In These Days...

“‘The Lord has done this for me,’ she said.  ‘In these days he has shown his favor and taken away…’” Luke 1:25.

She looked into the mirror and wondered where her youth had gone…wisps of gray hair that had fallen around her face…deep wrinkles that framed her eyes…a posture that seemed too heavy to hold upright.  Her name was Elizabeth and her life had been defined by her barrenness.  But everything was about to change as the Lord gave them new hope…a new message…a new direction for their lives.  She could finally draw a line between seasons…‘those days I was barren, but these days I am with child.  Those days I lacked, but these days I have.’ 

But what if the opposite is true in your life today?  What if your story is ‘those days I had, but these days I lack?’ What situation are you praying for God to take away?  Like Elizabeth we all tend to associate favor with receiving.  The flipside of that is when we lack something…our health…our desire…our dream… we tend to associate it with disfavor.  I’m sure like Elizabeth we lie awake at night in our lack and wonder why me?  We look at others who might not be living a Christian life and determine the injustice of it all.  Can’t we all relate to Elizabeth?  She had to watch other women swell with the blessing of pregnancy as she walked out her life.  Walking out our lives is not much different.  What about the woman who lies by her dying husband watching the perfect health of other couples?  What about the man who will never experience his dream because of a family obligation he must fulfill?  What about those parents who raised their child in church but are witnessing the destructive path they are taking, while watching unchurched children prosper.  How can we encourage the mother who lost her child and watches the neglect of other mothers with their children?  It can be dizzying when trying to reconcile favor and disfavor…the have’s and the have not’s. 

We will live in a constant state of chaos if we try to reason it all out.  We must apply God’s truth to both ‘these days and those days.’  These truths must be anchored in all seasons and circumstances so that our faith will carry us through our days.  These beautiful truths are that God loves us with such relentless love that He will only give us His best at the best time.  These awesome truths include that whatever we face our Father will never turn His back and walk away.  These truths are steeped with divine intention and sovereign wisdom over the long view of our earthly lives.   We must hold tight to the faith we have in Jesus and know that one beautiful day…a day where our feet hit the pavement of heaven…we will never lack again.  We will stand shoulder to shoulder with Christ, standing in the presence of our Father who did everything in His power to navigate us home.

‘The Lord has done this for us.’