Reality of Contrasts

Hello faithful family, friends, and followers, welcome! One of the things I appreciate so much about scripture is its “realness” in speaking, not only to the good, but also the bad and the messier side of life. Our reality of late has been one of contrasts, great joy and thankfulness for all we’ve been blessed with and all we are enjoying, along with emotional and physical challenges that at times can knock us down a peg or two.

Last week I shared Jeremiah’s words from Lamentations which so beautifully illustrates the ability to hold the pain of lament, disappointment, and heartache in one hand, while in the other, holding genuine thankfulness, peace, and confidence in God’s all sufficient love for us. David provides another great example in Psalm 13 of the “both/and” rather than “either/or” reality of our faith when he writes:

O LORD, how long will you forget me? Forever?

How long will you look the other way?

How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,

with sorrow in my heart every day?

How long will my enemy have the upper hand?

Turn and answer me, O LORD my God!

Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die…

But I trust in your unfailing love.

I will rejoice because you have rescued me.

I will sing to the LORD

because he is good to me.

If our experience of the accident’s trauma and recovery has taught us and assured us of anything, it is that we don’t have to resolve pain or infirmity before resting in our assurance of God’s love, grace, mercy, and provision for us. It can happen at the same time. It needs to happen at the same time!

Of course given the permanency of Joy’s brain damage and residual physical challenges we both experience, it is also encouraging to read the following from Romans chapter 8 where Paul writes:

The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you…

So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later…

For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.

I especially like Eugene Peterson’s take on verses 15-17 in The Message which reads:

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance!

So thank you once again for your time with us and we pray that your week ahead may be “adventurously expectant” and blessed.🙏🏻