Hey Jude

Long day yesterday.
Long weekend too.
Makes for tired body and mind.
But as the saying goes around the Bynum household..."It's nothing a good nights sleep won't cure."

Lot of pain all around.
Mental pain from memories and thoughts of past events.
Choices gone wrong.
Bad choices embraced.
Physical pain...illness....injury....diseases.
Pain that racks the body to the point, that silently (and sometimes out loud) prayers are offered up to "Take me Jesus...please take me!"
It would be easy to give into the darkness.
IT would be easy to medicate and blast yourself into a numbness of epic proportions.
But such would only mask the pain.

I'm not a proponent of suffering. Some have the idea that if you suffer, you become more like Jesus. Well, His suffering had to do with who He was and what He believed. I do believe we all will either go through such suffering or are going through at this time.
On the other hand, I hear some who treat God and His kingdom like the land of Oz, God being the incredible Wizard who lives behind the curtain. No pain...no sorrow...no trouble...."Come to Jesus and He will make everything right." I'm not saying that those who make such claims are wrong. It's just that their timing is bad. Yes, Jesus will make it all right. But not in this life..in the next one. After we die and cross over into His eternal presence, there we will find no sorrow. There we will find no tears. There we will find no death.

I'm continuing to read from Dr. Larry Crabb's book 66 Love Letters. Been parked in the book of Jude over the weekend. Here is what Dr. Crabb writes as God's response to all the pain and suffering we have to go through here in this life, and the false message of hope that others offer from the pulpit.

"Hidden beneath the happy smiles of blessings-now preachers is a spirit of discontentment smothered by confidence in their fake message (or by money and power and acclaim it brings). A grumbling that though smothered drives their theology. They bury their ache beneath their lives.
I want you to feel your ache (the pain of life) but to focus on MY call, MY love, and MY POWER to keep you on the narrow road to MY Party."

You see the message and truth of God is not a "party-hearty" till we wall drop. But neither is it ashes and torn garments accompanied by frowns and scowls. It is a tension, if you will. Living in the here and now, but fueled by the promises of what is to come. Yes! His promises include getting us through the here and now. Yes! His promises are for today. If this be true, then latch on to them and don't let go. Don't trade them for the temporary fix the world offers us. Don't turn loose of the eternal promises and presence of God.

Don't fall for the lies that are spewed which tell you that if you had more faith you wouldn't be suffering like you are.
Faith will take you through whatever you are facing today.
Faith that God is who He claims to be.
Faith that God will do what He has promised HE will do.

Jude: 24-25
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory withe exceeding joy...
To God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty. Dominion and Power, both now and forever. Amen

Those two verses tell me that my God supersedes everything and anything that is on this earth. That His power and ability reach far beyond any pain and suffering I may encounter during my time here. His grace is sufficient for anything that may be waiting out there for me today.

God is bigger than any craving that may come to you today.
God is bigger than that voice that may whisper to you to return to your old ways and old lifestyle.
God is just bigger.

God on you...
mb