Believe God

How would you spend the last few days with someone you love?  Would you travel?  Would you sit together and talk, or not talk?  Would you cry?  Laugh?  Pray?  Would you reminisce?  Or maybe you’d talk about the future, at least about heaven or how you’d go on after being left behind?  What decisions would need to be made?  Money?  The lack of it?  Insurance?  Where important documents are kept?  Have you made a will?  Where will you be buried?  To cremate or not to cremate?  Which service arrangements and where?  Who will officiate?  

Would you talk about the pain and sorrow?  Would you speak of regrets or any anger held?  Would you spend time reading the Bible together?  Maybe some other favorite writing?  Watch a favorite movie together again?  If you held hands and looked into someone’s eyes in the last days or moments, what would your heart’s cry be?  Would you push through pain to make amends or set things right, let things go, clean things up, or be tender in ways you’ve never been?  Would it be “shoulda, coulda, woulda” or “Thank God we have been and done what we “shoulda, coulda, woulda”?  

Once again our families have been given the precious opportunities to express our hearts’ cries.  As I watch my husband struggle for breath and tire out upon standing or walking a few feet, my heart goes out to him, desiring that he not suffer.  My prayers are filled with petitions for mercy.  My soul longs for the story to change.  Surgery for his condition might change his current circumstance but most likely, according to surgeons, will present new dilemmas.  We face the possibilities reluctantly.  Yet morning melts into afternoon, afternoon fades to night, and dawn comes once more.  Another day passes and pulls us closer to destiny, closer to eternity.

We who believe in Christ now live in eternity with Him.  The moment we believed, our spirits became one with His and we now live eternally in His presence.  Our only separation between now and heaven is a transition.  That reality affects the answers to all our questions regarding life and death, not only about ourselves but about those we love.  

New questions arise:  Have I lived my life so that my “investments” have been made into the Kingdom of God or into my own or someone else’s kingdom?  Has my love for others opened paths to Christ for them, or have they been stumbling blocks along their ways?  Have my motives and deeds been uplifting and encouraging to another, or have I disregarded others as a means to avoid my own suffering?  

It appears that all of us live in our own kingdoms to one extent or another, in one time or way or another.  Such is the battle with the natural spirit within us, always self-centered yet yearning for God.  For many years I was a stumbling block in my husband’s path, a discouragement, a source of bitterness and anger.  Adding insult to injury, I blamed him for much of my behavior.  But God’s desire was that my heart be changed, that my mind be renewed, and that my life reflect the mercy and love He showed me.  He began to convict me.  He began to direct me to love my husband with mercy and grace, the way He loved me.  My husband contributed also to our difficult path, but as we both surrendered the reigns to Christ and my husband began to allow Christ to love him, we began to heal.

Now twenty-six years have passed and we rejoice in surrender: the giving back to God what was rightfully His in the first place.  For in surrender we find that ultimate freedom:  If He is for me, who can be against me?  I am free to love in adversity and strife, free to choose to keep quiet or to speak when God directs my words, and free to celebrate the victories.  No longer am I enslaved to the past or the present, or even the future.  I am truly and eternally free.  And so is my husband.

If you are struggling in relationships, what is God saying to you?  If your heart is broken, surrender it.  If your deepest longings are for peace and love to rule your life, then believe God.  Discover the ways He has set out for you in His Word.  Pick it up and begin reading, perhaps the book of John.  Read, or reread, the accounts of Jesus’ behavior and His instructions in the other three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  Before you read, pray.  Ask God to speak to your heart from His Word and to guide you, heal you, heal your relationships, in whatever way necessary.  He is faithful.  Believe God.