2 posts tagged “life”

Recently, I was in Alaska, visiting my lovely girlfriend, and we were on a walk.  It started at about 11:30pm, and ended at 1:30 am, and so, needless to say, it was quite a long walk.  The thing was, it didn't really have a destination.  It was just to spend time together, away from people and with each other.  Now, I don't know if I inherited this from my dad, or just learned it from him, or picked it up on my own, but I am very results oriented, and destination centered.  And so I start walking faster.  Just out of instinct I guess.  And my girlfriend, more of the journey girl, asked me to slow down.  And so the goal of the walk, at least partly, for me was to learn how to walk slower.  I had to intentionally slow down.

I began meditating on why I walk so fast, and I thought about how I walk fast in life.  I look 20 years down the line, leaving the present behind a lot.  I have a plan for everything.  Not that it isn't bad.  But looking down the line in my relationship, and projecting SO much in the future, that sometimes I lose some of the present.

We live in a results oriented society, where the message is go go go.  But God speaks directly from heaven: BE STILL, AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD. (Psalm 46:10)  And so I need to learn how to walk...slowly.

This last week, I took a chance.  I won't go into details, because for this meditation it is not important.  The point is that right before I took a chance, I was meditating on Job, because my Bible and Lit class had read the first 14 chapters of that tough book.  I noticed that the characters kept referring to God as Almighty, in the Hebrew, El-Shaddai.  It was very interesting.  Actually, God is referred to as El-Shaddai thirty-one times in the Book of Job.  The book where God is seen as the most out of control, Job cries out to the Almighty.  That is amazing.  I used to be scared of the sovereignty of God.  But Job had it right.  It is a comfort.  Because God is in control.  Somehow, in this crazy world, God's hand presses forward with his purpose.  He rules as Sovereign, King of kings and Lord of lords.  It is amazing.
The use of El-Shaddai is not just in Job.  Naomi, when returning to Israel after her life fell apart in Moab, says, "El-Shaddai has made my life bitter."  (Ruth 1:20)  Naomi knows that God is all powerful.  That he is mighty to save.
And so let us dwell in the house of the Lord, and let us walk in the vineyard of El-Shaddai.  (Isaiah 5:7)

Let us fall at His feet.  Because he will cover us under his wing, and we will be called children of the Most High.  Blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.  Amen.  So help us.  Amen.