gladitudes

This afternoon I went to the beach to do some reading. I came across this passage and it kind of hit me in a new way:

Matthew 5:44-45

“But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! ⁴⁵In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.”

I really love nature and I have long told people that my two favorite things are the sun and water. Something about the light of the sun, just really lifts my spirit, invigorates my body, and makes me want to live. Because of this, I have often praised God just for showing me his love by blessing my days with sunlight.

The thing that struck me newly today as I read these verses, was how God does, in fact, bless us with sun and rain. The crazy thing, though, is how as be blesses he doesn’t discriminate. Those who hate Him and those who love Him both get to experience His goodness. I am so thankful for this because it reminds me of His character: God is such loving, gracious, and merciful God—even to those who might not want His blessing and good.

This truth about God’s character has significant implications for the way followers of Christ should live. If God is merciful to those who hate him, what ought we to do? If God perseveres in giving grace to apathetic hearts, how should we interact with people who are such?

Be thankful today for God’s blessings and next time you see the sun shining or rain falling, remember that it’s shining/falling for the righteous and unrighteous alike. Praise God for giving good to those who don’t deserve it—yourself included! :)

I read this at the Faithwalkers Journal and had to share it here. So good!

Sometimes there are these moments in life where I question my ability to continue moving forward. It’s like I’m on a journey and ahead of me is a mountain and the closer I get the bigger it seems. I gaze at the mountain and begin to fret wondering how I will ever be able to scale it or at least how will I ever do it without injury or defeat.

I guess that is a little bit of where I am and have been. In these moments my need for help—my desperation for grace and salvation—becomes so apparent that I often find myself crippled with anxiety or overjoyed at the fulfillment of my need. I find (and am finding) that my deepest moments of despair can be the greatest opportunities to learn to trust God and find peace and joy in Him.

Now, if you’re a Christian and especially if you’ve been one for any period of time, this will sound very cliché. The notion of crying to God when we’re at the end of our rope and finding His grace there is common. What I am finding, though, is that when I actually find myself at the end of my rope, I don’t know what to do. I haven’t been here that much and all the sermons, books, and teachings on trusting God through trials seem to be just vague shadows in my mind. I’m on that border of the lands of theory and reality. The land of theory where the solution is a cliché is comfortable and familiar to me; the land of reality where one must take each step by faith instead of by reciting a phrase to make things right is unfamiliar and scary to me.

But in this land where I must walk by faith and not rely on what my eyes tell me or my heart wants me to believe, I find there is overwhelming peace and joy. These not, though, because of the faith I’m expressing, but completely because of the one in whom I am expressing the faith.

Isaiah 30:18 (NASB) says,

Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you,
And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you
For the LORD is a God of justice;
How blessed are all those who long for Him.

God wants to give us grace and he wants to show us compassion! How often we stumble in the dark instead of just reaching for His hand? We forfeit such grace in doing this.

Psalm 43:5 (ESV) says,

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
   and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
   my salvation and my God.

Again, why do we get down? Why do we fear? God is worth trusting! We must believe it!

And finally, Psalm 44:3 says,

They did not conquer the land with their swords;
   it was not their own strong arm that gave them victory.
It was your right hand and strong arm
   and the blinding light from your face that helped them,
   for you loved them.

The reality at the end of the day is that victory only comes at the hand of the Lord. Our success is totally up to Him. If we only would seek Him and look to Him when we’re in trouble, we would live lives that would be so much more peaceful and so much more full of joy.

Psalm 16:11 (ESV):

You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

1 Corinthians 1:22-25

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, ²³but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

This makes me love God. I don’t know how exactly to articulate it, but I love that God has shown himself in ways that this world might say are foolish. I want to write more on this, but don’t have time at the moment. Possibly coming soon.

Let me know your thoughts on this passage, it might help me make better sense of it myself. (Or at least better sense of my thoughts that seem muddled right now.)