Deuteronomy 15; Psalm 102; Isaiah 42; Revelation 12

Busyness. Full calendars. Early mornings. Late nights.  That’s the season I’m in right now.  It’s full and it’s good and it’s beautiful, but it’s still full.  Full can be tricky.  It is fulfilling and overflowing and magnificent but is also overwhelming and not empty and stressful sometimes.

In the midst of full, I often lose sight of God and his plan and purpose and his presence.  I just start going and doing and staying afloat and then all of the sudden, I forget the last time I had an encounter with God.  Sometimes in the full, quickly enter into darkness and dread when lose sight of God.  I see that played out here:

“Lord, hear my prayer!
Listen to my plea!
² Don’t turn away from me
in my time of distress.
Bend down to listen,
and answer me quickly when I call to you.
³ For my days disappear like smoke,
and my bones burn like red-hot coals.
⁴ My heart is sick, withered like grass,
and I have lost my appetite.”

Psalm 102: 1-4 (NLT)

My heart becomes sick and my prayers become frantic, grasping for a glimpse of God when I finally slow down enough to realize that I haven’t seen him lately.

This feeling is legitimate and it’s my reality in this moment, but God’s truth is greater.  When I feel sick and lost and wandering and life gets hard, God reminds me that he is good and he is constant and that he blesses me when I obey his commands.

“But you, O Lord, will sit on your throne forever.
Your fame will endure to every generation.”

Psalm 102: 12 (NLT)

God constantly reminds me that he is constant and he will never change and he will never leave me.

“God, the Lord, created the heavens and stretched them out.
He created the earth and everything in it.
He gives breath to everyone,
life to everyone who walks the earth.
And it is he who says,
⁶ “I, the Lord, have called you to demonstrate my righteousness.
I will take you by the hand and guard you,
and I will give you to my people, Israel,
as a symbol of my covenant with them.
And you will be a light to guide the nations.
⁷     You will open the eyes of the blind.
You will free the captives from prison,
releasing those who sit in dark dungeons.

⁸ “I am the Lord; that is my name!
I will not give my glory to anyone else,
nor share my praise with carved idols.
⁹ Everything I prophesied has come true,
and now I will prophesy again.
I will tell you the future before it happens.”

Isaiah 42: 5-9 (NLT)

God reminds me that he is good and he is all-powerful and his promises are true.

“There should be no poor among you, for the Lord your God will greatly bless you in the land he is giving you as a special possession.⁵ You will receive this blessing if you are careful to obey all the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. ⁶ The Lord your God will bless you as he has promised. You will lend money to many nations but will never need to borrow. You will rule many nations, but they will not rule over you.”

Deuteronomy 15: 4-6 (NLT)

God promises to bless me if I follow his commands.

That is such a beautiful truth: to know that the Lord will bless me if I only obey.  Obeying God leads to blessing and blessings often lead me to full.  The full can be overwhelming but it is good.  I find myself in cycles of full and blessing that lead me to busy that then leads me to too fast and then I eventually pause and find God and he reminds me of who he is and leads me into obedience which brings me back to blessing and to full.

The most difficult thing for me is finding the balance and learning to find God in the full so I don’t get to the part of the cycle that is busy and overwhelming.  For now, I am rejoicing in the cycle, for every part teaches me more about God and grows my relationship with him.

Emma

2 Samuel 4-5; 1 Corinthians 15; Ezekiel 13; Psalms 52-54

Death has come because of what one man did, but the rising from death also comes because of one man. In Adam all of us die. In the same way, in Christ all of us will be made alive again…

It is written in the Scriptures: “The first man, Adam, became a living person.” But the last Adam became a spirit that gives life. The spiritual did not come first, but the physical and then the spiritual. The first man came from the dust of the earth. The second man came from heaven. People who belong to the earth are like the first man of earth. But those people who belong to heaven are like the man of heaven. Just as we were made like the man of earth, so we will also be made like the man of heaven.

I tell you this, brothers and sisters: Flesh and blood cannot have a part in the kingdom of God. Something that will ruin cannot have a part in something that never ruins…

This body that can be destroyed must clothe itself with something that can never be destroyed. And this body that dies must clothe itself with something that can never die. 1 Corinthians 15:21-22; 45-50; 53 (NCV)

Death has been on my mind a lot lately. The recent passing of a dear woman from my home church in Pennsylvania and news of a mother in my MOPS group who was involved in a life-threatening accident brought the realities to the forefront of my heart.

There have been times in my life when the thought of dying was terrifying. There have been times in my life, especially in the midst of my fight against depression, that death has seemed a welcome thing. As a mother and a wife, the enemy is perpetually attempting to ensnare my mind with pictures of the potential horrors that ‘could’ happen – to my children, to my husband, to myself – it is a constant battle against anxiety and fear.

Death is inevitable in the process of life. Everyone will die because of the consequence of sin caused by the choices that Adam and Eve made. In some ways, I think that death is hardest for the living. We have to endure in life, a part of our heart missing. We have to find a way to process our grief, to move on but never forget.

…When you sow a seed, it must die in the ground before it can live and grow. And when you sow it, it does not have the same “body” it will have later. What you sow is only a bare seed, maybe wheat or something else. But God gives it a body that he has planned for it, and God gives each kind of seed its own body. 1 Corinthians 15: 36-38 (NCV)

For those who have accepted Christ in their heart, those who put their faith in the saving power of the Cross, there is hope. Death is no longer something to dread. It is a time for rejoicing. It is a time for a remembering the goodness in a person’s life and for celebrating a graduation into glory. It is a time for the earthly body to be ‘planted’ in the ground and be raised to a life that can never be destroyed; raised in glory, in power, and in spirit (1 Corinthians 15:42-44). Our loved ones become whole, renewed, and restored to perfection in heaven.

When my brother died, early on in the stages of the never-ending healing process, God whispered to my heart – he is a planted seed, a seed that will reap a harvest. I knew that I would never see the whole picture, the big picture, but I trusted in that truth. He gave me His peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7).

“Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your pain?”…we thank God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:55; 57 (NCV)

True to His Word, my brother’s death was not in vain. Countless people have come to know the Lord, lives have been changed, hearts healed. My own testimony of trusting God has ministered to others, restoring hope and confidence in the Lord. I have seen first-hand His faithfulness conquering desperation and triumphing over loss.

Death has no victory. My victory is found in Jesus Christ. He defeated my enemy. He cleansed me, made me new and gave me everlasting life. My hope is in Him, the joy of my salvation. I rejoice in the Lord for He is good.

But I am like an olive tree

growing in God’s Temple.

I trust God’s love

forever and ever.

God, I will thank you forever for what you have done.

With those who worship you, I will trust you because you are good. Psalm 52:8-9 (NCV)

Blessings – Julie (writing from Sholavandan, India)

Scripture taken from the New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.