| | His Love Endures Forever
I have been really
struggling with something the last few days.
I was dealing with something very difficult. The details are not important, but I felt
very hurt. I was crying, praying about
it. “I don’t understand why you
permitted this, Lord? Why do I have to
face this struggle? If I didn’t I wouldn’t
have to . . .” Then it dawned on
me. God had permitted this to force me
to grow, to do the hard thing.
Sometimes, the struggles
we deal with are overcome in a moment.
We make the decision to do what is right, and there is no turning
back. We are convinced that we have done
right, glad to have made the choice to do right, and are now ready to move on
to other things. Other times, the
decision to do right is a daily, hourly, moment by moment thing. Just because I made the choice yesterday, or
even an hour ago, doesn’t mean I’m inclined to do it this minute. I think many, many such struggles are this
variety. An addict overcoming his
addiction. My precious little boy
choosing not to read after bedtime.
Choosing to forgive someone who has wronged you. Choosing not to give in to a temptation that
you’ve fallen prey to so many times before.
This was one of those things. As I have mentioned before, I’ve been reading
in this book about worry. Linda Dillow
was talking about 1 Peter 5:6-7. I’ll
offer its text here:
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may
lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for
you. (NIV)
She
said that the word for “cast” means literally, to hurl, or to throw (Calm my
Anxious Heart, pg. 124). Because my
struggle involves some worry, I did that, threw the problem to the Lord for Him
to handle, humbled myself to trust in His sovereignty. Then I read some more from my Bible, which
happened today to be Psalm 136.
This Psalm is one that has
been hard for me to understand in the past.
It has a repeated refrain, in every single verse, sometimes after no
more than a phrase, “His love endures forever.” I found the interruption to the train of
thought distracting. It made it hard to
appreciate either God’s Love or the point of the phrases and sentences interspersed
throughout. It came across to me, before
tonight, like nothing more than a constant interruption.
Tonight, I finally got
it. It was a recitation, a review of Israel’s history.
Here is how it begins, in verses 1-5:
Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good.
His love endures
forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures
forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures
forever.
to Him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures
forever.
Who by His understanding made the heavens,
His love endures
forever. (NIV)
I guess it actually begins
with a declaration of God’s supremacy and goodness, then spends a little time
on the early history of the world, then transitions to Israel’s history.
With each aspect of history, it repeats the refrain, “His love endures
forever.” The point is this: Everything that happens to God’s people is
evidence of God’s enduring love.
Remember my question of
why God had permitted this struggle?
Yes, even in this, “His love endures forever.” What a great encouragement that was. I
hope it is encouraging to you. |
