22 April 2020

Is anyone else like me and sometimes does not want to listen to ‘it will be alright?’ That is often what people say just to cheer you up or are trying to anyway. But you feel it is giving you a false hope. A false hope because they normally have no way to get you out of the situation you are in, to change any of your circumstances or to change anyone or anything.

Could you be the one who is trying to encourage another and gets their ear ‘bitten off’ in the process? There is often more than one thing involved in this feeling of hopelessness.

Maybe a problem has just been going on for too long. Maybe you’re getting tired physically and mentally and can’t go on any longer. It’s way more than just having a bad night’s sleep. Maybe the load is becoming so unbearable you’ve reached your limit. There does not seem to be any light at the end of that long dark tunnel.

That’s when the Holy Spirit speaks to me – even if I bicker back at Him. “Come to me all who are weary and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.”

That’s when I often have an argument with God. “I have come to you time and time again and still nothing! How long must it go on like this?” Then I realise I’m still carrying my burdens. I am talking about giving them to God, or that I already have, but I am still holding onto them very tightly. Worrying about them greatly. Crying and screaming and gnashing of teeth. (My dentist used to ask if I grind my teeth – I most probably do).

It is only when I surrender them to His Authority and give them to Him entirely can He then do something with them. Then as I’ve often heard, but now have found to be true – the peace that surpasses all (human) understanding encompasses me. I finally have found rest.

So, when I read these lines yesterday, I did not scoff at them. I agreed with them and took them with me, wrote them down to encourage myself more. God has a purpose for your pain, a reason for your struggle and a reward for your faithfulness. Trust him and never give up.

It’s not that God sent me the experiences or the circumstances – often it’s my own or other’s human, frail, wrong choices, but He in His mercy and love for us, will “work good out of them.”

Stay trusting in Him. He can bring hope out of a dead situation. The story of Lazarus has taught me that. Three days dead in the tomb. Dead. Dead. Smelly, stinky. God can renew, refresh, breathe life back in if that is His will, and in doing so, brings Him glory and increases our trust in Him.

May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’

Love

Rosemary

Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups. If you would like more information please click HERE.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Where do you need to increase your trust in God with stuff? Family? Job? Career? Marriage?

What helps you get out of the mud patch, or miry clay, as scripture refers to it?