make peace

Posted: January 30th, 2010 | Filed under: life | 6 Comments »

Your experience is not about what is right in front of you. There is always purpose and it’s always something more eternal. Resisting only increases your discomfort, but it does not stop the process. Face the happenings of life with faith that God is not only in control, but He is also good. Faith gives you hope. Lack of faith steals your hope and leaves you feeling like a victim. Victims have a faith problem.

If you fall to pieces in a crisis, there wasn’t much to you in the first place. -Proverbs 24:10

Buildings built on faulty foundations eventually come down. Poorly organized spaces have to be redone. If you want it to be better, then it will have to get worse. Everything is ripped up and pulled out into the open. With everything displaced, you can see things clearly. If you feel displaced, ripped up and pulled out, don’t be afraid. This isn’t for your end, this is for your new beginning.

Go up through her vine rows and destroy, but make not a full end. Strip away her branches, for they are not the LORD’s. -Jeremiah 5:10 ESV

Raw places and phantom pains. It’s okay to cry. Trust that the hand that prunes can be gentle, too. A shivering twig with so far to go, now knows nothing except Who’s in control. Now you know how little you knew when you thought you knew so much. Resting in dependence, lost without Him, what if something attacks you now? What if someone kicks you while you’re down? The One who keeps vigil hushes your trembles. He sings the song of the Keeper over new branches growing while you rest.

“I, the LORD, am its keeper. Every moment I water it. Lest anyone punish it, I keep it night and day. I have no wrath. Would that I had thorns and briers to battle! I would march against them, I would burn them up together. Or let them lay hold of my protection, let them make peace with me, let them make peace with me.” -Isaiah 27:3-5 ESV

He’ll meet your attackers at the door. Armed with fire to burn them where they stand, yet overcome with compassion if they’re open to make peace.

Yes, let them make peace.