You can’t run away from the hurts of life.”
–Kenneth S. Pratt (Willow Falls)
“…LORD, it is nothing for You to help, whether with many or with those who have no power; help us, O LORD our God, for we rest on You, and in Your name we go against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God; do not let man prevail against You!”
“…LORD, it is nothing for You to help, whether with many or with those who have no power; help us, O LORD our God, for we rest on You, and in Your name we go against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God; do not let man prevail against You!”
–2 Chronicles 14:11 (NKJV)
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“There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked style;
He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.”
–Mother Goose
Perhaps you remember that poem from your youth. I remember one morning, after getting up I went and looked in the mirror. I was startled by what I saw (don’t you get smart now) as my body was all crooked. I was a mite concerned. Seems like overnight I had become crooked. I found out later it was my muscles reacting to the ruptured disc.
Solomon wrote, “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered.” (Ecclesiastes 1:15, NKJV) This world is in a mess. There are so many who are walking crooked paths. Oh, they entered in at the broad highway with all its lights and glamour. The road was well-paved, no potholes, but somewhere along the way it started to curve and now was crooked. Even for the Christian life is not always easy, the path may be crooked that we must traverse. Things of the past can never truly be righted. Warren Wiersbe says, “God cannot change the past, but He can change the way the past affects us.”
You want to know the answers, go to God, but don’t be surprised if He doesn’t tell you. He might, but again, He might not, look at Job. God never told him why he was to suffer. There are no explanations for some of the things that happen and God is not obligated to explain them, that is why we live by faith. God wants His people to live by His promises, not explanations, by faith and not by sight. Sometimes the more we know the less we understand. “All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance” (T.S. Eliot) and there is much truth in that statement. Someone has said if a man who had everything, investigated everything visible, then the one thing needed must be invisible.
Man wants answers, even demands them, but is often left either to make up one himself thus putting himself in the place of God or he goes to God. Remember, going to God does not mean we will get an answer. There is nothing new under the sun, therefore our hope must be above it. We don’t have the answers, we can see the problems solved, we don’t have the ability to understand, so our obligation is to trust in God and walk by faith.
“We should find in it a confirmation of our most intimate convictions, and incentives to act upon them. But if we do not hold our wisdom, our mirth, our labor, our wealth as the gifts and ordinances of God for our good, if we permit them to usurp His seat and become as gods to us, then indeed this Book will be sad enough for us, but no wit sadder than our lives.”
–Samuel Cox
Who do you trust? Who do you turn to? When the soul is discouraged, when the night is dark, where do you run? When you do not understand is the time to really grasp ahold of God’s hand. He will guide us through the unknown, through the crooked paths, through the mysteries of life. The way behind may be crooked and there is nothing you can do about it, and the way ahead may be lost in the fog, but there is the hand of God reaching down for ours. Take it–hold to it–trust Him.
———————————–
“There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked style;
He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.”
–Mother Goose
Perhaps you remember that poem from your youth. I remember one morning, after getting up I went and looked in the mirror. I was startled by what I saw (don’t you get smart now) as my body was all crooked. I was a mite concerned. Seems like overnight I had become crooked. I found out later it was my muscles reacting to the ruptured disc.
Solomon wrote, “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered.” (Ecclesiastes 1:15, NKJV) This world is in a mess. There are so many who are walking crooked paths. Oh, they entered in at the broad highway with all its lights and glamour. The road was well-paved, no potholes, but somewhere along the way it started to curve and now was crooked. Even for the Christian life is not always easy, the path may be crooked that we must traverse. Things of the past can never truly be righted. Warren Wiersbe says, “God cannot change the past, but He can change the way the past affects us.”
You want to know the answers, go to God, but don’t be surprised if He doesn’t tell you. He might, but again, He might not, look at Job. God never told him why he was to suffer. There are no explanations for some of the things that happen and God is not obligated to explain them, that is why we live by faith. God wants His people to live by His promises, not explanations, by faith and not by sight. Sometimes the more we know the less we understand. “All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance” (T.S. Eliot) and there is much truth in that statement. Someone has said if a man who had everything, investigated everything visible, then the one thing needed must be invisible.
Man wants answers, even demands them, but is often left either to make up one himself thus putting himself in the place of God or he goes to God. Remember, going to God does not mean we will get an answer. There is nothing new under the sun, therefore our hope must be above it. We don’t have the answers, we can see the problems solved, we don’t have the ability to understand, so our obligation is to trust in God and walk by faith.
“We should find in it a confirmation of our most intimate convictions, and incentives to act upon them. But if we do not hold our wisdom, our mirth, our labor, our wealth as the gifts and ordinances of God for our good, if we permit them to usurp His seat and become as gods to us, then indeed this Book will be sad enough for us, but no wit sadder than our lives.”
–Samuel Cox
Who do you trust? Who do you turn to? When the soul is discouraged, when the night is dark, where do you run? When you do not understand is the time to really grasp ahold of God’s hand. He will guide us through the unknown, through the crooked paths, through the mysteries of life. The way behind may be crooked and there is nothing you can do about it, and the way ahead may be lost in the fog, but there is the hand of God reaching down for ours. Take it–hold to it–trust Him.