I Don't Understand Your Ways

When this song closed our church service this morning, tears filled my eyes.  God was speaking to ME directly; He knew that this song was meant for me today, and its truth resonated so strongly in my spirit that I felt my raw soul rest.

We are church-going people.  Not that you might have guessed, but we are definitely faithful attendees.  I never dread getting up early on Sunday mornings or getting the kids dressed and fed and out the door so quickly.  I really love hearing from my Lord on Sundays.  Even though I live my days asking for His presence to fill each of my moments, there is always something special about the way He shows up on Sunday mornings.  He speaks straight to me from the sermon my pastor has prepared.  I know it sounds silly and unreal, but it is true in my life.  This week has been one long slog through a haze of disappointments and frustrations.  The static of uncertainty muffled God's daily voice in my life, and I was truly limping into our weekly church attendance.  There had been financial woes, daily irritations, pain of death, hopes deferred, all this week.  I felt so beaten that I didn't realize my bruises masked my urgent need to hear God's voice.  Like any daughter who is distant from her loving father, I needed to hear my Father tell me Truth.  "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.  Are they not in your book?" -Psalm 56:8  

Sometimes, we don't need theological teaching or reminders of the intricate details of our faith, we just need God to speak his tenderness.  I have tossed and turned and whined and complained; sobbed over heartaches and balled my fists in silent anger over worldly battles.  I don't understand.  I don't understand where God is.  He is silent, and I don't understand how my loving father can be distant in the dry part of my journey.  But He wasn't.  He isn't.  This morning He reminded me that all of these tears will pale when I reach the end of my race.  When I see His face, everything else will be so strangely dim.  This morning, my Father, who holds my earthly Father close in His bosom, reminded me that this struggle will one day be worth it all.

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us." -Romans 8:18