God is on to me.
Today is not the day I wanted it to be, due to some disappointments yesterday. But it simply had to be that the passage I was led to this morning, via Lent Meditations, was one that directly addresses what I'm going through.
And... I just found out (via the Lent Meditations blog), that it was the reading meant for last Friday. I seem to always get it mixed up that Lent began on 21 Feb, not 28 Feb. Which would mean that all my previous entries with reference to the Meditations, were actually one week behind!
Another reason why I think God is on to me; if I followed the proper order, I wouldn't have read the passages I read, the ones which spoke so eloquently to me in those moments of greatest need.
This also happens to be one of my favourite passages in the Bible, and I will intersperse the writings of St Paul with my own thoughts:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
The only compensation I have in light of recent disappointments, is that God works in all things for good, for my good. That He causes all things to work together for good.
That, and the fact that I realised I can borrow CDs from the British Council library. And, being British (not Irish, but close enough), they have a collection of several U2 CDs! I borrowed Boy and U2 Live: Under a Blood Red Sky yesterday.
Too bad, though, that I missed Benjamin Zephaniah, the British Rastafarian poet.
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
To know that Christ is interceding even when I'm as far removed from any thought of God as possible, is overwhelming. I must remind myself that God will give... in His own time, not mine.
(And believe me, this is one of the hardest things to live by.)
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
'More than conquerors'. I like that, because it's so grand. And, being grand, is something that is not easy to utter. Every day is an uphill climb to resist, to overcome, to conquer.
Not to conquer new lands, but to prevent the Evil One from conquering land that is not rightfully his. Maybe that is what it means to be 'more than conquerors'.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.
And thank you, Li-Shia. We know that God is on to me, that He is on to us.
No comments:
Post a Comment