A Way Back

I am currently doing a Bible study of Ruth through the First 5 app. If you don't know what that is it is created by Proverbs 31 and they have many studies available. Of the studies that I've done I would say they are for anyone, not just women. They begin with a foundations week and then have lessons Mondays-Fridays and a weekend study. 

Well, I started this one late and missed the foundations week, but I can go back and do it anytime. I got something out of the daily teachings each day and even some things beyond the teachings. The weekend one for this past week was called 'The Way Back". The teaching was good but I was struck with a similarity. 

Jacob sent his sons to Egypt because there was a famine in the land, the Promised Land. If you know the story you know they found much more than food in Egypt. They found their brother, Joseph, that they sold into slavery and he was the reason their family was rescued from death. Pharaoh invited his father and extensive family to come to Egypt to live and offered them the best land (Genesis 45). That's a pretty good offer, but they were already living in the land promised to his grandfather, Abraham. Why should they leave that land, even for the best land of Egypt? Even in a famine?

Jacob, or Israel as he's called at this point, heads out to Egypt, but he had his doubts. He stops in Beersheba and offers sacrifices to God. God spoke to him and told him not to fear going to Egypt. He promised to make his family into a great nation while in Egypt (Genesis 46). Interestingly, it might have been the best land but it was separate from the Egyptians because they detested shepherds. Hmm, Jesus is the Great Shepherd. But that's a whole different discussion.

Eventually, over 400 years of living there, they went from honored guests to slaves. I wonder how many people over the years thought about God telling Jacob to not fear going there, even though it obviously didn't turn out well for them. They did indeed become a huge nation, but great? 

Jump ahead a ways and Moses is leading them out of Egypt and back to the Promise Land. Even though they were slaves, they left with gold and silver and clothes given to them by the Egyptians who begged them to leave. They left with increase.

Now back to Ruth. Naomi and her husband, Elimelek, and two sons are about to leave the Promise Land due, once again, to famine. They did not go to back to Egypt but went to the closer land of Moab. Moab was their enemy, but they went anyway. This time is different though. There is no mention of them making sacrifices and hearing from God to go. There is no invitation from the ruler of Moab. There is no mention of choice land or even what Elimelek would do when he got there.

Elimelek dies and his sons marry Moabite women and then after living in Moab for 10 years the sons die as well. Naomi hears that the famine is finally over and God has provided for His people, so she decides to go home. She leaves Moab with her daughter-in-laws and it seems nothing else. No one handed her gold or silver or even clothes as she left. All she had with her was these young women and one of them she convinces to go back home. She left with decrease.

Ruth, her daughter-in-law who does return with her, eventually becomes the grandmother of King David and the multiple times-great grandmother of Jesus. So Naomi didn't leave with nothing.

Famine drove both Jacob and his family out of the Promised Land and famine drove Naomi and her family out of the same land. God told Jacob to not fear going and that they would become a great nation. There is no evidence that Elimelek spoke to God about it at all. Jacob's family did grow into a great nation. Elimelek's family fell apart. The Israelites were given gifts to get out. Naomi was given nothing, but Ruth chose to go with her, and she turned out to be a life-saving gift. 

We all face our own versions of famine. If we talk to God and listen to Him, He will direct our steps. Even if He takes us into a place we never thought we'd go. Or we can take matters into our own hands and step out of His plan and will. But here's the thing. In both cases we can go back. We can end up right back in His promises. We may end up with treasures or we may end up back there with new people in our lives. We may go back with more or with less. But regardless He still has a plan. He still has a purpose. He still has a destiny for us. 

Sometimes I think that I have more power than I do, and that my mis-steps mean His will can't be accomplished. Here's the thing, He already knew I'd make the mis-steps and included them in the plan. And I'm definitely not powerful enough to thwart His plans. I just need to go back to Him. Because He still has a plan for me. He still has a purpose. He still has my destiny. 

In His Hands

Yesterday morning I was sitting at my vanity getting ready for work and listening to a group of women discussing trusting God on a YouTube video. Trusting God is not an easy one for me, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one who struggles with trusting Him. But as these women spoke one of them said something that struck me. I stopped putting on my makeup and prayed for someone in line with what she had said. I'd share what she said, but I honestly don't remember what it was. 

As I prayed I was given the most amazing visual by God. I saw this person in God's hands. As I continued to pray and talked with God about keeping this person even as the choices may or may not be for his good. I asked God to keep him even as he tried to do things his way. This is when the image of God's hands became truly amazing. I saw this person running towards the edge of God's hands and instead of falling off His hands grow. They didn't shift, like I would have expect them to, they actually grew. The person in His hands ran along the edge but the hands just got bigger and bigger. I realized that He was safe in God's hands.

I understood that God keeps us not by cupping us between His hands, like a caught creature in some small boy's hands. If that was how He held us we would panic and want out. We wouldn't see Him as Savior but rather Captor. And once He'd open them, just a little bit to peek at us, we would make a run for it. God doesn't hold us like that. His hands are cupped wide open like a bowl. He lets us ran around in the freedom of His hands. When we need cradling His hands shrink to hold us close. When we need the freedom to explore choices, maybe even bad ones, His hands grow large enough for us to explore but still be safe and secure. Being held in God's hands doesn't mean stifled and caught, it means freedom, love, security. It means knowing that even if I try to run away from God His hands are large enough to keep me safe from my own bad choices. 

I know I can't do what God showed me justice but I hope I helped you see His hands differently. 

Let Those Words Sink In

 "And all were astonished at the majesty of God. But while they were all marveling at everything He was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, 'Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.' But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask Him about this saying." Luke 9:43-45 ESV

What struck me while reading these three verses was, "how often does God speak to me, but I don't understand it? How often do I not understand because of the limits of my human brain and how often is it because I'm not spiritually ready to perceive it yet?"

I love that Jesus told them to let the words sink in. Have you ever been asked or asked someone else "did it finally sink in?" when there's a lightbulb moment? All the gears are turning and the pieces are fitting in and you just get it. Sometimes it's a quick figuring-it-out and sometimes it takes years before you see everything for what it actually means. But His saying to them to let it sink in gives me hope that His words will sink in for me too. 

I've heard so many messages preached about how slow the disciples were or dumb the Israelites were, but how am I an quicker, any brighter? Really, I'm not. God still speaks. He speaks through His Word. He speaks through His creation, whether that be man, beast, seasons, sunshine, whatever. He's revealed to me personally about my own stubborn nature through my cats and dogs. Nothing like thinking your smarter than an animal until you realize your own foolish actions while watching theirs. Humbling, if you let it be. 

Often He tells me things but I don't get. I beat myself up for it.  And just like the disciples, I'm too afraid to ask. But who am I to think that somehow I would get what God is trying to say any better or more quickly than the 12 men who spend almost every moment over 3 years with Jesus? They were as close as brothers and yet there were plenty of times that they didn't understand. God opened the eyes and ears of them at the right time. 

I recently had a text conversation with a fellow teacher in which the other person wrote, "...you would think after all these years following Jesus I would learn...". My reply was meant to be funny but afterwards I really thought about how true it is. "....we are hard headed sometimes and need remediation". As a teacher, I can't just teach it again the exact same way or I'll end up with the exact same puzzled faces looking at me. And there are times when I have to realize it doesn't matter how many different ways I teach it if the child or children aren't at a developmental level yet to perceive it. 

How often does God need to adjust the lesson in order to try to help me figure it out? How often does He word it differently? But how often does He not say it again because even though I've heard it I'm not at a spiritual developmental level to understand it yet? 

We try to make it sound like it's easy by saying things like "He speaks and all I have to listen." Yes, but sometimes He speaks and even though I've listened I'm not going to get it...yet. As someone who beats myself up for not getting it, for not understanding, for needing some remediation, it's nice to know sometimes it's not a matter of not hearing God, but rather not being ready to understand the true meaning or impact of His words yet. He still speaks. He also still prepares us to perceive what He previously said.

So keep listening, because He's still talking. And keep asking for spiritual maturity to understand. But fair warning spiritual maturity only comes from emotional, physical, and/or spiritual growing pains. But when we can perceive what he's saying all those growing pains become worth it.