LoveReign

a Love Affair with a SoveReign God

February 20^th, 2023

On the Rocks

I John 3:1-2, ‘Consider the kind of extravagant love the Father has lavished on us—He calls us children of God! It’s true; we are His beloved children. And in the same way the world didn’t recognize Him, the world does not recognize us either. My loved ones, we have been adopted into God’s family; and we are officially His children now. The full picture of our destiny is not yet clear, but we know this much: when Jesus appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him just as He is.’

He tried to swallow, but the lump in his throat was so great even the flimsiest thread of saliva couldn’t pass through, like a string poking a needle’s head. It felt like the cop’s fist had landed there. No, the cop had actually been kind, sad but kind. Maybe it was the judge’s gavel he knew he would hear soon, now lodged in his throat. Besides, an elephant napped on his chest, and he couldn’t breathe. He wouldn’t be able to breathe again for a very long time, he knew it. In truth, he hadn’t been able to breathe for months.

What was he thinking?! He knew better. He knew not to drink and drive. He knew the risks, his tendencies, the incontrollable noise in his head he couldn’t switch off, the point where there was no turning back. Now, he sat in the backseat of the cop car, his hands uncomfortably cuffed behind his back, a rock wedged in his throat and a boulder on his chest, immovable. He laid his head back against the headrest, could have cared less that the outside spun and his stomach met his lungs, threatening to explode. His head just might. Explode, that is. Millions of neurons firing in all directions. He sure made a mess of things. God, what am I going to do now, he mumbled as the tears began to fall. He couldn’t even wipe them away, he realized as they soaked his jacket. Not how he thought he would see in the New Year, sitting in a police cruiser at the corner of Hopeless and Helpless, a dead end before him and one behind him also. Time for a change, rattled in his brain. Where would he even begin? It wasn’t the first time he felt so alone. He seldom let too many people that close. If he didn’t let them close, then they hadn’t an opportunity to let him down, was his ‘safe’ motto. He thumbed through his mental lists of all the people he’d pushed aside, and realized his safety measures might hurt him more than help him now. Oh God, he whispered, are you there? Do you care? Will you help me? Forgive me, please, and set me free from myself.

~ We have all been there. That surprise announcement, an unexpected phone call, the unsuspecting person, a startling revelation, a tragic accident, the unforeseen, that sudden dread in the pit of our stomach, those words we never wanted to hear, the unknowing and the unraveling. What happens with the disappointments in the hands of an all-knowing, sovereign God? What is on the other side of the tarnished coin?

The greatest place for freedom and new beginnings is found inside. It may be offered all around us, but truly, where it must begin, is internally: in the mind, the heart and the spirit. In tiny ways, small moments, seeing life differently and changing the way we view things, how we respond, that’s what he realized. He wasn’t going to lie; it hadn’t been easy. But it had been worth it. He didn’t even recognize now the down-and-outter who had sat in the back of that police car, so humiliated and at the end of himself. Truth was, he hadn’t been able to stand himself for a long time, didn’t like who looked back at him from the mirror every day. But, on that day, the low of the low, there literally was no place to look but up. That was the day when everything began to change.

He thought back to that day, and what he saw was someone else, another guy that resembled someone he once knew, someone who had really needed help, who had really needed to end all the games, stop all the chatter and excuses, be still and listen. He felt really bad for that guy, and he wished he could help him. He had watched himself from a distance and had felt so horrible for…himself. That’s when he knew.

He let a few people in, to his struggle, to help him. He kicked some others out that hadn’t been good for him. But mostly, he let God. He put one foot in front of the other and began taking strides to right his own wrongs. Good things came his way, not that he deserved them, but they were little treasures along the path of the new journey ahead. He took measures to better himself, and for a while, it felt like he had stepped out of the shadows into the light, finally felt the sun on his face and the storm at his back.

One night it finally hit him. He heard a pastor say, ‘You’ll never know the things which might have befallen you that a sovereign God held back. The walls of water He parted so you could pass through without drowning, the fires that barely singed you when you should have been burned up, the disasters and wreckages He removed you from, that He rescued you out of, sometimes in just the nick of time. You’ll likely never know. But you can be assured if you ever found yourself in an unpleasant place that could have been a lot worse, praise Him, because He was most certainly saving you from something quite worse.’ He nodded. He knew. Those words were for him.

Mark 5:2-6, ‘When Jesus got out of the boat, immediately, a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit, met Him. He had his dwelling among the tombs. And no one was able to bind him anymore, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces, and no one had been strong enough to subdue him. Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains and gashing himself with stones. Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before him.’

“When we feel like we are not good enough to be loved by God, we should remember that God’s love is greater than our doubts. We must silence the sounds of condemnation so we can hear the voice of God’s loving assurance and remember that He has selected us to be part of His family”. (The Voice, Bible Gateway)