Now What?

Behind and Before

I volunteered recently to share yet another devotional, this time with our homeschool group in honor of our last meeting for this school year.  It would be a mixed crowd of young people and their parents.  Then I started thinking, what could I possibly say that anyone would be interested in hearing?  I wanted these kids and their parents, to know how much God loves them – how well He knows them – how much He is invested in them.  Then I started to remember what life was like for me some thirty-seven years ago.

            I wasn’t the happiest sixteen year-old.  I didn’t grow up in a Christian home.  I certainly wasn’t homeschooled.  My dad was absent most of the time, and my mom was emotionally abusive.  I wasn’t a bad kid, but I wasn’t anything special either.  I was prone to depression.   

            As Ephesians chapter 2:1-3 states – And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.  Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 

            I was utterly lost in the summer of 1979 until a friend told me about Jesus. 

Now there was plenty of evil, temptation, corruption and trouble for a sixteen year-old to find in 1979 – just like today.  Truly, nothing is new under the sun!  

Jimmy Carter was president, and we were in the midst of a recession.  There were lines down the block to get gas due to a shortage.  When you finally could pull up to the pump, there was an attendant to pump gas for you if you liked – but this ended that year because gas was so expensive it was cheaper to pump it yourself!  The Ayatollah Khomeini took over Iran through revolution and held over sixty Americans hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran for 444 days – Islamic terror is not new.  Russia invaded Afghanistan starting a ten year quagmire that aided the Soviet collapse that would occur in 1991.  The rule of Pol Pot, the dictator of Cambodia ended in 1979.  He caused the death of 2,000,000 people in his attempt to create a communist utopia through his “killing fields.”  The socialism/communism that many young Americans are so infatuated with has caused the death and suffering of millions of people around the world – again, not new.

The number one movies were Superman, Deer Hunter, Rocky II, The Muppet Movie, Apocalypse Now, and George Lucas was filming The Empire Strikes Back the summer of my sixteenth year.  The hit songs were My Sharona, Heartache Tonight, Still, and What a Fool Believes.  MTV, the king of music videos, wouldn’t begin for two more years.

The Facts of Life and The Dukes of Hazzard were the most popular TV shows!  Atari was the gaming system and Space Invaders was the game!!  There was internet – but it was dial-up and mostly for businesses unless you were a Radio Shack groupie.  The first cell phones were actually operating in Japan within a limited city area.

Every generation has there good and bad things, their challenges and their triumphs – Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes, Do not say, “Why is it that the former days were better than these?”  For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this (Ecclesiastes 7:10).  God puts us on this earth for good reason at the time he chooses for His purposes.  For such a time as this, just like in Esther’s day!

I am confident that my trajectory would have been mostly negative if it was not for the intervention of my Lord.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in the kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ~ Ephesians 2:4-7

Being a Christian doesn’t mean we won’t have troubles, failures, disappointments or sorrow in this life.  It does mean that everything we face will be sifted through the hands of our truly loving Father with the goal that it will be for our ultimate good.

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. ~ Ephesians 2:8-9

God does have a wonderful plan for our lives.  There is probably no other scripture that illustrates how God sees His children quite like Psalm 139.  It is comforting and revealing. 

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.  You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar.

It is a remarkable thing to think that someone truly knows us.  A natural longing of the human heart is to be known, truly known and understood.  To be known to the point that our actions and thoughts are understood even when we to try to hide them or remain aloof from others is unsettling.  The Psalmist is saying here that God knows him that well, whether he likes it or not.

 You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways.  Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all.

According to Webster, ‘intimately’ can be defined as marked by very close association or familiarity, warm friendship developing through long association, very personal, private, characterizing one’s deepest nature.  Imagine someone knowing us like that.  Before our mouth opens someone knows what we will say.  Nothing is hidden, nothing is secret – our Father knows…AND He still loves.

 

  You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.

 We can be genuine with Him – He gets us.  There is nothing that He doesn’t already know about us.  We don’t have to be cool, pretend we have it all together, or do anything crazy to get His attention.

Where can I go from Your Spirit?  Or where can I flee from Your presence?  If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.  If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me.  If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,” even the darkness is not dark to You, and the light is as bright as the day.  Darkness and light are alike to You.

Here is a faithful companion that we can’t escape.  Someone whose friendship we can’t destroy.  There are no circumstances, no fears, no wrong decisions, no moods, no loneliness, no trials, no depression, no illness, no disappointments, no overwhelming darkness, no evil that can change who God is or how He knows and cares for His own.  We are never alone – He is faithful.

For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.  I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. 

God made us just the way He wanted us.  What we consider imperfections are His intricate design.  Our talents, gifts, abilities were all given to us by Him, so that we would use them for His glory.

My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;  Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. 

We have a hope and a future – days ordained for us – all written in His book.  We can rest in His love and follow our dreams.  Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might (Ecclesiastes 9:10a).  What we do isn’t the problem – it’s for whom and how that God cares about.  He wants us to be faithful, like He is.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.  When I awake, I am still with You.

Again, we are never alone, and never not on our Father’s mind.  What a friend we have in Jesus!

O that You would slay the wicked, O God; depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed, for they speak against You wickedly, and Your enemies take Your name in vain.  Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord?  And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?  I hate them with the utmost hatred; they have become my enemies.

Now this seems a strange portion within this beautiful passage.  It sounds harsh and out of place at first, but this speaks of the determination of the psalmist to be faithful to a God who has done and is doing so much for him.    There are no divided hearts in God’s economy.  He wants all of us – even those dreams.  We cannot walk with Him and with the world.  We are meant to stand for something – to be His hands and feet on this weary planet – without compromise.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.

Why does the psalmist end with a prayer inviting the Lord to do what He already does?  There’s a difference between being known and wanting to be known.  True friendship is not passive.  The Lord knows us intimately, and He wants us to know Him.  It’s a privilege to respond to the Lord’s love – to invite Him to search us, try us, and make us vessels for honor – His workmanship – so we can live lives for His glory.