He Gives and Takes Away

Over the years in ministry the most difficult circumstances have often been in regard to children. Seeing young children sick or die are especially hard. One that often we overlook are the scores of women who long to be mothers but their arms are still empty.

At times there are medical explanations and sometimes there's no explanation. Regardless, it doesn't change the heartache and longing in the heart of a woman who cannot conceive.

The Bible is dotted with the stories of women who found themselves childless. Sarai, Hannah, Rachel, Elizabeth, and others found their situation bitter and painful. A married woman who could not have children was viewed scornfully and even as one cursed by God.

Manoah was married to a woman who was unable to conceive. Yet God in his upper story was completely aware of this and would work through this not only to give her a son, but to give Israel a deliverer. And so it was that Samson was born and grew to be a man of incredible strength and courage, on whom the Spirit of the Lord rested powerfully.

The full story of Samson is quite tragic, reflecting a man who was often far more intent on living out his own desires than living out the will of God. But the beauty of his life was that he was a miracle. He was born to a father and mother who had probably come to think they may never have a child. And in spite of Samson's disobedience, God worked to deliver His people though it did not happen without Samson losing his power, his sight, his freedom, and ultimately his life.

God is the One who gives when the world has no power to give. He is the One who provides when there's no conceivable way to make it happen. Yet He is also the One who takes away, sometimes without explanation. Sometimes He withholds when we expected Him to pour it out on us.

God's power to give Manoah and his wife a child was a foretaste of His power to come on Mary so that she conceived to give birth to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. God gave the world His Son. And God would take His Son from the world by nailing Him to the cross. But praise God that we know both why He gave and why He took away. As a result, we today are able to celebrate how God rescued us from sin and death by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Take a Daniel moment:

1. Praise God that He both gives and takes away.
2. Lift up to Him your request for what you need and the desires of your heart.
3. Pray that God would give you a content heart with what He gives, what He withholds, and what He takes away.
4. Ask God to demonstrate His power to open wombs, forgive sin, raise the dead, provide for every need in your life and the lives of those you know are in need.

Um, really God?

Growing up I remember hearing and singing a song in which there was a line by which I've often been encouraged. It simply says, "Little is much when God is in it."

Isn't that the truth of Jesus feeding the multitude? The crowd of 5,000 men (and perhaps double or triple counting women and children) were hungry. The disciples had no food to give. Philip said there were so many people that 200 days worth of wages couldn't buy enough for each person just to get a little.

But there was a boy who had a small lunch. It wasn't much. It would have been a sufficient meal for himself, but not for this large crowd. His meager lunch consisted of 5 small loaves of bread and two fish. To every onlooker this little amount would not do. Yet little is much when God is in it. That small lunch in the hands of Jesus not only fed the entire crowd of thousands, not only fed them all they wanted, but it also provided a leftover that was at least twelve times larger than that with which He started.

Gideon also learned that little is much when God is in it. In yesterday's post I talked about God choosing Gideon to be His instrument of redemption for Israel.  Gideon has 32,000 men in his army. And then God begins to make cuts to the team. In one swoop, 22,000 men left and went home. Of the ten thousand remaining, God made another cut that reduced the army from 10,000 to 300.

At this moment is when I stop and say, "Um, really God?"

God didn't need Gideon's numbers. God didn't rely on Gideon or his army's power. Little is much when God is in it. And that only magnifies the great work He does even more, since no man or woman can take the credit for it.

God said, "You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, 'My own strength has saved me.'"

The wisdom of God often uses the weak, feeble, small, foolish, and insignificant to the world. He is able to accomplish God-sized tasks with small objects and people.

Take a Daniel moment:

1. Praise God for His wisdom that cuts against the wisdom of men.
2. Ask God for faith to follow Him when His numbers don't match ours.
3. Pray for Refuge Church to be like Gideon's 300; empowered by God for a great work regardless of size.
4. Surrender yourself to be one of Gideon's 300 that God will use to display and declare His glory and good news.

Why Not You

There are scores of people throughout history God has used who couldn't fathom that He would use them.

Moses didn't think God could use him to lead Israel out of Egypt. After all, he did have a speech impediment.

Jeremiah didn't think God could use him to be a prophet to the nations since he was still too green.

Gideon didn't think God could use him to lead Israel in victorious battle over Midian.

Israel had rejected God and God had allowed them to be overtaken by their enemies. He faithfully raised up one deliverer after another to free the people when they repented and turned back to Him. Gideon, though, couldn't imagine that God would be able to use him.

Gideon informed God that his clan was the smallest (if God didn't know that already).  He also told God that he was the youngest in his family (again, as if God didn't place him in his family as the youngest).

Translation: Why me God? Mighty warrior? Yeah right. My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, not the strongest. And I'm the youngest in my family. There's no way you can do this with me.

Even when Gideon appears to have signed on to go, he looks for final confirmation that this indeed is God's doing. You've likely heard someone refer to putting out a fleece. That comes from Gideon. He tested God to insure God would indeed do what He said He would. Gideon laid a fleece out overnight and told God if only the fleece had dew upon it and not the ground then he would know. God did it!

It still wasn't enough for Gideon. Gideon reversed it and threw it back to God, telling him to keep the fleece dry and only allow the dew upon the grass around it.  God did it again!

Gideon looked at himself through the lens of his limitations rather than through the limitless power of God.

He kept asking "Why me?" He kept examining the situation from his human perspective. 

What would God do if you and I stopped asking, "Why me?" and started asking, "Why not me?" 

Why not surrender everything to God?

Why not allow Him to use us however He pleases?

Why not devote ourselves to worship and serve Him every day for all our days?

Why not be people who seek to display and declare the good news in bold ways?

Why not be the people who earnestly pray for God to move among us and accomplish the unthinkable?

Why not us? Why not you? Why not me?

 He simply wants us to come to the point of Isaiah who heard God ask "Whom will I send? Who will go for us?" Isaiah simply raised his hand and said, "Here am I, send me." Isaiah said, "You need someone? Why not me?" 

What God needs is not our intellect, skill, power, contacts, or money. What God needs is our full surrender.

Take a Daniel moment:

1. Praise God that who He is, is more important to who we are than who we are. Celebrate that our limitations do not limit or hinder God.
2. Surrender the areas you're holding onto tightly.
3. Ask God to make clear where He wants to use you. 
4. Pray for God to work in great ways and allow you to be a part. Pray, "Lord, why not me? Use me, send me, accomplish through me Your work."

Big God

I have been humbled in my life to see God do great things. Not because of me, but in spite of me. Many, but not all, of those moments of witnessing and experiencing God's power came in the midst of dark and difficult times.

Shortly after Micah's liver transplant surgery the liver was not functioning as needed. Many friends and strangers called on the name of the Lord on behalf of Micah. Many carried him in prayer, ripping off the roof, and lowering him to the feet of Jesus. I remember praying, "Lord, reach down with Your mighty hand and massage his liver that it would work." In less than 12 hours the lab results showed a liver working as it should. And the doctor was unable to explain it.

I have also experienced the bigness of God in placing our fourth son, Malachi, into our family. We spent two years working on adoption paperwork. We finished it in May of 2013 and found out we were expecting again in June 2013. In August of 2013, we received a phone call about a mom who courageously wanted to place her baby in our family and on Friday he was born. Two days later we traveled home with him. The social worker actually said to us, "Every time I would go to meet with a potential birth mom who was seeking to make a placement plan for her child, I would take your profile book along. I would think to myself, 'Why do I keep taking their book? They already have three boys and a fourth on the way. No mom is going to choose their family.'"

God is bigger!

Reading today in the story of Israel taking the land of Canaan that God has promised, I see a big God. When Joshua and his army fought with the men five kings of the Amorites and their armies, the enemy armies began to flee. Was the enemy really going to get away? Not with a big God who always keeps His promises.

The Bible says that the Lord hurled large hailstones down on them. What was the result? God killed more with hailstones than Israel did with the sword. Surprised? We shouldn't be but we often are.

As if this wasn't enough, while Israel fought its enemies in the land that very day, God caused the sun to stand still in the sky. So the sun stopped int he middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. The Bible says that all of this reveals a powerful truth: Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!

God has and does fight for us. At the cross, He fought out bitterest and worst enemy. Sin and death held humanity in fear and slavery. But God fought for us and won that battle that in Him we would have our sin forgiven and death wouldn't be the gate to destruction but the door to eternal life.

I've been privileged to see and experience God's power. But I'm just not content. While God's greatest act and mightiest battle in the cross cannot and never will or need to be repeated, He's still at work. The God who hurled hailstones, stopped the sun, and beat our enemy is still just as big and working in big ways.

I want to see God move and I want to witness His power.

I need God to move and I need to witness His power.

Where do you need God to aid you against your enemy, extend your time and work, or enable you to have victory one the desires of your flesh and the sin of your heart? Where do you need God to show up big today?

Take a Daniel moment:

1. Praise God that He alone is God and there is none like Him.
2. Celebrate the great character and mighty deeds of God.
3. Ask God to be big in the places you are weak, uncertain, pain-filled, sinful, or needy.
4. Watch God be big and don't forget to give thanks for what He will do (before He does it) and for what He did (after He does it).