August 27, 2008

I’m reading Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. (In case you haven’t heard of it, it’s a novel based on the book of Hosea, one of my favorite books of the Bible.) Two evenings of reading, 217 pages- half the book. Yesterday I got teary-eyed. Today I cried.

I see myself in Angel- not in what she’s been through (thank God for that) but in her misunderstanding of Michael. I’ve been getting to know God my whole life, and yet I still don’t understand His love. I don’t even know how to describe how I don’t understand it. As Psalm 139:6 says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it.” He makes me promises, and the minute circumstances look less than perfect, I fall apart. I think I was foolish to believe it; it was too good to be true. What I miss time and time again is His love. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances look like, He’s still going to pull through for me. Because He loves me. What on earth does that even mean?! Just when I think I understand it, I fall back to square one: pure amazement and mind-boggling confusion.

In an instant, the meaning of a verse that I’ve heard more times than I can count hit me hard. Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” It’s probably because I’ve heard it so many times that I never understood it. They were empty words, ones to which I always subconsciously responded, “Yeah, yeah, what else is new?” But the moment I read it in the context of God whispering it to Michael in this book, tears streaked my face once more. How often I find myself kneeling before God without a scrap of understanding about what is happening around me! Those are the times I despair the most, the times that I worry and fret and think of what I can do to fix it. I plan and work and freak out, all because I don’t understand. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. He’s going to keep His promises. He’s going to take care of me, of you, no matter what. It’s those times I truly do need to look at the birds and the flowers and see how well He cares for them- and then look at myself, and how He has pursued me relentlessly and provided for all my basic needs and even my wildest dreams. So why should I worry? Why do I freak out? God knows what I need…