GIVING THANKS FOR WHAT I SEE

When you are a believer in Jesus you find yourself with a burning desire for those you love to know Him.  You want to know that when their lives come to an end, they’re going to be in heaven too.  But there is so much more to knowing Jesus that lies in store NOW for those who trust Him that you want them to know as well.

You want them to know the joy of simply KNOWING Jesus in all His fullness.  He is Savior, yes, and He is also Comforter in sorrow; He is peace when life is falling apart or fear consumes; He is Friend when friends are few; He is Strength when courage fails or when life reaches its end; He is wise when decisions loom and we don’t know which way to go.  He is gracious and forgiving when we fail; merciful when our shortcomings overwhelm us; endlessly loving – unconditionally.  All of these things and more are what I want those I love to know and experience of Jesus. 

What I frequently find is that I get very impatient with the process. I want them to know Him and I want them to know Him NOW!  When I seem to see no evidence (by my standards!) that they’re getting even one tiny step closer, I get stuck on the things I don’t see – evidence of God at work, softened hearts toward Him, a sense of need of Him.  I don’t just get stuck though, I ruminate.  I lose sleep thinking about them – worrying, praying, fretting.  I beg the Lord for some sign that something positive is going on.

Lately I’ve been spending time in the psalms and I love them.  So often the psalmist, whether David or someone else, says exactly what I’m feeling when he looks around and God’s hand doesn’t seem evident to him either.  Consider these words from Psalms 12-17:

·       “Help, Lord, for the godly are no more, . . . . Everyone lies to his neighbor. . .

·       “How long, O Lord?  Will you forget me forever?”

·       “Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge”

·       “The wicked close up their callous hearts. . . they have tracked me down. . . they surround me”

Hebrews 11:6 defines faith this way:

·       “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

When I’m only focusing on what I CAN see, it’s easy to become discouraged because my eyes are on the circumstances - typically the indifference to spiritual things in the people for whom I pray, or the impossibility, from a human perspective, of ever seeing any change in the one's I love.  But that’s not FAITH.  

Faith is believing the Lord.  Faith is believing that as I am praying, the Lord is answering.  Faith is believing God wants my loved ones to know Him even more than I do and that He CAN do what looks and seems impossible to me.  He IS God after all - infinitely wise, enormously creative, unfailingly loving, merciful and gracious.  Faith says, “God IS at work, even though I don’t know what He’s doing, or how He can change the heart of THAT person!”  All I have to do is look at the likes of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, the Apostle Paul and most of all, ME, to know that He can!

After a long stretch of thinking only of how frustrated I was that I could see none of the kinds of results I was hoping for, I ran across this verse in Psalm 13:

·       “I will sing to the Lord, for He has dealt bountifully with me.”

I began to list all of the ways in which the Lord has already dealt bountifully with me, and then I spent time thanking Him for every single one.  Instead of lamenting about all the ways in which I WANTED Him to work, but didn’t see Him doing what I wanted, I began to thank Him for the people I love, for the things I love about them, for the ways in which I believed He has been at work in them to this point. 

You know what happened?  I began to see them in a different light.  I began to see that while they weren’t yet walking with the Lord and enjoying His fellowship, there were plenty of ways I could celebrate the way the Lord had made them, while continuing to pray for the day when they would KNOW Him personally.

Focusing on the one area where I wanted to see change caused me to overlook all the ways in which these people I love were wonderful just the way they the Lord had made them.  I was missing so much to rejoice and thank the Lord over.  So now I find myself thinking of them and being thankful to the Lord – for the joy they bring me just having them in my life, for their character qualities - courage, strength, compassion, hard work, intelligence, humor, love for life.  They make my life so much richer because they’re part of it.

So, I’m celebrating them a lot more – and looking forward to the day when the Lord does what only He can – and He imparts His life in their hearts and souls.  Wow, what a day that will be!  In the meantime, I’m going to take a lot more joy in them – just the way they are – because that's the the way the Lord loves me.