LEFTOVERS
Are They Being Wasted?
~ He is the God Who salvages all things and allows nothing to go to waste ~
January 9th, 2023
PERFECT PEACE
‘Isaiah 26:3, ‘You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because it is stayed on You and he trusts in You.’
I tossed and turned for hours. I watched the gleam of the night sky filter itself through the atmosphere, from streetlights to no light to dawn’s subtle light, like a slight waiver through the window coverings. I refused to look at the infrared numbers on the clock buried in the corner of the room even though I tumbled this way and rolled myself that way and harumphed inside down and upside out every couple minutes. I choked on a sigh in my throat and eventually crossed my legs when the urge to find the potty became overwhelming. I thought of everything I had going tomorrow (now today)—how tired I would be—and celebrated yesterday; I chastised the negativity I was trying to banish and avoided all the things that go bump in the night. It was just another sleepless hour.
But what happens when it is night after sleepless night, aching heart upon broken dream buried beneath shattered hope? We all know what it is like—the well-meaning friend who comments in passing about being out-of-sync with the Lord or ‘Have you thought to pray about it?’ or perhaps some painful hurt we haven’t been able to come to terms yet. There are so many leftovers from every day lived that coagulate in our minds, move to our hearts and cause our emotions to cease working, stop pumping, and soon form blockages where nothing healthy can move forward.
We must recognize that tomorrow is a new day, and what haunts us in this day likely will take on a different form tomorrow. The form it takes on also is quite certainly based upon where we are at in our hearts and heads right now. There is not one negative barrier that has more power than a positive one if we meet the obstacles with clarity and hope and passion. We are overcomers because Christ overcame everything at the Cross. He was willing to dig deep in the darkness and dirt, to challenge what conflicted mankind, to overcome and be victorious on mankind’s behalf. What Christ did, for you and me, doesn’t change the struggle in our souls, the wrestling in the middle of the night, the battle—we still have to work every day to take charge of our paths and conquer what we fight with inside, to move in a different direction—but we can join forces with the victor, whisper sweet courage to our souls in the midst of sleepless hours, and believe it is possible to tread softly into perfect peace.
John 6:12-13, ‘When the people had eaten their fill, He said to His disciples, “Gather the LEFTOVERS so nothing is wasted.” They went to work and filled twelve large baskets with LEFTOVERS from the barley loaves.’ (MSG)
