God's Protective Love?
"God’s love will never take me where God’s love cannot protect me."
I read this early in the morning and have thought about it most of the day.
I want it to be true.
I think we all do.
Do you believe it?
As a Chaplain, I serve cancer patients at the hospital. Some patients have been told that the illness is terminal and others are waiting for the results of tests.
Each group is in a place of waiting.
Many wonder if they are beyond the scope of God’s protective love.
Maybe you have wondered if you are beyond the scope of God's protective love.
Waiting can be a scary space for the patient, the family, and friends. I have been given the honor to wait in this space with many of these people. Sometimes I am invited to walk the journey with the patient and family.This can be a very sacred and holy place where folks encounter or awaken to a God whose love is present and real. Many begin to believe that God’s love will never take them where God’s love cannot protect them. Often this is the beginning of their healing—not always their cure—but their healing.
One thing I have learned from my patients is that we are all on a journey and that our journey often takes us places we’d never imagine or predict. I see God holding folks daily in his protective love.
Do I trust that God’s love will never take me to places on my journey that God’s love cannot protect me?
Even in the midst of severe suffering I see folks who are testimonies that God is with them and never leaves them. In thier weakness, they give me strength and hope. I think it is God within them.
In the realm of their illness, God’s healing love protects them and God truly never allows these folks to go where His love cannot protect them.
This is their hope.
This is my hope.
I am reminded of Jesus’ words to his disciples about the "Counselor" or the Holy Spirit, "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you."
My patients remind me thatGod does not leave us alone on our journey through life.
God comes to us,
takes our hands
and holds us in his protective love.
6 Comments:
God is always there, we need to open the door and let him in. He will be with us in our trials. That does not mean he will relieve us of our trials, but he will be there with us as we travel down the path back to him. Why should we expect to be cured just because we believe in God. I think we must remember that he suffered for all our sins while he was hanging on the cross. We will not suffer more than him.
I believe that God is with us along our journey as long as we let him in. Thanks for the post.
I struggle with this more than just about any question of faith, Rick. In many cases, it comes down to what I believe God's protective love should look like, versus how it appears.
I don't think that folks in the SuperDome would have chosen a 40,000-seat open sewer as God's provision from the storm and flooding. In fact, I'm sure that almost every person who has had to flee from storms over the last six weeks would say their stories were closer to Job (or perhaps Elijah fleeing Jezebel). Yet even in those passages in the Bible, God provided - though certainly not to the specifications of the person involved!
Recently, I've felt like I've been becalmed - the wind literally taken out of my sails. And I've heard people in times of crisis feel the same way - of just being stuck, or unable to navigate out of their personal Sargasso Sea.
You, of course, are one of the folks who have been a fairly constant lighthouse when I find myself in these places. I'm sure there is a reason for the waiting - and the doubts - and the questioning.
And I know - intellectually, at least - that waiting is not fatal, and that even my death will not be final. I'm much less scared of death than I used to be...because I know it's just the doorway into the next room.
So often, I have to remind myself that God never leaves me - but I, through my own selfishness and self-will, leave God on a terrifyingly regular basis. I know better - but I still insist on going my own way, at least for a while.
I'm reminded of a song lyric by Wayne Watson that has stuck with me almost from the first month of my return to faith:
Out in the corridors
we pray for life
A mother for her baby
a husband for his wife
Sometimes the good die young
It's sad but true
But while we pray for one more heartbeat
The real comfort is in You
You know, pain has little mercy
And suff'ring's no respecter of age
Of rank or position
I know that every prayer gets answered
But the hardest one to pray
is slow to come -
"Oh, Lord, not mine,
But your will be done...
Home free - eventually -
At the ultimate healing,
We will be home free.
Thanks for sweeping some of the cobwebs out, brother. You continue to be a blessing in my life.
not much to say, except thanks for sharing this.. once again, you've opened my eyes to more truth.
I do believe this. I think my faith, my ability to trust and even my sense of peace is greatest when life deals the hardest blows. It's the in between times that I sometimes experiecne doubt and fear about God's love. Maybe because at those moments I don't cling to him as if every fiber of my being depended on him. Hmmm, thanks for getting me thinking this morning!
And hugs for the kind words you left on my blogs (yes I have two, just call me bi-personality! I've tried to combine them but it just never worked out)
the comments here are so good, so honest and a real reflection of your walk with Jesus and your struggles along the way.
Rick you do good to ask questios and give people space to articulate some of what they are going though.
I thank God for this site and bless you in His name.
Ps haven't heard that song
but the lyrics are fab Steve.
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