Discouraged

This past weekend I had something happen to a friend and to me that I confess made me very discouraged.  It was one those times that made me just look at the Heavens and just cry out, “WHY!!!!”  One weekend changed my future.  It made me reevaluate where I’m going and what I’m doing with my life right now.  I’ve gotten my share of people telling me they are praying for me and that God is sovereign and that I need to look to him.  I appreciate those emails and those prayers.  I really do but they were not seeming to do me any good till I got alone with the Word last night.  I had to catch up on my daily Bible readings and the first thing that I read was Numbers 14.  The spies have just came back and gave their reports.  You know the drill. 10 said no and 2 said yes.  In chapter 14 the stories picks up with the children of Israel griping and complaining telling God it would have been better to have stayed in Egypt.  That always just blows my mind.  Did they forget that Egypt was bondage and persecution.   They didn’t have it made in Egypt.

Over the weekend though I’ve had some of the same thoughts.  Lord, why did you bring me to Tennessee and then do this I asked.  Wouldn’t I had been better off in Mississippi?  At least I have a family to support me down there.  When I read this chapter I was convicted deeply because I was guilty of belly aching.  It was after that when I was encouraged the most.  Moses prayed for the people and his whole prayer was based on the steadfast love of God.  That is God’s covenant love for his children.  His special love.  God loves me just that much and I’m able to come to the throne of God and request help and assistance because of that love.  Because of that love I know that God hears me and cares about what is going on in my life because He is steering my life.  He also tells God that it would be wrong to annihilate the children of Israel because all the other nations would see and question the Godness of God.  God’s name is at stake.  This morning I pleaded with the Lord for my friend and my family because I believe the name of the Lord is at stake here.  We have tried to do what is right and have sacrificed to do that at times.  My friend has stepped out on faith believing that he was doing exactly what God was telling him to do.  The name of the Lord is at stake here and when I prayed I reminded God of that, but He already knew that.  I think He just wanted me to pray that.  His name is way bigger than mine or my friends.

About the time I was getting all of this my wife came in and hit me with this.  She has been reading Joni Eareckson Tada’s book When God Weepsand in this book she talks about suffering and says this:  “Once heaven has our attention, a fervid anticipation for God’s ultimate reality–appearing with him in glory–begins to glow, making everything earthly pale in comparison.  Earth’s pains keeps rushing our hopes, reminding us this world can never satisfy; only heaven can.  And every time we begin to nestle too comfortable on this planet, God cracks open the locks of the dam to allow an ice-cold splash of suffering to wake us from our spiritual slumber.  Suffering keeps swelling our feet so that earth’s shoes won’t fit.”