It felt like the whole world was being cut up bit by bit by men running around with their bits of paper, making it harder and harder for good, honest folk like her to live their lives.”
–E.J. West (The Texas Lawyer)
“The LORD will guide you continually, watering your life when you are dry and keeping you healthy, too. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an everflowing spring.”
–Isaiah 58:11 (NLT)
———————————-
Do you ever get frustrated? I mean really it jerks-your-jaws type of frustration with issues, with politics, with society, with life itself? Then get this settled in your mind–you cannot know it all, you cannot do it all, and you cannot understand it all. However, Divine guidance is promised! “God has all knowledge and all wisdom, and therefore it is very possible that He may guide you into paths where in He knows great blessings are awaiting you, but which, to the short-sighted human eyes around you, seem sure to result in confusion and loss. You must recognize the fact that God’s thoughts are not man’s thoughts, nor His ways as man’s ways; and that He alone, who knows the end of things from the beginning, can judge of what the results of any course of action may be.” (Hannah Whitall Smith)
That we serve a God like this should bring comfort, peace, courage, and stability as we journey through this rocky, chaotic world. We should engrave the words that David wrote on our hearts, “I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken” (Psalm 16:8, NIV) “Our hearts should be on God, when the heart of God is so much on us” (Richard Baxter). Don’t get caught up in the web of the cares of the world, keep your focus on the Lord.
Yes, life will still be there, but so refreshing is the knowledge and the assurance that our Father is there with us. He cares oh, so much for us. The precious Holy Spirit is ever guiding our steps through this world, no matter how crazy and evil it gets. We are refreshed along the way; we walk with steady steps, and do not fear; and if there is a waver, a stumble the strong arm of the Lord will reach out to steady and secure us. I like the TLB of Psalm 73:25-26, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And I desire no one on earth as much as you! My health fails; my spirits droop, yet God remains! He is the strength of my heart, he is mine forever!”
Onward and upward we continue. We do what we can on this earth to further the Kingdom of God. When we find ourselves in a situation that we do not understand, and there could be many, we look upward, not outward. Our hope is not in the things of this world, and surely it is not in our grand and refined intelligence. Our hope is in the Lord; oh, what a delight and assurance that is!