bible

“You split the sea so I could walk right through it. You drowned my fears in perfect love.”

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These words have been reverberating in my subconscious for a week now.

I keep asking myself. Lord, what is this sea that you have parted for me? What is it that you are walking me through? I feel blind, just following the small leading I have in this season. I don’t see. I don’t understand. I’m just staying my course.

Clearly, I am walking through something. When I sing this song…my soul quivers in sadness and grief. I feel it in my eyes. I feel the tightness in my chest. But I don’t know what it is.

When the Israelites were leaving Egypt and God demonstrated His power in such undeniably magnificent ways, there was a purpose in all of those miracles.

The showy miracles have been dormant. No physical healings. No prophetic ministry. No deliverances. More so, it’s been the unseen miracles that have been at work. They have looked more like the significant but slow work of sanctification and development of character, discipline, resilience. He’s been removing bitterness, betrayal, dependence upon the praise of man. There have been no fireworks. Just the steady gains of plowing through suffering, healing, searching and finding Him in the quiet steadiness of his faithful Word. He has never left my side, but at the same time…a part of me has had to turn off in order to get through this time. I know it’s good. I feel it is good.

I think this season of rewiring, of walking through the sea that He has parted for me…I’m still in it so I don’t have perspective. I just know I’m walking it with Him. and that’s got to be good enough. I haven’t walked through all of it yet. But that’s okay. He finishes what he starts.

He is enough. I don’t need understanding. I don’t need to see. I just need to feel His hand holding and tugging me forward. I am not alone. The one I trust is here and I can lean on Him.

“His rod and His staff they comfort me.”

Impatience

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Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. 8 He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter. 9 So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.” And Saul offered up the burnt offering. 10 Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him.

11 “What have you done?” asked Samuel.

Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Mikmash, 12 I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.”

13 “You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. 14 But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.”

1 Samuel 13:7-14

If only Saul would have waited. If only Saul could have trusted. His vanity. His fear of man. His desire for his own renown. All of that superceded his fear of the Lord. Saul lacked wisdom. He cared only for his own ambition.

Those lines, “you could have had the whole kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure.” What a stab in the chest.

How often we run before the Lord. How often do we not understand His trustworthiness. He delays and tarries to test our heart sometimes. What comes out when we are waiting? Do we trust His timing, His provision?

Or do we feel the need to move the needle forward? Do we think we know what is best for us?

Saul could have had the respect, the authority and the kingship of all Israel like he wanted, but because he went ahead of himself. It all vanished.

God wants to give us good things. He is the giver of all good gifts, but we must believe Him. Believing in Him is proven by obedience.

I imagine the sorrow of God’s heart…the most generous, abundant, loving being in all the universe, with so few trustworthy to steward His gifts.

There is only one who is perfect

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There will come a time when we will have to face that there is only one perfect one and that all the messengers, no matter how honorable are all just mankind just like us.

God is refining His Body. There is no room for idolatry. No room for anyone else except Him.

He wants to be our only King.

God gave them their king. What a heart-breaking moment.

4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead[b] us, such as all the other nations have.”

6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”

10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle[c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

21 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. 22 The Lord answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.” 1 Samuel 8:4-22.

We are still like this.

But I believe that as He prepares us for His return, He wants to prepare the heart of His Church so that only He is our king. Only He is our hope, our stabilty, our peace on earth, our solution. No pastor, church, political leader can establish the peace and healing we long for in this world except our King of Kings, Lord of Lords. The Great I Am. And any talk of anything and anyone else is going to fail us sooner or later. We are going to witness many of them fail. But take heart. There is one who will never fail.