Kamikaze Squirrels and Aardvarks. What?!

I can't tell you how many times I've questioned God. Some things just don't make sense to me. For instance, North Carolina weather. I mean come on! Can we have normal seasons, please, instead of 90 degree days like we did in November? Or how about the aardvark? What in the world?

Somethings just don't make sense to me. Don't get me wrong. I've taken some pretty good college classes that explained the whole environmental, ecosystem thing. That at least explained the kamikaze squirrels I used to have in my back yard.

From what I have heard from family and friends, there is a lot about God that doesn't make sense like how much He loves us, why He allowed His Son to die, why He lets satan get away with so much. Believe me, I have wrestled with some of these major issues and really asked God for wisdom to understand.

That's when it hits me. God is wise (which happens to be my meditation for today) and I am not. I have no business even trying to tell God how to do his job. I believe I covered my opinion on that in my other blog, The Sky Really IS the Limit .

Here you go...

Proverbs 3:19-20

19 By wisdom the LORD founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens. 20 By his knowledge the deep fountains of the earth burst forth, and the clouds poured down rain.  

Daniel 2:19-20

19 That night the secret was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven,  

20 saying, "Praise the name of God forever and ever, for he alone has all wisdom and power. 

In God's wisdom, He created the world and everything in it. Even though we don't understand the weather, aardvarks, kamikaze squirrels, God's love, Jesus' death, and satan's existence, God does. He knows and understands everything. He is not just wise, but it is not in His nature to be UNwise. He can't do it. God is not stupid, nor does He make mistakes. There is a reason behind it all.

So you can bring your questions, confusion, hurt, and anger to God. It doesn't have to make sense to us before we can bring it to Him. We can bring all of it to Him and watch Him do something incredible with it. Everything is a part of His GOOD plan. He has no evil plans because He isn't evil. He is wise and when we learn to listen to His voice, He can share with us the information we need to fully process the maddness we live in at times.

He's ready and He can take it. Bring it!

A Little Peace of Heaven

Have you ever lost a loved one to death and felt that deep feeling of pain and loss that was almost unbearable? Then when you went to the viewing, you didn't think you'd have the strength to face all of those people during one of your darkest times. You breathe a simple, silent prayer, "God please help me" and you walk into to the funeral home. At the moment when you feel like you may run out of the room sobbing, you are immediately filled with a peace that you can't understand. It floods your entire being and you are able to face the people and the situation that you were previously dreading.

I have experienced it and it is mind-boggling. The peace doesn't make sense because you are in the middle of an emotionally challenging period of life. It's almost like the times when you have held your breath for a bit too long under water and you rush to the surface and gasp for that first breath of air. It feels so good to reinflate your lungs and relief immediately floods your veins.

Those moments of peace and relief came from somewhere. More accurately, they came from someONE. Today, my meditation was on another name of God, Jehovah-shalom, which means, "the God of peace."

Phillipians 4:6-7

⁶ Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. ⁷ Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Often times when we think of having peace, we equate that to the end of our struggles. We have times of war and times of peace. We have times of need and times of abundance. Times of peace with no struggles is nice, but short-lived. It is rare that you will come across a person who isn't struggling with something at all at that time in their life.

God's peace is different. You don't have to wait until the problem is resolved in order to feel His peace. You don't have to wait until you have finished grieving before you can feel His peace. You don't have to wait until you are safely through the trials of life before you can feel His peace. God's peace is not limited to our situations.

That is what makes God's peace different. You can be right smack dab in the middle of one of the hardest things you've ever faced and feel peace.....peace IN THE MIDDLE of the storm. There is a strength that comes along with God's peace that helps you to get through the tough times.

So how can we get this peace (I mean, really....after a sales pitch like that, who wouldn't want it, right)?

The scripture above tells us that instead of worrying we should pray and tell God what we need. Then of course, we must thank God for what He has already done. He will supply the peace that you need and it will totally blow your mind. You won't be able to understand it.  Not only that, but He will then proceed to protect your heart and mind.

That is quite the package, if you ask me. God's peace is one of the many blessings that comes from living in Christ Jesus. I have been so thankful for those times when God gave me peace in the middle of my struggle. I have experienced the peace of God during seasons of loss, public harassment and humiliation, betrayal, and even times when I had to face fears. I'm so glad that I don't have to wait for peace to come after the bad stuff is over with. We all have an endless supply of peace ready and available at a moment's notice. And we know Jehovah-shalom, the ONE who gives the peace.

The sky really IS the limit.

Typically, when someone says, "The sky is the limit," they mean that the possibilities are endless. You'll often hear phrases like this from opportunists, motivational speakers, hopeless optimists, used car salesmen, and that good buddy who keeps trying to get you to join his downline in his latest network marketing venture.

As you may have expected, I have a different take on the phrase. Shocking....I know.

Grammatically speaking, it is really saying, "You can go as far as the sky, but that's it. You can't go further. You are limited in how far you can go." Sorry if I ruined that phrase for you forever, but welcome to my brain. :o)

Today's medidation time (which seems to be growing beyond my commute) was spent on an attribute of God. "Attribute" (at-tri-byoot...not uh-trib-yoot....two very different things) is a term referring to a quality of God's character. Today's attribute: God is infinite.

Romans 11:33 (NLT)

33 Oh, what a wonderful God we have! How great are his riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his methods!  

We live in a world full of people who won't believe in anything they can't see. They have to have quantifiable, visible, and tangible proof. They call it scientific. They call it wisdom.

God can't be measured. You can't put Him on a scale to see how much He weights and no tape measure in existence could measure His height. He is beyond our finite minds, scoffs at the tiny boxes in which we try to squeeze Him, and can not be limited. With a word, He spoke the world into existence. He breathed life into a man-shaped lump of dirt and gave him life...eyes blinking, heart beating....the whole nine yards! 

There is not a person on the planet who can do that, I don't care how smart and creative they think they are. 

God can not be stopped by time, space, demensions, powers, or authorities. His wisdom is so far beyond ours that we can't even BEGIN to comprehend it. I am one who loves to know the method to the maddness. Unfortunately, there is only so much of God I can understand because my brain is not big enough to hold it all. The combination of all the brains on the planet (including the ones who actually use more than 10%) working together would not be enough to fathom Gods wisdom and knowledge. 

I guess I should remember that the next time I don't understand why something is going awry and I feel the need to throw up my fist at God. Who am I to think I can tell God how to do His job? I know I get annoyed when people who know nothing about what I do try to tell me how I could do it better. So why should I do that to God? {spoiler alert: I shouldn't.} Yeah, that would be what one of my friends calls and "Amen/Ouch."   

I thought about all of this as I looked up at the beautiful blue sky full of puffy, white clouds. The sky is enormous. It seems to go on forever in all directions and it does...to a point. The oxygen in our atmosphere, the gravitational pull that keeps our feet on the ground, and the winds pushing those clouds around exist even though we can't see them. However, if you keep going higher and higher into the sky, you will discover that even gravity and oxygen are limited. Ask any astronaut and they'll tell you. These things do not exist in space, but God remains the same. He is as real in space as He is in the earth's atmosphere.

The next time you look at the sky, look all around as far as you can see and remember that God is beyond limit and measurement. Your circumstances may not make sense, but get to know the One who knows what the real deal is. Don't think that because God is infinite that He is too big to care for you, though. He just cares for you more than you can imagine, that's all.

Excuse me...can you tell me how to get to...?

I'm lost.

Well, not really, but that is how I feel. Have you ever been at a place in your life when you felt like you had finally figured everything out only to have the rug ripped out from under you? Suddenly your life is no longer as it was and you are left to figure everything out on your own.

I am no stranger to struggle. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I've had to fight for whatever I managed to get (I did have a brother after all!). Because of that, it came as a great surprise when there came a point in my life when doors of opportunity began to fly open at random. What's a girl to do to do but to walk (or run wildly) through those doors?

I did. What I found on the other side of those doors felt like home to me and felt like I was finally stepping into what I was designed for. But now, it seems as if all of those once-open doors have now slammed shut and I'm left stumbling around in a dark hallway. No light. No direction.

This is a very frustrating place for me to be. I don't enjoy feeling this way, but I also understand that I'm not the only person in the world who has felt this way. I'm sure you have felt that way before. I know when I feel this way, there is nothing that anyone can say to make me feel better. I do, however, find great peace and comfort in this:

I [the Lord] will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you. Psalm 32:8

And the Lord shall guide you continually and satisfy you in drought and in dry places and make strong your bones. And you shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not. Isaiah 58:11

Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass ... Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. Psalm 37:4,7

For the LORD gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice, and He preserves the way of His godly ones. Then you will discern righteousness and justice and equity and every good course. Proverbs 2:6-9

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know. Jeremiah 33:3

I may not understand everything going on in my life at all times and I may not even like it all. However, I will trust in my God and His plans for me.

If you are facing (or have faced) a similar battle, I hope that you will find strength and hope in the word of God as I have. If you have any verses that have helped you through a rough time in life, please post them in the comment section below. Let's link arms and face our battles armed with the word of God! 

PS...Feel free to share this with anyone else who may need some direction or encouragement. We all face times like this. It's nice to know you're not alone. :o)