Friday, 7/17/15
Please bear with me because today’s blog is longer than usual. It is about accepting God’s will for our lives. Some of you know, my wife and I have been out of our house since a storm on May 29 knocked out our electrical system when one of our neighbors trees fell on our driveway and front yard, severing the power line to the house. To this date we have not returned, although the only thing we are waiting for now is for CPS to reconnect us. The city inspector approved our new electrical setup 11 days ago but we’re still waiting.
As you can imagine, we’ve had our share of frustration, anxiety, anger, uncertainty, and resentment dealing with the city of SA and CPS, but mostly with our insurance company. I hinted at that situation this past Tuesday when I wrote about unfair treatment. Although we’ve walked with Christ for over forty years and probably should have coped with our situation a little bit better, it was hard not to focus on sleeping on cots every night, having to travel 26 miles daily to pick up our mail and feed our dogs, and make sure they have fresh water. Since we go mostly at night and have to go inside the house, we struggle doing things in the dark and in the heat. I take my blood pressure readings every night at bedtime since I am officially a heart patient, and from May 29 till this past Tuesday night, my readings had been much higher than when we were at home. That all stopped Wednesday night.
After church Wednesday night as we were on our nightly trip to the house, I realized my wife and I were actually laughing and joking about our plight. I remember telling her that I felt like singing the old song “Jimmy cracked corn” because I no longer cared. Later when I took my nightly BP reading, my numbers were 22 points lower than Tuesday night and 27 points lower than Monday night. Coincidence? Never! What happened was simply that we finally accepted God’s will for our present situation and we were no longer focusing on the negatives. Obviously, the pressure was off. Now we were focusing on what we had, not on what we lost. The reality is that we have a great place to stay and conveniences which many folks do not have. By way of our daughter in law and our son, God has blessed and has amply provided for us. Now we can say we learned the secret that the Apostle Paul learned a long time ago when he wrote: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.”(Philippians 4:11) By God’s grace, it seems we also put this advice of Hebrews 13:5 into practice. Be content with what you have, Because God has said “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” I think that is exactly what happened with Joseph, Jacob’s son. He suffered a long string of injustices which obviously exasperated him so much, he started seeking help from people, something he never got. The Bible does not say it directly but I believe when he finally accepted his plight and devoted himself to honor his God regardless of his situation, in his case being the best prisoner he could be, not long after that, God not only got him out of prison, He elevated him to the second highest position in Egypt. Only Pharoah was higher than he.
I wanted to share that with you today because I suspect that one or more of you is also going through a time of testing. My advice for you is that you ask God to help you accept His will for your life at this time, to help you not to care more than you should. Then, just sit back and trust Him for the answer. When you do, it will immediately bring you back your peace and joy. It may even bring your blood pressure back to normal, just like it did me.
Memory verse for the week: (Psalm 103:6 NLT) “The LORD gives righteousness and justice to all who are treated unfairly.”
