Max Lucado begins Chapter 3 (“Alone, But Not All Alone”) of You’ll Get Through This by observing that we pass much, if not most, of life at mid-altitude. Occasionally we’ll summit a peak. On other occasions, the world bottoms out. Max describes what our version of Egypt is like:
“It feels foreign. You don’t know the language. You never studied the vocabulary of crisis. You feel far from home, all alone. Money gone. Expectations dashed. Friends vanished. Who’s left? God is.”
That’s how it was for Joseph, Joseph didn’t rely on self-help papyri directing him to an inner power, to dig deeper. Joseph looked to a higher power- God. As Pastor Lucado points out, we will never go where God is not. He references Moses’s prayer for help in Exodus 33: 15- “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.”
The key, Max adds, is to make God’s presence our passion- to be more sponge and less rock. If a rock is placed in the ocean, the surface gets wet. The exterior may change color, but the interior is unaffected. In contract, the ocean penetrates every pore of the sponge and alters its essence.
Today’s question: How honest have you been with God about your thoughts and feelings following your ministry downsizing or vocation loss? Have you brought the full weight of your hurts, disappointments, and questions to God? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: the latest addition to the Annotated Bibliography- The Prodigal God
