Wow, life has been a little strange and stressful lately. Two of my girls came home from school with head lice this week . Yes I know that is gross! I have frantically worked to kill lice and remove nits in their heads and in the house. It amazes me that we will apply poison to our children's head to make it all go away. Although it did kill the bugs, it left behind these tiny little eggs throughout their hair called nits. During many hours of taking this tiny comb and combing through my girls' hair I thought about when Jesus washes away our sins...no matter how big or ugly our sin is. What would it be like to be forgiven but to wear the sin on us like nits (lice eggs) all over our entire body so everyone could see? No matter how much you washed or scrubbed, the sins (nits) would not come off.
Through this huge inconvenience in our lives I kept asking God, "What is it that you are trying to teach me through this? Is it patience, or is it to be STILL?"
How precious is YOUR TIME? I know my time is precious to me and there is never enough hours in the day for me to get done all that I need to. God only wants to spend time with us. He enjoys your presence. I have not spent the time with him lately that I needed to. Although my heart longs for him, it is very hard to stop and be still with Him.
As I covered a Costco size jar of Mayo onto my children's scalp (because I was scared to death the poison wouldn't be enough) and made them sleep with it on their heads with a shower cap on, my youngest broke down and cried out "Why do I have to go through this? Why would God allow this to happen to me?" It broke my heart. They know that God is so good and they have been taught how much He loves them. She cried for an hour and kept asking "WHY???"
Isn't that how most of us feel on a regular basis? We know God is good but when things in our life don't seem to be going our way we look up and shake our fist and ask "WHY???" Is that our view of God? We use Him like a shopping mall visiting him when we have a special occasion, something big in our lives? Then we leave and never return to Him until we need another new outfit? So why do we continue to repeat this cycle over and over again in our lives? Why is it that so many will never know Him or have a relationship with Him but freely call themselves Christians? We are a chosen generation (people). God has a plan for our lives and we continue to take our lives into our own powerless little hands and live how we want to live. In a world that teaches even our children to let it be all about them. We are forgiven walking around covered by the blood of Jesus (mayo) but still carry the nits of our past inside of us not believing we are forgiven.
As I comforted her through this trial in her life and held her while she cried, I explained how God does love us and sometimes life is just hard. I explained to her that sometimes things are allowed in our life to build our FAITH. God doesn't cause bad things to happen...BUT sometimes He may allow things to happen because He needs to burn off the impurities. We are made in God's likeness. Here's a great illustration:
Look up the verse today in Malachi chapter 3:
"He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver...."
What does this verse mean? What is Refining Silver?
A silversmith will start out by holding a piece of silver in the middle of the fire where the flames are the hottest so the fire will burn away all the impurities.
God holds us sometimes in a very hot spot. Think about this verse again: "HE SHALL SIT AS A REFINER AND A PURIFIER OF SILVER....." A silversmith HAS to not only sit there and hold the silver, but he can't take his eyes off of the silver. If the silver is left in the flames too long, it would be destroyed. The silversmith knows when the silver is fully refined only when he can see his IMAGE REFLECTED IN IT!!! Wow God is amazing! He has to burn away all the impurities in our lives until He can see His reflection in us; we are made in His image. God never takes His eyes off of us when we are in the middle of the hottest fire. He stands with us, never leaving until His reflection is seen. No matter how bad things can get, no matter how hot that FIRE is , even when you can't see Him, feel Him, or touch Him, remember He has not taken his EYES off of you or you would be destroyed.
I hope this speaks to someone today that when things in our life seem to be out of control , try and look to God to see if it is for your own good. I don't want to walk around anymore caring my nits (sins) on my body. I am the daughter of the Most High King and so are you. Stand bold in our Faith, BELIEVE you are forgiven.
I am convinced today that my father allowed this week to be out of my control, I needed to BE STILL and spend some time in His presence. I praise Him that He loves me enough to slow me down to spend some time with Him.
I want more than anything for God to see His reflection in me. Lets try together this week to say "burn it off Father, until you see your reflection in me."
Praise Him today and even when things are bad, instead of saying "WHY ME?" ask Him
"WHAT'S NEXT?"
Blessings,
Robbie
