Seeking Wise Counsel

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. (Psalm 1 ESV)

"The Lord does all things well," the minister quoted his mother, who'd been burdened with Polio and spent over 2 years in an iron lung and isolation before seeing her family again. Yet the minister, still a boy, had to make a decision. Believe his mother's confession and trust the God who'd allowed this, or take matters into his own hands and hold that same God accountable for taking his mother's vitality away?

The question is raised daily: what is happening to our world? Hatred is on the rise. And along with it, the sanctity of human life is nearly on life support. So it seems. The days in which we find ourselves are not going to get better--yet. Not until Jesus returns.

But there is good news.

Jesus spent His time with the disciples, teaching and preparing them for the coming days. They had no idea what He was talking about until after He'd ascended to heaven and the Holy Spirit came to fill them. One instance was John 16:33, when He said, "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

He also taught in His famous Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you" (Matthew 5:11-12).

Later, Paul exhorted us to "rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope" (Romans 5:3-4). When he wrote to the church at Corinth, he would call our difficult days light and momentary afflictions (2 Corinthians 4:17).

And then, Jesus' brother, James, tells us to "count it all joy when you fall into various trials" (James 1:2).

John's gospel shares with us another of Jesus' sayings before He was taken into heaven:

"Truly, truly, I tell you, you will weep and wail while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman has pain in childbirth because her time has come; but when she brings forth her child, she forgets her anguish because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy" (John 16:20-22).

This should give us such hope. To know that our Lord knew from the beginning we would face difficult days is not an indictment against anyone. He knew. He gave us words of encouragement to look to and cling to. 

Our Bible is the letter sent to us as a promise and the story of His love, His sacrifice, His return, and our future hope in His presence forever.

The Psalmist could see this. He sought to encourage us as well. Don't listen to the negativity or the doomsayers. Turn to the One who has never failed to keep His promises.

He is the One from whom we should seek counsel.

He is the One who defines our value.

There's so much more I want to say about this, but for now I will leave you with this:

Jesus saw it all, long before our story began. And He still paid the price for our redemption on that cross. He never wavered in His devotion to washing all that pain and suffering away. One day, we will see. Until then, we can trust He has our redemption sealed, and those things that waged war against our souls will be silenced. 

Until then ... go in peace.

💜 Karlene J 💜

Worth the Wait

Hurry up ... Wait.

I have always hated to wait.

As a child, waiting for my parents to load the car for a family trip (anywhere) felt eternal. And then, I had to wait, squashed between my two older brothers, as we crossed Michigan. A three-hour drive from Detroit to Grand Rapids, MI, to visit my grandmother--another infinite span of time.

Even with all the waiting, I always knew there was a promise of something amazing on the other end.

But what would happen if I were to always wait and never realize the fulfillment of a promise?

What if my parents established a pattern of making promises without intending to follow through?

I imagine a level of distrust would fester, and by adulthood I might believe promises to be wishful thinking.

When a pattern is well-established, it is difficult to believe anything different.

Children born into poverty may struggle with any hope that affluence can be part of their story. Those raised in wealth could never imagine the feeling of hunger or whether their clothes are well-tailored and clean.

I heard a story several years ago. The pastor shared about orphan children who were taken into an orphanage. Many of them would cry at night, fearful of sleep because they had no idea whether they'd have another meal when they woke or be back on the street. One of the workers realized this and began to fasten a slice of bread to their hands--a physical reminder that they would always have another meal. The children were able to sleep after that.

The children had legitimate fears. To tell them otherwise wouldn't calm them. They needed something to hold on to. Literally.

As children of God, it's no different. In the beginning of our journey with Him, there's the initial buoyancy of our spirits that is exciting and new. Prayers get answered. Peace like we've never known comes.

And then the honeymoon season is trampled on by the day-to-day stressors that didn't get the memo that our life now belongs to Jesus. Or maybe they have, and are determined to knock us back to our anxiety-driven, people-pleasing, peaceless existence. Whichever the case may be, our surrender to Jesus, our Bread of Life, was no fairy tale to forget. He is who we hold to.

In the Old Testament, the Israelites were instructed to take large stones and pile them up in specified places, "that this may be a sign to you. When your children ask in time to come, 'What do those stones mean to you?' then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD ... So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever" (Joshua 4:6-7 ESV).

Today, journals often are filled with emotional highs and lows, gains and losses, our deepest fears, our triumphs, dreams, hopes, and sometimes our failures. For many, journals also highlight the ways God has blessed, encouraged, broken through, or broken down impossible walls, ways we see Him working in our lives in the season we're writing.

These, friends, are our "stones of remembrance" or "slice of bread". We can look back into our own lives and recount the times the Lord has provided financially, given strength when we felt weak, healed our brokenness, and brought us peace we couldn't explain. Because when the wait is long, and we begin to wonder if it was just wishful thinking, we need reminders.

I would never discount the importance of Scripture. It is the best-documented journey of a nation's history and God's faithfulness we will ever encounter. And it applies to our lives as well. We can hold fast to the promises of God because we have been adopted into the family of God (Ephesians 1:5).

We don't know when the promise will be fulfilled. We don't know how. But we can be confident that He will do what He said He would do. The wait period might not look (or feel) like blessing. 

I'm pretty certain the Israelites didn't see slavery in Egypt as a blessing, but rather that God had forgotten them. But if we look back to God's interaction with Abram, "Then He said to Abram: 'Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years'" (Genesis 15:13 NKJV).

I know, not a word I want to hear. But let's read on:

And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions" (Genesis 15:14 NKJV). 

By the end of Genesis, we read that Abram had a son called Isaac, whose son Jacob had 12 sons. Of these sons, one--Joseph--was sold into slavery to Ishmaelites who took him to Egypt (Genesis 37:25-28). In Egypt, Joseph's integrity was tested; he was imprisoned, but eventually he was elevated to second in command, only to Pharaoh, because of his ability to interpret dreams. It was the fulfillment of these dreams that brought Joseph's brothers to Egypt for food during a 7-year famine. And before Genesis closes its book, Joseph's brothers and father, with all their family and livestock, move to the best part of the land--Goshen. The number of Jacob's household to move to Egypt was 70 (Genesis 46:27).

When we begin the next book, Exodus, it isn't long before we can see the Egyptians turning on the Israelites.

"And Joseph died, all his brothers, and all that generation. But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, "Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land" (Exodus 1:7-10 NKJV).

Did you see that? Israel was more and mightier than the Egyptians, and this was a problem.

Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens ... But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they (Egypt) were in dread of the children of Israel. So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage--in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor (Exodus 1:11-14 NKJV).

I've always found it interesting that a people group, intimidated by another's size and strength, can enslave the latter. But the Egyptians did. And 400 years into this, the Lord raises up a prince,  Moses--a Jewish man fished out of the Nile as an infant by Pharaoh's daughter and raised in the palace. (For the sake of time, we will forego telling his story. But I encourage you, go read it.)

By the time Exodus closes, the Egyptians let the Israelites go, carrying with them the wealth of their captors. Exodus 12 reports, "Then the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children" (Exodus 12:37). Scholars estimate this number to be much larger, as it only counted the men. When factoring in the women and children, the estimation is about 2-million people.

I can't, with proof, state that the 400 years were an incubation period for a nation to be grown. But the end result was indeed a nation, large enough and mighty enough to occupy a land of its own.

Isn't it interesting, though, how our enemy will somehow convince us that we are not strong enough, not whole enough ... just not enough, and manage to keep us bound to the very bonds that Jesus came to free us from?

So, we look to the Scripture. We look to the Lord. We take our stones of remembrance and trust the Lord has already won the victory for us.

As one who has waited more than she desires, and is still waiting on some fronts, I can promise you, God is faithful.

We can count on Him! And the end result is worth the wait.

Until next time, I will leave you with these Scriptures:

The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9 ESV)

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV).

But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:31 NKJV).