Bracing Ourselves for the Goodness of the Lord
Tired of Living in Fear or Anticipation of the Worst? This is for you.
Earlier this week I was walking with a good friend of mine, sharing with her my recent prayers for my family. As I await the arrival of our second child I have been feeling a pull to pray over the calling of my children. I told her, “You know, I realize that raising my kids is going to be a battle against the culture in which they live. I pray that God gives me the wisdom to raise them right.”
She gently responded to me, “When we see raising our children as a battle, we often parent from a place of fear of how they could turn out. Is it not better to pray that God would give you insight into how to usher them into the person that God called them to be?” She went on to share Proverbs 22:6 with me. It says “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.” She goes on to say, “So from this, we know that God has already given them a path, and we are to just help them stay on it. “Hmph”, I responded. I was trying to take it all in.
A month earlier, my husband had come to me and said, “I have a random question for you. Are you living life on the defense or offense?” This led us into another one of our deep philosophical conversations, in which ultimately I responded, “These days I feel like I’m learning to live more in the offense.”
Some Sundays when I sit in church and I hear those in the ministry talk about how their kids have decided to continue on the mission of spreading the gospel, I can’t help but wonder to myself — “Why can’t that be my family?”. When I ask myself that question, I don’t mean that I directly want all my kids to be pastors or missionaries, but rather it is a question of why can’t I believe that God has goodness in store for my family. Why do I tense at the thought of the future?
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Proverbs 4:23
You may read this verse and say to yourself, well the Word says we are to guard ourselves. I mean we are to be on the defense, right?
Then there’s this verse:
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Ephesians 6:12
These verses, which use words like guard and wrestle may make you think you are supposed to be at the ready with fists up, helmet on, cheeks clenched. But here’s the problem with this imagery. If we are not careful, we can spend our lives in fear or worry of where the next swing is going to come from.
Instead, when you read these scriptures I want you to picture this. You are still on guard and ready to wrestle, but instead of having our arms up ready to fight, see yourself standing in the shadow of an almighty God. See yourself choosing to step in His presence for the battle. I’m sure when you do this you feel a weight lifted. It shifts from being in this perspective where we feel like we have to do all these spiritual things — clap three times, pat our heads, donate $5,000 — to shield ourselves from the bad luck of this world.
The good news is that…. It doesn’t work that way.
We must understand that when we trust in God and stand in His presence, that each and every hard thing that we are facing and will face has already been won. That with Him we cannot lose. This frees us up to live life in way knowing that God has the best intentions for us, and is faithful to deliver on His promise of seeing us through.
We will face difficult times, and we will suffer loss, but the difference is that instead of being in fear of what is to come we can be assured that God will get us through it and we will be okay.
So my question for you now is — Are you living life in the offense or defense?
I challenge you this week to give whatever fear, or upcoming uncertainty to God. To take your hands off of it, lay it at His feet, and say “Okay God, I’m choosing to trust in your goodness instead”.
When you do this you can then truly sit back and enjoy all that God has set before you, knowing that He will take care of the rest.
So my friends, instead of bracing ourselves for the worst, let us brace ourselves for the goodness of the Lord instead.
Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
Psalms 34:8
