I am putting my rainbow in the clouds. It will be the sign of my covenant with the world. Genesis 9:13
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After going through the traumatic experience of an earth destroying flood, Noah was in desperate need of reassurance from the Lord. God knew that Noah needed to see a supernatural sign to confirm that he would never have to go through that again.
Therefore, God gave him a sign. He pointed to the colorful rainbow in the sky and promised Noah there would never be another event like the disaster he had just endured.
In this same manner, God confirms His promise to you in uniquely colorful ways.
No matter what you go through, you can count on His light shining through the clouds, creating a prism of promise following each storm.
In all honesty, we knew that God, in His infinite wisdom, would never give us more wealth than we were spiritually mature enough to handle. But we also knew that the devil was crafty and if he could keep our focus on money, whether too much or not enough, we could remain distracted from our destiny and thus, make his job a lot easier. Looking back, we saw that when we pursued our own financial security, it put God in a very precarious position. He wanted us to have a sense of security, but not so much that we became independent of Him.
Jesus Himself taught us to pray, “Give us today our daily bread,” showing that our Father welcomes us to ask for what we need, when we need it. We do not have to beg or plead; nor do we need to hoard or steal.
In the book of Exodus, manna was provided in the wilderness on a day-by-day basis. Gathering ahead of time was pointless because it wouldn’t keep overnight. God knew that humans were hoarders by nature. Not much has changed since then. We are still prone to squirreling away our supplies just in case God fails to come through for us in the future. We inventory our supplies and check our bank balance whenever we feel insecure. When we suffer loss, we feel powerless. When we see an increase, we feel powerful, yet more insecure than ever.
Much like the other pursuits we struggled with, such as drugs, alcohol, sex, perfectionism, popularity, and many others, we had trouble finding a point at which we could say, “This is enough, I am completely satisfied and content. I do not need any more.”
In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah went to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”
Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, “Remember Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah: “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: ‘I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you’”. Isaiah 38:1-5
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Although the word had come to him from God through the prophet, King Hezekiah did not resign himself to this fate. He turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord. He did not accept a decree from the Lord as unchangeable.
We learned that God doesn’t expect us to just wring our hands and sigh when things aren’t working out. He wants us to speak words of faith and collaborate with Him on a solution. We aren’t required to accept our lot in life and mutter in defeat, “Well, I guess it just isn’t God’s will.”
Instead, He wants us to become a wall facer, praying with determination to negotiate a plan with Him. God is waiting for us to offer some pushback and reason it out with Him.
“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. Isaiah 1:18
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In our New Normal, we are NOT called to be weak and helpless. God is NOT glorified when we hang our heads and shrug off our troubled marriages, our lost children, or our criminal records. Since we are told in the book of Hebrews to come boldly to the throne of Grace where we can find mercy and help, we present our case, and ask for a ruling from the Judge in our favor.
Our relationship with Jesus has grown through some amazing times. It is an exciting experience of falling in love with the King of Kings who chose us as His Bride. He says He delights in us. We say the feeling is mutual!
Now, we no longer feel apprehensive about our desires. They have been placed there by God and will be fulfilled through our partnership with Jesus. As a member of His royal family, our needs will be met so we can be busy with Kingdom business.
Many Citizens of the Kingdom are hurting, hungry, and sick. Some are simply battle-weary and overdue for a little rest. Our Kingdom assignments are to reach out to them through the means of written words, spoken words, authentic friendship, and compassionate care.
In our New Normal, we find a sense of purpose and direction in knowing that we are on a mission for our King. He has planned coincidental meetings with people who have been called to fulfill their own assignments in partnership with ours.
Our New Normal is everlasting recovery, a new perspective of life’s adventure, and an ability to take life in stride, knowing that the One who created the universe and everything within it is on our side. He is with us and for us. He is our Advocate, our Father, and our Spirit. This New Normal gives us fantastic strength to endure whatever matters come before us. We walk in partnership with our Creator to the divine destiny He has set before us. Our path may not always be easy or smooth, but it is softened by walking with Him.
In our New Normal, we can release our fears of making mistakes and manufacturing failures. We look straight ahead, eyes fixed on Jesus, with our feet firmly planted on level paths. What we want and what He wants for us, are synchronized perfectly.
We simply walk it out together, one step at a time.
One evening without notice, a moment of grace fell on our Friday night group. One member shared a passage from the book of James. It altered our perspective about these irritating, uninspiring days when we are simply putting one foot in front of the other.
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. James 1:2-4
What do these tests look like?
When our feelings betray us and tell us we don’t love God like we should.
When our behavior slips into an old pattern and makes us believe we have not changed.
When the excitement and enthusiasm we once had for God seems dull and muted.
When we just don’t care about trying so hard, because it’s too much work.
Previously, these difficult times had been dark and made us doubt our relationship with God. We were frustrated to find Him so distant when we needed Him the most.
However, when we begin to view these events as a process which increases our patience and equips us for the next level, we start to see their value. We no longer need to feel frustrated when God goes silent. A good teacher is always silent during a test.
Tetelestai Recovery 3: Leveling Up / Chapter 4: Be Patient With Yourself https://a.co/d/0TrI59R
As the believers waited in the upper room, the writer of Acts reported, “Suddenly, there was a sound like a mighty rushing wind…”
We see the word ‘suddenly’ and are reminded of those miracles we love so much. Jesus feeding the 5000 in a single afternoon; healing a blind man with mud; telling a dead girl to get up; and dozens of other stories set in a supernatural time warp, where the magic was instantaneous, and the desired results were immediate.
Obviously, Jesus was on a mission. He was out to prove that He was from God and to demonstrate the will of God by healing, delivering, feeding, and forgiving. If His miracles didn’t occur instantly, it would have been difficult for the onlookers to make the connection that Jesus was the one who had been the catalyst.
Additionally, while Jesus was in human form, the supernatural power of God did not have to travel through a flawed human to reach its destination. Perhaps His miracles were instantaneous because divine energy could flow freely through such a pure vessel. It didn’t get clogged up by the spiritual sediment and emotional toxins that the rest of us humans tend to carry. But, for whatever reason, miracles in Jesus’ day seem different than the miracles today. We rarely experience immediate, supernatural, instantaneous miracles and many of us struggle to hold onto our faith when we are waiting for our miracle to arrive.
We get discouraged because our ‘suddenly’ isn’t happening as quickly as we’d like. We start to doubt our resolve and question our faith because we see no results.
The whole community assembled in front of the Tent of Meeting to worship the Lord.
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You have a very deep appreciation for sacred spaces and schedules. You maintain a protective attitude about holy days in the Lord’s house, and you are committed to making it a comfortable, safe, and welcoming place for the family of God to gather.
Not only are you dedicated to the physical structures of worship, but you are also equally attentive to the atmosphere of community which flows from them.
You cherish the bond of believers and are captivated by a sense of belonging. You find yourself at rest when you enter the place of worship. Although the previous week may have left you exhausted with its endless chaos and pressure, you are immediately at rest when you enter the house of the Lord, on His holy day.
Worship services bring your mind, body, and spirit into harmony. You find health and wholeness in the union of believers gathered in one place.
Although you adore the beauty of church buildings and their ornate designs, you are fully aware that the true presence of the living God cannot be not contained by time or space. His presence remains within you as you carry His presence into the world around you.
It soon became apparent that we had run out of remedies. We could not fix our minds with our minds, nor could any other human being fix what was somehow so desperately broken within us. Self help was no help at all.
Sure, every so often, we tasted freedom. But soon, a simple fear would become an obsession. The obsession would grow until it merged into others and eventually became unbearable. In those vulnerable moments, we began to sense the disease taunting us, begging us to come back and promising it would be different this time.
Over and over, we found ourselves perched dangerously close to the edge. Some of us fell and never returned. Some of us fell and climbed back up to start again. Some of us realized that all the recovery programs in the world would not be able to keep us from falling…
…and falling…
…and falling again.
Suddenly, in that terrifying emptiness of free-fall, the revolution began.
Plummeting into oblivion, a final cry for help escaped our lips and in that moment of complete abandon, we were given a word which would change our beliefs about recovery forever…
Paul had a messenger of Satan he referred to as a thorn in the flesh. He realized it was to keep him from becoming conceited, but still he asked God to remove it. He asked three times and each time, God told him His grace was sufficient. On that third ask, Paul finally realized there was a higher purpose for the thorn.
He was quite the achiever. He was a writer, and activist, a preacher, and the recipient of divine revelation. Those are some heady titles. Anyone in his position would struggle with arrogance.
Before his conversion, Paul had been a well-educated, well-connected, influential person. Perhaps he had an ego problem all his life. He was ambitious about his political career and eager to gain social standing by stopping the Christian movement. As a Roman citizen, educated in the Pharisaical law, he could advance his political pursuits in the eyes of the religious leaders while also remaining a loyalist to the Roman government. Snuffing out the Jesus movement would have brought him the promotion and respect he deserved.
But as he sat in a prison cell, frustrated with a messenger of Satan, he couldn’t think of anything he’d like more that to have God take it away.
We wonder if this messenger of Satan was one of the guards at the prison. Maybe they had worked together when Paul was a Christian bounty hunter, and the guard was now taunting him about being ‘one of them’. Perhaps the messenger of Satan was another prisoner. Perhaps the thorn was a conspiracy theory that Paul was a double agent, and the Damascus conversion was a clever lie to get the early Christians to trust him so he could infiltrate their secret communities and advance his political career.
No matter who or what his thorn in the flesh was, it caused Paul a great deal of distress. But God said, “My grace is sufficient. It is made perfect in your weakness.”
So, the guy who was prone to conceit found a new brag. He would brag about his own weakness so the grace of Christ could be the driving force behind all he would accomplish. It was hard on his ego, but good for his soul.
The Serenity Prayer speaks of accepting the things we cannot change. Obviously, there are circumstances and people in our lives that we have no power to change, but we do have the option of adjusting our perspectives to make the best of a bad situation.
But what about the past? We cannot change the past. We can either forgive it or be doomed to relive it, but we can’t change it.
Oh sure, we may try to rewrite history and adopt a more sanitized version of the role we played in each event. This habit is not about dishonesty or refusal to take responsibility, but rather, it is about our inability to bear up under the shame of who we once were. We cringe when a memory is triggered, or a past behavior is thrown in our face. Some of us have felony convictions, divorces, failed careers, and a group of resentful people waiting in the wings, ready to dig up our sordid past, preferably in public view.
We tiptoe carefully through the thorny thicket of public events and social media posts, hoping to avoid any references that might puncture our day. Sadly, from time to time, we encounter someone who learns about our past and gathers the ugly details to use as an arsenal of accusations meant to destroy our reputation and damage our credibility.
We are certain that God has given us a new life in Christ. Yet, we also worry that our past will not stay silent forever. We fear that it is only a matter of time before it resurfaces, shattering our new lives to bits.
This may sound overly dramatic to someone with a stellar past, but for those of us who have done deeply regrettable things, there is nothing that can knock us down quicker than a shameful past invading our new lives. With fury and force, these thorns and thistles are aggressive propagators, leaving us hopelessly tangled in a thicket of our failures.
Accepting the past is a difficult thing to do. It is even more difficult when we are asked to explain it. Emotions are triggered. Shame is ignited. The fear of rejection and abandonment rises to choke us. And the most excruciating part is, every time our past comes back to haunt us, we are forced to relive it, watching ourselves play the role of someone we hate.
Finding Total Recovery in the Words of Christ, "It is Finished!" 