Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Mountains Moved

Wow. Another semester has already come and gone. Guess it’s true that the time flies when you’re having fun! Or something like that… :0)

I am truly amazed at what the Lord has done in my life in the past several months. I am immeasurably blessed. This semester—a hurricane swept us off of our feet for a few days, America elected its first ever black president, my grandmother had a stroke, it snowed in Houston in December, and, well, a lot of other boring, personal landmarks that I won’t tire you with. So much of it seems so mundane, so normal, but at a closer glance it is far from ordinary.

One morning early in the semester I found myself running on the treadmill watching the sun rise. I was jamming out to the newer Chris Tomlin CD, and I sensed the Lord saying to me, “Better things are yet to come, better things are still to be done….” I sensed Him so clearly saying that though my own fears and failures seemed like mountains, He is in the business of mountain-moving. All things are possible. I knew He was up to something.

God has not in the least bit failed me on His better things promise. He has done immeasurably more than all I could have asked or even imagined. I would like to say that it has been the beautiful way I would have imagined it—you know, beautiful like the sunrise that morning. God would move some of the mountains of fears and failures in my life and others He blew up with dynamite or ripped out of my hands piece by piece. Yeah, that wasn’t a beautiful thing. Painful, unbearably painful at times. But His promise still rang through—BETTER things. I clung so long and hard to what I saw as good, and God said, “No ma’am. No more. Better.”

I love how King David put it, “Where can I go from Your presence? If I go up to the Heavens You are there. If I make my bed in the depths You are there. Even if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me fast.”

I sure can relate. I have lived on the mountain-top with God at times. I have been that “good ‘lil Christian girl” and, well, I have been the converse as well. I have made my bed in the depths. But not for one second has God forsaken me. Not for one second has He said, “Okay, I am done with you, fool.” He has taken me with His right hand as said, “My beloved, you are mine.”

And that, my friend, is the story of redemption—of mountains moved.

Praise God for all He’s done and all He’s yet to do.