How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him!
The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the exiles of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.
Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.
The Lord sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.
Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; make music to our God on the harp."
Psalm 147:1 - 7
It seems to me that although there are many times in my life when I have felt like God doesn't bind up broken hearts, I find myself coming to a place where there is a revelation and it happening as a reality rather than a hope. What is tough is the fact that so often I see people effectively giving in rather than looking up at God and asking for His eyes on the affair.
Having been in the situation where the focus of my love wanted things that contradicted and downright denied my beliefs I had to find a place where I could accept the reality of His words, when they seemed so contrary to my experience, and eventually see them come through in my life.
I found then, and need to continue to live within the reality, that I needed to focus and pray for God to change one thing rather than everything at a time - this meant discerning and then asking for God to act in that one place - a bit like the Kerplunk game - one stick at a time until all the marbles fall! And whilst I was praying for that person or situation, I needed to find a place to not believe the comments and curses of others. To see the reality of what God saw me as and to strive not to live in such a way that I confirmed or owned whatever others said I was.
We can all be two year olds (and I'm so aware of my own failings and childishness) but less and less I see the child kicking the hall carpets up and find the man of God that I need waiting for me when the red mist rises and the doubts creep in. But why so slowly Lord?
Where can I go that God is not? In the heights - He is there! In the depths - He is there also!! If I hide in the darkness - The darkness is as light to Him and all is revealed to His gaze. If this is true for me as it was for the Psalmist (139) when he wrote that then it is also true for those we love and pray for (and for those we don't even know of).
I will praise you for I am astoundingly and wonderfully made - Your hand is on me and with me and for me and nothing shall stand against me - your love stands for me and with me always!
This month has been a month of losses, as it seems October often is for me and our family, and has been topped with the loss of a wonderful lady, Joy, who died far too young, and someone I would never have thought of as a queue jumper! Her mother, at 82, has had to do something no parent should - bury her child. For all who mourn and are suffering loss - prayers abound.
Pax,
V
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