It’s a Sign: I Don’t Know What I’m Doing!
Visit any home decor store and it’s impossible not to notice the huge hand-scripted like signs painted to hang on the walls in our homes. Many of them begin, “In this house,” or, “Our family does…” Maybe you even have one or two hanging in your own house.
I feel like a true depiction for my own home probably wouldn’t sell so well. “I don’t know what to do!” Yet, so many times in my life I have found myself crying out to the Lord just those words, “I don’t know what to do!” The varied circumstances ushering me to that desperation knew no boundaries: another negative pregnancy test, empty cupboards accompanying an empty bank account, a sudden or arduous loss of a loved one, the anguish of parenting in tough times, trust broken relationships replaced by betrayal, a decision hanging in the balance-even of obedience to the Lord, personal giants portending all common sense, and too many others to even think about, each left me desperate for answers I couldn’t see through the pain, ones I couldn’t grasp through my weakness.
But God. God has given us a sign like those pretty ones in the stores, even more beautiful, and so much more helpful. His words are truth and life.
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee,
but to do justly and love mercy and to walk humbly with they God? Micah 6:8
In the pains of not good, God gives us the message of good. What is good? What does He require of us? Do justly. When those times come that seem to strangle us, we have a decision to make: do justly. In other words, make our decisions based on God’s truth of Him in our lives instead of what our lives look like in our own eyes. Choose wisely, choose to respond to trouble based in the knowledge of the attributes of God. He hears us, He loves us, He is good, He is love, He is kind, He is mercy. He is for us. What is good? To love mercy. When we can’t love the harshness of life, we can love mercy, goodness, kindness, faithfulness. We can love God. As we choose to respond to life’s hardships looking into the face of God, knowing, trusting and living out who He is in us, we then walk with Him. When we see His patience, love and peace in our pain, how can we not then be humbled as He overtakes our fears and hurts and lifts us? Humbly walk with the Lord. I don’t know if there’s any other way than to walk humbly with the Lord, but I do know it is good.
