When You Feel Like God Messed Up Your Story

Every now and then (or maybe always and we don’t perceive it), the Lord will let you experience Him in a way that’s like a poem. You will understand at a very literal, basic level initially. Then, as you mull that memory around in your mind, you will begin to understand at a deeper level. moving from mind to soul. Time will go on and you will find yourself in awe at the deeper revelation of His character and His ways and that has no other place to go but deep into your spirit, your very being.

You have heard it said that we are God’s workmanship in Christ Jesus?

The word “workmanship” is translated from “poema.” That’s where we get our word for poem. We are God’s poetry.

You are one of God’s very best poems.

As the Lord crafts you— every word, stanza, connotation, capitalization, punctuation, or any lack thereof— He chooses carefully.

Lack thereof.

This is where I struggle.

I see the perfect way to end God’s sentence and then… He omits the punctuation mark. Or worse, He goes silent. Dramatic pauses are always intentional, but when the poem of my actual life is hung in that silence, sometimes I’d rather be hung. (Ok. Forgive me for being oh so severely dramatic there. But can I at least get some props for that play on words? Play. Oh! The puns keep coming! Forgive me. I’m done now.)

I struggle because I see the perfect way He could rescue this damsel in distress, and then… He misses His cue. (At least, that’s how I see it sometimes.)

I find myself in lack of some very humanly basic needs. Sleep. Nourishment. And all the benefits these basic needs bring to a person’s mind, soul, spirit, and ability to do dishes. (And the ability to be sweeter and not so darn cranky.)

And yet, the Lord’s Word is and must be true. (I have nothing else to hope in. I’ve tried everything else. And it’s not working.)

So, when I feel in lack, I eat the bread of His Word:

He said I will lack no good thing.

Here’s my choice. I can believe He’s not trustworthy by my situation, OR I can believe that if I’m lacking something, then maybe its not the greatest good for me right now. I’m serious here. There’s no other choice for me than to believe the Lord. So when I feel like crying out to the Lord, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me! And why did you forget the comma! And why didn’t you put a period there, so this run-on sentence could take a rest, so I could just sleep, so I could maybe just have a break; and yet, no period comes to my aide, and my prayers continue, and what I didn’t see coming was that the Lord was editing out all self-reliance and pride, and I can see now how He has kept the rest of a period away from my pages these long years because this is a refiner’s fire, this trial is something I can, will and do rejoice in, because an anointing will come of it that outweighs all the suffering of the run-on and it has taught me to run on, run on nothing but His Spirit… So, you see… The period will only come when He is good and ready because, at the end of the day, He is good. Period. God is good.”

God is good.

I printed off Psalm 84 a while back and taped it in front of my toilet, which I frequent through the wee hours of the night and early day.  Without sleep, I have to rise and shine and give God the glory and face the sun of another day. I rise and feel the lack in every ache and pain and hopeless thought. But the lack has done nothing more than to tether me to the Lord. To compel me daily to desperately pray for God to fill me with His Spirit.

Every morning, we ask God to give us all the strength, energy and wisdom we will need to get through another sun. And daily, He does.

So while He won’t give me the sleep I need, in Jesus I have learned to find my rest.

I will ever praise Him. And when all I can do is groan, I will at least cry out His Name.

Brokenness has taught me how to pray the simplest and most powerful prayer. It goes like this:

“Jesus.”

There is power in the Name of Jesus. Call on Him today and be saved.