This past week I started a new devotional called ‘But I Flourish’ by a New Zealand Author Aimee Walker. I am only a few days into reading it, but already I can hear God speaking. Or perhaps yelling.
Okay, I’ll be honest, I’m fairly certain God has been shouting this message at me for a while and I’ve been walking around with my noise cancelling headphones on wondering why He has been so quiet.
In this devotional Aimee shares not only her own personal journey, but the journey of King David. Now I’m no Aimee, and I’m certainly no King David. But the words have spoken to me all the same.
Last night I was impacted by how King David had faith in the promise God had made to him.
Where he could have strived for and attempted to achieve what God had promised him years prior (Kingship) he didn’t try to take what he saw, instead he waited for God to provide it.
In the years that King Saul pursued David, David lived in conditions that few people would have chosen. Life was difficult and then, in this time of hardship he was given not one, but two opportunities to rid himself of Saul and take the throne he had been promised, and yet he waited, knowing that what he had been promised wouldn’t come through force.
While David’s patience, and his story is interesting, what struck me is that while David trusted God, you can see from the Psalms that he shared his heart with the LORD.
He shared that he was struggling, he told God how what he was going through wasn’t good. He lamented what he was going through, and then he handed it to God, trusting that He would carry through what He promised.
If David can say to God ‘this sucks, I’m not enjoying it, but I trust that you have it in hand’ and still be called a man after God’s own heart, then I/you/we can tell God ‘this sucks, I’m not enjoying it, but I trust that you have it in hand’.
‘this sucks, I’m not enjoying it, but I trust that you have it in hand’
For me, that is a relief. It means I can be honest. I can admit I am struggling. I can be frustrated. I can even have a cry. It means I can feel ALL of my feelings and still trust God to do what He says He will do. My feelings to not disqualify me from His promise.
I can feel ALL of my feelings and still trust God to do what He says He will do.
My feelings to not disqualify me from His promise.
I just have to trust that no matter what is happening around me, He will follow through with what He has promised. And I think I can do that. Can you?