This I Know Study – Week 5

This I Know – Week 5

Regardless, You are Good (pages 160-204)

Psalm 46:1-11, Habakkuk 3:17-19, James 1:2-4, Revelation 21:1-5

Continue the story of our unknown circumstances with a known God. Why can’t we just have happy endings?! Colin Smith from Unlocking the Bible, shares in his sermon, Rescued Forever, that there are 7 ways to suffer and we will go through 4 of them for sure from Romans 8:35. We need to learn to measure God’s love for us by what he has done not by our feelings or circumstances. What I feel is reality – that is what the world tells us. We know this isn’t what God says. Suffering takes on many forms – disappointment of missed expectations or loss of a child. There is a range from devastating to disappointing.

What has been a fear, that became a reality, where you’ve had to trust God?

Lauren – As a missionary, my expectation was I would be in that job forever and my fear was that God would call me away. Well, He did call me away. God had me walk away and in that God grew my love for the local church. This reality didn’t become a bad thing but a great thing. It was my perspective that made it seem bad.

Breanne – Regardless reminds us that we aren’t in the story now. We are telling stories from the past. In the moment, we didn’t have the experience on the other side of fear but rather didn’t know what was going to happen. It’s easy to speak of these experiences without voicing the fear we felt because today we know how it worked out.

At my daughter’s 20 week ultrasound, I heard terrible news of so many things wrong with her in utero. Hole in her heart, cyst on her spleen, digestive system issues, torso too small, and other markers for genetic diseases and a less than ideal umbilical chord. I remember being so overwhelmed in this moment and the man delivering the news was struggling to give me any hope but I heard God say, “this man delivering this news doesn’t know me. I am with you and I see you.” My fear was that something would happen in my pregnancy that I couldn’t control or fix and that is exactly what happened. Linda Freesmeyer later called her a miracle child which I hadn’t ever considered before. So many complications came about but she has also overcome so much.

Lisa – A “lighter” aspect to this question for me is not meeting people’s expectations. I fear that I won’t meet these expectations and often I don’t. But I can’t let this fear stop me from living life and have relationships. Trusting God in these moments, that I might not meet these expectations but I need to follow God and not be paralyzed by the fear. Keep in mind in the realm of suffering and fear that we acknowledge it for what it is – it its small or big – it isn’t competition so in our small group we want to have space for people to share big or small the struggle going on.

Julie – Megan wanting to stay in Anchorage, AK and that went from a trip to living her life. It is continuing to be suffering I walk through every day. She is far away and with Covid we haven’t seen her or touched their family in a year in a half. I have to trust God with that all the time.

A lot of times we find ourselves in situations where this is a fear, this is the reality, and how do I trust God going forward. I was looking out the window at the pool cover. On one side of the pool is the bird feeder and the other is the squirrel attempting to cross the deep snow to get to it. The squirrel realizes he doesn’t have to go through the scary deep snow to get to the bird feeder, so he came back around and went the other way to get the seed. Just like we have to choose to trust God, the squirrel had to make a decision to continue for the seeds and could go a different way to accomplish the same goal.

Psalm 46 – page 175 lists a number of verbs. I love all these action verbs. To be present is to be recognized. We need to cease striving and let it go, we need to know by experience. Then we can see the peace.

God is always present in our pain. How have you seen that?

Breanne – when I take the opportunity to cease striving or be still, the circumstances around me don’t change but my heart changes to experience Him in that. It has taken time to grow this awareness. Show me what you are up to. My eyes shift to a different perspective to see Him in my circumstances.

So What?

1. Cease striving….let it go…experientially know He is God, and He is in control! Make a list of what God has done for you.
2. Intentionally recognize God! Choose to believe God is Good! How are you fixing your eyes on Him? Be in the word.
3. Choose joy, that inner peace from God, even in the midst of the unknown He is our stronghold.

And this is what we know….

God is good! God is our stronghold! He is with us! God is in control!