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| DIGGING DEEP #53 | October 22, 2013 | ||
| Nevertheless We serve the God of the nevertheless.I am sure you have noticed in the Psalms how David rails against his enemies in one verse and praises God in the next. Or how he will ask God why has God forsaken Him in the beginning of a Psalm and then nevertheless worship Him by the end of it. That has been my life over the past few years, a story of the Nevertheless God.My nevertheless story is about how my confidence in my ability to function in my career was dismantled, project by project, day by day over the last 7 years at the hands of some pretty unjust people. Like the Psalms, I had cried out to God in pain but was also at the same time experiencing the nevertheless of the shifting of the story to praise. Like the Psalms, my life in the last few years, has traveled down a dual path. I found my story in Psalm 73 and was particularly struck by verses 21-24. Psalm 73:21 When my heart was embittered And I was pierced within, 22 Then I was senseless and ignorant; I was like a beast before You. 23 Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. 24 With Your counsel You will guide me, And afterward receive me to glory. Like verse 21, my heart was embittered and pierced within. I was mad at those involved in the injustice and I was mad at God for asking me to go through it. I knew He was telling me to stay at my job and it felt cruel to me.I craved the confidence I had experienced for most of my career but the more I tried to pour water from my career into my self-confidence bucket the bigger the holes got and it leaked out as fast as I could pour it in. Like verse 22, I felt senseless and ignorant. I felt incompetent and started failing at my job. I deserved to be fired but was not. The harder I worked the worse it got. The hard part was that I thought I had my career in proper perspective but I really didn’t. But like verse 23 my life had a nevertheless, it says; Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. God was at the same time giving me amazing spiritual experiences. As I was frantically pouring water in my self-confidence bucket full of holes, He was pouring water into my spiritual bucket. But I had made myself so miserable it was hard to enjoy it. Like verse 24 The Holy Spirit was guiding me, I was getting opportunities to teach and lead people to the Lord. God was shifting my focus from self-confidence to confidence in Him, which leads me to an example of a nevertheless of my story. One of my nevertheless experiences happened just a few months ago. Ironically it happened as I was traveling home from a business trip that I had not done well at. On the return flight that I changed at the last minute, I was flying back from Florida at 6:30 in the morning and a young lady sat down beside me. I struck up a conversation with her and I found out she was a Marine and we discussed politics, history, the military, and war. We really had a great conversation going. We were dialoging non-stop for over an hour when I got a prompting from the Holy Spirit to take the conversation toward the spiritual. So I asked her opinion on Afghanistan and then asked if she had ever read the Quran. She said no and I told her I had and that I believed religion was a key to understanding our conflict with terrorism. I told her that according to the Quran, you have to have more good deeds than bad before Allah will receive you into heaven. I said that is the difference between Christianity and Islam. In Christianity, Jesus offers us an eternal relationship based on His sacrifice and Islam requires you to be good enough for God to accept you. I then ask her if I could share 5 verses that could show her how to come to know Jesus personally and she said yes. I told her I would recite them to her. She said wait a minute and pulled out a Kindle and said; I got interested in God about 2 months ago and downloaded a Bible on my Kindle. I thought the Holy Spirit could not make it much easier than this. I helped her find each verse and then she would highlight it and read it to me. I would then ask if she knew what it meant. As she would give her opinion and I would respond she would type notes at the bottom of the page. I had goose bumps. When we got finished with the verses, I asked if she had ever heard the gospel before and she said not like that. I asked if she wanted to receive the free gift of eternal life and she said yes. And she prayed to receive Jesus right there on the plane. I told her that I believed in divine appointments and that I pray for them all the time and that she was a divine appointment because I had just changed my flight the day before from the aternoon flight to the 6:30 morning flight and God placed her in the seat next to me. She said that she also believed in divine appointments because she had also changed her flight the day before from the 5:30 flight to the 6:30 flight as well. I told her it gets even better. I told her that before she had entered the plane I had taken out a book to read on the flight and placed it behind the seat in front of me and I wanted to give it to her. What was cool about it was that it was John Maisel’s book on radical trust. John Maisel was a Marine and so was this young lady. God has now completely changed my circumstances at work and I am reflecting back on how much He grew me through difficulty. I would not be where I am on my spiritual journey without those difficult years. I am stunned to realize that we all are living out the Psalms in our lives. When we are in the pit of circumstances that seem insurmountable, just remember, God is always at work in our lives. We worship the God of the nevertheless. God Bless you and yours, Ray Sturdivant Please consider supporting this ministry by donating on our website,miningthetruth.com/donate.php |
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