Gritted Teeth or An Open Hand

 

Yesterday I encountered a blog post over at Charlotte’s Weblog that touched me so deeply, it stayed with me all day. My mind kept gravitating to the quote from a book entitled “Hearing Jesus Speak Into You Sorrows” by Nancy Guthrie that I finally went onto CBD and ordered it.  I can’t wait for it to arrive.

“What we need most is not to hear God say yes to our requests. What we need is to be filled with such deep confidence in the character of our Father that when He says no we know He is doing what is right and good for us. What we need most is the faith to trust Him.

Some claim that strong faith is defined by throwing our energies into begging God for a miracle that will take away our suffering and then believing without doubting that He will do it. But faith is not measured by our ability to manipulate God to get what we want; it is measured by our willingness to submit to what He wants.

It takes great faith to say to God, “Even if You don’t heal me or the one I love, even if You don’t change my circumstances, even if You don’t restore this relationship, even if You allow me to lose what is most precious to me, I will still love You and obey You and believe that You are good. And I believe that You, as my loving Father, will use everything in my life — even the hard and hurtful things — for my ultimate good and Your eternal glory because You love me.”

As we bring our wants and pour them out before our Father, He gives us the courage we need to surrender, so we can say along with Jesus, ‘I want Your will to be done, not mine.”

And He gives us the grace we need to say it not through gritted teeth but with open hands.”

God is the one who is in control.  Both good and bad must first be filtered through His hands.  Everything that touches us has first been sifted through the fingers of our God.   Satan never lays a hand on us or our loved ones without the express consent of our heavenly Father. Is that hard for you to grasp or want to accept? 

I have sat with friends and family who have lost children and loved ones, some of them suddenly.  I have, along with them, questioned God and asked why.  It’s okay to do this, to look up to heaven with eyes filled with tears and hands open wide and ask Him why.

Do you believe He loves you even when bad things happen?  Do you have the faith it takes to say, “Even so, it is well with my soul?” 

When life deals you a series of blows, do you ask ‘why’ with gritted teeth or an open hand?

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Gritted Teeth or An Open Hand