Inspirational Lifestyles: New Year New Mercies (Day #4)

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Car Crashes Into Pedestrians In Times Square

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Day #4

The best theology will not remove mystery from your life, so rest is found in trusting the One who rules, is all, and knows no mystery.

Her voice quivered that morning as she told me to get home as quickly as I could. My wife, Luella, is a very emotionally stable woman. She isn’t easily rocked. I knew what we were facing was serious because it had rocked her. I was about six hours away; with my assistant, I made the nervous trip home.

Nicole, our daughter, had started her walk home from work late the previous night, as she had done many nights before. A car driven by a drunk and unlicensed driver careened up on the sidewalk and crushed Nicole against a wall. She had devastating injuries, including eleven breaks of her pelvis and massive internal bleeding. When I finally got to the hospital and walked into Nicole’s intensive-care room, I did what any father with a drop of parental blood in him would do. I fell apart. I crawled up on Nicole’s bed, not sure if she could hear me, and said, “It’s Dad, you’re not alone, and God is with you, too.”

When I walked into that room, it was as if the whole world went dark. My heart cried, “Why, why, why?” If I could choose, I wouldn’t have any of my children go through such a thing. And if I had had to choose one of my children, I wouldn’t have chosen Nicole at that moment in her life; she seemed so vulnerable. In an instant, we were cast into life-changing mystery, and our theological non-negotiables didn’t take that mystery away. Nicole did recover well, but we lived through four years of travail.

I held onto the thought that our lives were not out of control. We were comforted again and again with the thought that when it came to Nicole’s accident, God was neither surprised nor afraid. You see, there is no mystery with God. He is never caught off guard. He never wonders how He is going to deal with the unexpected thing. I love the words of Daniel 2:22: “He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him.”

God is with you in your moments of darkness because He will never leave you. But your darkness isn’t dark to Him. Your mysteries aren’t mysterious to Him. Your surprises don’t surprise Him. He understands all the things that confuse you the most. Not only are your mysteries not mysterious to Him, but He is in complete charge of all that is mysterious to you and me.

Remember today that there is One who looks at what you see as dark and sees light. And as you remember that, remember, too, that He is the ultimate definition of everything that is wise, good, true, loving, and faithful. He holds both you and your mysteries in His gracious hands, and because He does, you can find rest even when the darkness of mystery has entered your door.

Scripture:

Isaiah 40:12-31 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? 13Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him? 14With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? 15Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. 16And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. 17All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.

18To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? 19The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains. 20He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. 21Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: 23that bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. 24Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. 25To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. 26Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.

27Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? 28Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. 29He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. 30Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31but they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.