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Facing Storms: Who
is Your Lifeline?
.
Beth Moore
Hurricanes pummel our coastlines
leaving flood damage and power outages.
In third world countries like Haiti,
storms can wreak havoc on everyone and everything in their wake.
We have all had our own hurricanes.
Here are Beth Moore’s words of encouragement when you face storms in your life:
“Have you had times
when a stab of pain was personal enough and stunning enough to somehow cause
you to put your hand over your mouth and keep it there a while? Times when you
want to scream, ‘What is going on here? What is this madness? How did this
happen?’”
If you’re like me, you find it much
easier to talk about a storm in its wake.
In the middle of it, you’re just
trying to hold on tight to the edges of the boat and keep from throwing up
while it rocks to and fro.
This is such a public format. I don’t
want anyone involved in the challenge hurt by any words here.
There’s enough hurt. But I want to be
able to minister here and serve here and share with you even in the middle of a
hard situation.
Please let me leave it at that.
Staying general invites more people to relate anyway.
One reason I have a quiet come over
me in a season like this is the pure length of time that can be involved.
Yesterday someone I’m crazy about
shot me a very loving text that included, “How is it all going?”
And I never answered it because it’s
going the same as it went last week.
Anybody understand
what I’m saying? This dyed in the wool sanguine likes to say, “SO MUCH
BETTER!”
I don’t like to burden people long
term. Oh heck, I don’t like to be burdened long term either. Who does?
In our humanity, we all wear out
eventually. But sometimes the fact is, we’re not quite at the point of so much
better yet. We will be.
Make no mistake. Those of us who are
willing to let Jesus minister to us in the deepest parts of our souls and knead
the crushed grain of brokenness into break will indeed be so much better.
It’s just a matter of time. Satan
will indeed be defeated. And God will make sure he’s sorry.
I decided I had the words to write to
you – not because I suddenly felt talky but – because Charles Spurgeon supplied
them to me.
They landed on a sore spot in my soul
and brought some comfort and insight. I thought I’d just share the whole thing
with you then make a closing comment or two.
From Morning
and Evening, today’s date…
“Cast thy burden
upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.” — Psalm
55:22
Care, even though exercised upon
legitimate objects, if carried to excess, has in it the nature of sin.
The precept to avoid anxious care is
earnestly inculcated by our Saviour, again and again; it is reiterated by the
apostles; and it is one which cannot be neglected without involving
transgression: for the very essence of anxious
care is the imagining that we are wiser than God, and the thrusting ourselves
into his place to do for him that which he has undertaken to do for us.
We attempt to think of that which we
fancy he will forget; we labour to take upon ourselves our weary burden, as if
he were unable or unwilling to take it for us.
Now this disobedience to his plain
precept, this unbelief in his Word, this presumption in intruding upon his
province, is all sinful.
Anxious care often leads to
acts of sin. He who cannot calmly leave his affairs in God’s hand, but will
carry his own burden, is very likely to be tempted to use wrong means to help
himself.
This sin leads to a forsaking of God
as our counsellor, and resorting instead to human wisdom.
This is going to the “broken cistern”
instead of to the “fountain;” a sin which was laid against Israel of old.
Anxiety makes us doubt God’s
lovingkindness, and thus our love to him grows cold; we feel mistrust, and thus
grieve the Spirit of God, so that our prayers become hindered, our consistent
example marred, and our life one of self-seeking.
Thus want of confidence in God
leads us to wander far from him; but if through simple faith in his promise, we
cast each burden as it comes upon him, and are “careful for nothing” because he
undertakes to care for us, it will keep us close to him, and strengthen us
against much temptation. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is
stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.” Spurgeon, C. H.
(2006). Morning and Evening : Daily readings (Complete and
unabridged; New modern edition.). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers.
I like to do my early morning reading
out of a different translation than the one I use the rest of the time.
Different wording often has a way of
stirring up a different response in me.
So, a couple of translations sit on
my desk where I have my quiet time.
One is always The NET Bible because Melissa gave it to me
several years ago and it has (literally) “60,932 Translators’ Notes.”
If I’m not presently doing a Bible
study in my quiet time like the one, I just finished of Kelly Minter’s, then
often I’ll open up a devotional reading like Spurgeon’s.
Because many of the daily devotionals
don’t have longer Bible readings assigned with them, I check the verse they’re
using then turn to that chapter in my Bible and read it.
(True to form, I’m making this
explanation harder than it has to be. I’ll try to cut to the chase.)
SO, this morning I opened up The NET Bible and read a large portion of Psalm
55.
When I got to verse 22 – the verse
captioned in the Spurgeon devotional – I sat tight on the NET translation:
“Throw your burden
upon the Lord, and he will sustain you. He will never allow the godly to be
upended.”
Maybe you’re visual, too, and right
about now you’re picturing throwing. Like
hauling off and throwing something as hard as you can.
And maybe getting a little
frustration and madness out of your soul while you’re at it. Maybe crying while
you’re doing it. Even out loud.
Throw.
Before you’re tempted to hold it to
your chest and suffocate yourself nearly to death with it.
Throw.
Then something else spoke to me. It
was one of those 60,932 scholars’ notes.
The comment
footnotes the word “you” at the end of the phrase “Throw your burden
upon the Lord and He will sustain you.”
I’ll just cut and paste the note from
my Bible software so you can see it for yourself.
“The pronoun is
singular; the psalmist addresses each member of his audience individually.”
Biblical Studies Press. (2006;
2006). The NET Bible First Edition Notes (Ps
55:22). Biblical Studies Press.
Not the “we” of us. The “you” and
“me” of us. We also each have the
responsibility.
In other words, no one can throw our
burden on the Lord for us.
We can’t call in a relief pitcher.
Don’t misunderstand.
We can certainly call upon people to
pray for us and with us and the New Testament adamantly tells us to carry one
another’s burdens (Galatians
6:2) but listen.
There is a difference between a
burden that is entrusted for us in a season that we are to partner in sharing
and carrying.
Say, for instance, a long-term
illness or thorn in the flesh. But the part of the burden that we are
inadvertently – even accidentally – playing God over needs to be THROWN,
Girlfriend.
The part we’re suffocating under
because we’re no longer walking, we’re laying down with it on top of us, needs
to be…
Thrown.
When we keep trying to figure out
what would fix it, then we try that, and it doesn’t work so we wring our hands
and go to the next fix, we need to throw it.
We cannot be Savior. We know that
because, Lord help us, we cannot even save ourselves.
I so don’t want to be depressing this
morning. Forgive me. See? That’s why I’m not as anxious to write while I’m
right in the middle of something.
But, after this morning’s reading, I
don’t feel as depressed about it. I feel a little lighter. A little less weight
on my chest.
My hope is that you do, too. And if
you do, it won’t be this post. It will be Jesus.
Oh, you guys. I love you so much. I
care so much. Don’t grow weary. God is working. Jesus IS Savior. HE WILL SAVE.”
Beth Moore was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, during what her
father describes as the worst thunderstorm the city had seen in five years. He
affectionately says the Lord brought her into the world with a drum roll. The
fourth child of a retired Army major and a homemaker, Beth was raised in
Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Her father managed the local cinema where each of her
four siblings had a role to play. Beth’s job was to hand out samples of popcorn
and soda. Growing up in the theater had its perks. Sometimes Beth would be
allowed to slip into a movie and take with her a pickle bag full of popcorn and
a Dixie cup of Coke.
At the age of 18, Beth sensed God calling her to work for Him. Although she couldn’t imagine what that would mean, she made it her goal to say yes to whatever He asked. Beth graduated from Southwest Texas State University with a degree in political science. She would later receive an honorary doctorate in humanities from Howard Payne University. She married Keith in 1978 and soon after the Lord added Amanda and Melissa to the family. As a young wife and mother, Beth served the Lord by speaking at luncheons and retreats, working at Mother’s Day Out, and teaching Christian aerobics.
At the age of 18, Beth sensed God calling her to work for Him. Although she couldn’t imagine what that would mean, she made it her goal to say yes to whatever He asked. Beth graduated from Southwest Texas State University with a degree in political science. She would later receive an honorary doctorate in humanities from Howard Payne University. She married Keith in 1978 and soon after the Lord added Amanda and Melissa to the family. As a young wife and mother, Beth served the Lord by speaking at luncheons and retreats, working at Mother’s Day Out, and teaching Christian aerobics.
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