The Lord seems to be reminding me lately how He identifies intimately with us in our weakness. The heartbreaking places in our lives, He intimately, completely, fully understands. The frustrating places, He gets. The weary places, He walked, the confusing places, the limbo places, the uncertain places....somehow, while He is entirely NOT like us and entirely on the throne, He also decides to empathize with Hagar in the wilderness. Also decided to put on flesh and kneel down in the dirt with the woman caught in sin. Psalm tells us He reaches down to the ash heaps, that His eye is on us, that He walks with us, and identifies with us.
It's such a truth to cling to on days when it seems surely no one understands. In seasons when it feels so alone. In hours so dark that no hope is seen.
He transforms and redeems those places, yes. But first He feels them with us.
I remember a day not long after mom died sitting on my bed in Ohio and wondering if I should be mad at the Lord. Something human told me that was a common path, and that I should at least consider whether I should be angry that the Lord heard my prayers and didn't answer them, saw my mom suffering but did not heal her, saw our family breaking and didn't fix us.
Of course, I see now that He did hear my prayers AND answer them, that He did see my mom suffering, suffered with her, and did heal her...that He walked close with our family and did fill our gaps. But what He showed me then, as I bawled on my bed wasn't that He would carry and redeem in the future. He showed me quietly and strong and intimately the tears in His eyes.
Instantly, as I looked to Him for answers and saw Him cry with me instead, considerations of anger just melted. If He cried with me, He understood. If He was crying with me, He was for me. If His heart broke because mine was, then His heart could be trusted and clung to. I wanted in that moment to be WITH Him, not oppose Him...always. I wanted to be in tears with that kind of God, and to trust Him then on.
As we've been walking alongside some really broken situations and hurting people lately, I keep finding myself praying, "Lord, I can't even imagine...but YOU do. You understand, fully. Meet her. Meet them. Be close." or "Lord, I don't even have words to pray for this, but you are down in the dirt with him and YOU have all that is needed."
Even today, Valentine's Day, as a few people weigh heavy on my heart, He reminds me that He is with them and loves them full, complete, strong and deep. ALL that is needed is found in His love, and His love is FULL...unable to be diminished nor weakened nor earned nor grown. I don't understand fully His complete love...but He does, and He is in it with me, and glorious, and unlimited, and gives the power to understand.
I'm so thankful for this passage from Ephesians 3 the kids and I memorized a few years ago and has been traced and trusted in a million times since:
💙
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