One Day at a Time

During this past week or so the Lord has helped me regain perspective because, honestly, since the last post I had really been struggling. My thoughts were dark, my vision was limited, and my faith was wavering. God’s promises seemed to loom on the distant horizon far from reach. Roots of bitterness were starting to creep in and my heart was hardening, and I had not the strength to fight it. I knew what I needed to do – namely, focus on God, remember His promises, and be thankful – but I felt as if I was standing at a wall with no way over or around. I was stuck in the muck and the mire.

The Lord Jesus, however, is incredibly and infinitely gracious. He saw me struggling. He heard my whimpered prayers. He knew better than I did the depths of my sinful heart-attitude and the frailty of my faith. And He met me right where I was. He sent His Word and His people (often in combination) to pull me up out of the muck and mire and to set my feet upon the rock, which is Himself. I am always so amazed at how God in His sovereignty and wisdom sends me His Word at just the right time. One friend spoke the truth of John 9 to me (these things are happening "that the works of God might be displayed"). My pastor preached the sermon that I desperately needed to hear and exposed all the doubts and fears that were swimming in my heart. The radio (which I rarely listen to) played songs that pointedly addressed my circumstances and sin and weariness. Then there were the perfectly-timed texts filled with Scriptures that reminded me of the truths I had forgotten, and the people who God burdened to pray for me. These are all evidences of the love and care and provision and grace of Christ. He is faithful even when we are not. He is the perfect Groom who pursues His wayward Bride. He is the only Sovereign for whom nothing escapes His attention. He is the gentle Shepherd who never, ever loses one of His won. In sum, He is Perfection, and He is everything I need (and want!).

One of the things the Lord has been reminding me of is the truth that He gives me grace for Today. He doesn’t give me grace for tomorrow or any other time in the future, but for the day at hand. And, as I have been reminded by several people lately, He also doesn’t give grace for my imagination, and, lately, my imagination has been in overdrive. I am a planner by default, but for a while now I haven’t been able to plan much past the current day. I am in waiting mode in almost every area of my life – waiting for the next step, waiting for the next piece of news, waiting for the next set of test results. So my entire future seems to be just hanging in the balance. And, of course, I guess this is the way it always actually is (from the human perspective) because God alone knows the future and He alone establishes my steps, no matter how much I plan and think ahead. Life is always filled with uncertainties because we do not know what the next day, the next moment will bring. Oswald Chambers calls this living in "gracious uncertainty," and says it is a natural part of the spiritual life. We may have general ideas about what lies ahead, but we won’t actual know until the next moment happens. And isn’t this even what Jesus taught?

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Matthew 6:34

Yes. I am to live day by day. God’s grace is more than sufficient for today, and He lavishly gives me the daily grace and strength I need when I need it. Jesus Christ is the only certainty. Everything else may give way, but He alone is my hope and stay (as the old hymn goes). And the fact that I hate this state of limbo reveals that I am not trusting the provision of my heavenly Father. It reveals that I put too much trust and confidence in plans and planning, instead of placing all my trust in Christ alone. (This is not to say that plans and planning are bad because they are not and they have their place when they are rightly submitted to God).

And this leads me to another reminder from the Lord: I need to be disciplined in my thinking. As the Apostle Paul says, I need to take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). This means when I start thinking about a painful future without my dad or when I start to wonder how honoring my parents in their ill health meshes with moving permanently overseas or start creating a host of future scenarios and what-ifs, I need to stop the thought process, remember (or look it up) the truth found in God’s Word, and start thinking about the character of God and His unfailing promises.

Finally, through all of this and underpinning all other lessons is the constant and continual reminder that I can’t do this. I cannot do this. I have not the strength. I have not the stamina. I have not the faith. I have not the wisdom. The situations that the Lord has allowed into my life, the path that He has me on, I simply have no ability in and of myself to do or even face. I literally and desperately need the grace and strength of Jesus every single hour, evening single moment. I need His grace. I need His wisdom. I need His guidance. I need His Word. I need HIM. And the great thing is that I have Him. He is mine and He promises in His Word that His grace is sufficient for me, that He is my ever-present help, that He will strengthen me, that He is with me and in me, that He is for me, and that He delights to do me good and will do me good for the glory of His name. And, furthermore, when I am weak, He is very, very strong.

If My God is For Me...

You have kept count of my tossings;

put my tears in your bottle.

Are they not in your book?

Then my enemies will turn back

in the day when I call.

This I know, that God is for me. Psalm 56:8-9

I have been studying the Old Testament book of Jeremiah for several months now. Overall, it's a pretty grim book as the nation of Israel continually forsakes the one, true, and living God to do whatever her heart desires despite God's warnings. Throughout the book they experience discipline, destruction, and devastation. Then there come a few chapters near the middle of the book (chapters 29-33) where God promises to restore His people back to Himself and give them a new heart that will never forsake Him again. These hope-filled promises point toward the New Testament, to the coming of Christ. These chapters are in stark contrast to the surrounding ones that contain warnings of doom. The former has the favor of God and the latter doesn't. One contains "plans for a hope and future" (29:11), while the other promises plans for "harm and not for good" (21:10). Because of this study and because of things going on in my life, I have been pondering lately what it means for God to be for me. As the Scripture says above, He is for me. He is for every single person who has put their hope and trust in Jesus Christ. But what does that mean? There are many unfavorable circumstances in my life that would indicate that Jesus is not for me. The enemy has been whispering in my ear that it makes no difference for God to be for me, to have Him on my side. Just look at my life. My dad has terminal cancer. My mom just had the umpteenth surgery on her foot. My car wouldn't start last Thursday and I have been without a vehicle since (though, thankfully, I got a call today from the mechanic saying it's fixed). Bad news seems to lurk around every corner, so how is God for me? The evidence seems to point otherwise.

But the evidence doesn't always tell the whole truth. Yes, these things are happening and, yes, they are less than desirable, but there are unseen things transacting in the midst of these events that aren't so easy to discern (hence, unseen - 2 Corinthians 4:16-18). But God's Word reveals the unseen. This is where I learn how God is for me. This is where I go to learn how to think rightly about these things. This is where I go to reset my focus - away from my circumstances and toward my Savior (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Before I dive into how Scripture says God is for me, let's look first at what it means for God to be against me. In truth, we are all natural-born enemies of God. No one does good; no, not one. No one seeks after God. Everyone has sinned and fallen short of His glory. This is what Romans chapter three tells us. We are rebels. We are enemies of God and, therefore, He is against us. His wrath is upon us (John 3:36). We are separated from God and all of His goodness (Ephesians 2:12). In fact, God is working for our harm and not for our good (Jeremiah 21:10). Unless we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, this is our grim state. This is our indictment and it continues to be so for all eternity for those who don't trust in Jesus Christ. That is what hell is: it is an eternal state of separation from God and His goodness where you forever experience the full force of His wrath and fury.

Behold, I am against you, O proud one,

declares the Lord God of hosts,

for your day has come,

the time when I will punish you. Jeremiah 50:31

That used to be true of me, but it's not anymore. God saved me through His Son Jesus Christ twelve years ago. Because of Christ, God is no longer against me. I have been reconciled to Him. So here is a small listing of what it means for God to be for me:

• It means that I am no longer God's enemy. I am now His daughter. 1 John 3:1
• It means that God has done all that is required for me to know Him. He has given me the righteousness He requires and forgiven me through the death of His own Son. I am no longer guilty of my sin because Christ paid it for me and I no longer have to perfectly keep God's Law because Jesus kept it perfectly for me. Romans 4:1-12 (also see Pastor Andy's sermon, "A Call to Believe and Rest")
• It means that I am free from sin. I no longer have to sin; I now have a choice. I am now free to obey God. Romans 6; Galatians 5:1
• It means that God will provide all my needs according to His glories riches in Christ Jesus (which He more than proved to me while I've been without a vehicle). He will even give me my heart's desire (because He conforms it to His own). Philippians 4:19; Matthew 6:33; Psalm 37:4
• It means that He has a hope and a future for me; that I have a purpose; that He has planned good for me and not evil; that no matter what happens in my life, God is working in each circumstance for my ultimate good and His glory. The Lord is so powerful that He can take even the most horrible situation and bring good out of it. Think about the cross. Jesus Christ, the only perfect human to ever live, the one who obeyed God's holy law perfectly, the one who loved God and people completely and perfectly, the one who never sinned and only good was found in Him, this Perfect One was betrayed, spit upon, mocked, brutally whipped and beaten, and then nailed to a cross. That is not good in and of itself, but God ordained this to happen so that He could punish this Perfect One for the sins of His people, to satisfy His holy justice and anger, so that He could save a people for Himself. Now that is very good! He works everything for the good of those who love them and are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28; Jeremiah 29:11

These are just some of the ways that God is for for me. I would like to say that I live perfectly in this truth, but I don't. I often forget who my God is and who I am in Him. I often lose sight of His promises and His goodness and choose to wallow in self-pity and bitterness as I see my life crumbling around me. But you know what? Even then God is for me. Even then He gently shows me my sin and calls me back to Him. Even then He never leaves me. That's grace. That's the God of the Bible. He is forever for His people. 

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31