-if we will only accept the gift of His salvation!
Will we open His gift of eternity and let it apply itself in our lives?
Inside we will find a deep peace, a grateful heart and a new joy. The pain that once filled every part of our being will be gone…and we won’t know quite how it happened. The day comes when we will search for that place of deep pain and we will not find it—it will be lost in the blessings that have come…it’s a miracle we won’t quite understand…but that’s why they’re called miracles. Some of God’s best miracles are when the loneliness starts to dissolve; when fear is swept away and when the Hope of an innocent child emerges again, no matter what our age!
Most times now when I turn back to look for the deep wound that was inflicted on my heart, I find it has been greatly healed, and God gently reminds me to turn back around and look to Him and to the future… It’s not that He is asking me to forget Phil, never that, only that He wants me to remember how true His promises are and how real He is!
Sometimes I think, “But Lord, is it right? Is it right that we just go on with our lives like this…how can we, when we love him so very much, and want him to be with us?”
God says, see the focus there? Us…this thinking is about you, not about Phil. It’s about your needs, not his. His needs are met, his joy is complete, his complications in life are finished. My perfect plan for his life has been fulfilled. Your task now is to carry on and believe what those in heaven now see! It’s okay to ask questions, to notice that the pain is going away and that the joy is returning. You can touch it and test it out from time to time and enjoy the work that I am doing—but it is not okay to feel guilty about it! That is the devil’s lie because he wants to keep you in bondage, to let the grief swallow you up. I came to set you free!
“For it is my Father’s will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life—that I should raise them at the last day.” John 6:40 (NLT)
When we BELIEVE, that is our Father’s gift to us!
It’s so much more exciting than sitting on Santa’s lap with
our wish list; it’s resting in the mighty arms of God where we can hear the
bells of heaven ringing! God has “hidden these things from the wise and
learned, and revealed them to little children.”
(Matt. 11:25 NLT)
Thanking Him,
Diane
