Word: Turning A Broken Story Into God’s Glory
As we read the stories in Scripture, the Lord wants us to understand that faithful, devout, godly people experienced struggles, temptations, failings, and breakings, especially prior to great victories. These were people ‘subject to passions just like us’ (James 5:17). However, Scripture never ends at reiterating or repeating His people’s failures. The central theme of these stories is their resilient walk of faith. Never once has the Bible elevated these women and men into a sphere of utopia or depicted them as ‘divine beings’. The Bible is raw and truthful in its description of their state. Thus, we can see ourselves in them. We recognize their conditions, because it’s just like ours, enabling us to laugh with them, cry with them, be mad at them, question them, rejoice with them, and finally take example from their acts of faith.
Scripture informs us that in this world we will have trouble (John 16:33). There is nothing delightful about any type of pain, especially when it affects the innocent and guiltless. On-the-other-hand, there are times when some struggles are caused by our own misdemeanours, our own ignorance, our own naivety, vulnerability, or plain lack of wisdom and misconduct. When we fail to make wise choices, it has the capacity to impact not just us, but our entire family line. There is a story in 2 Kings 4:1-7 that tell us about a widow and her two sons who found themselves in this very situation. Scholars speculate that this woman’s husband may have been involved in some unwise financial transactions, business negligence, or poor entrepreneurship. How he passed away, we do not know, but she was now left in debt, and the creditors where about to take her sons as slaves. This is a painful incident indeed, bearing in mind that this was a ‘godly’ family.
Yet, the story is not an unusual one. How many Christians have been caught off-guard by poor financial transactions, or scammers offering a quick fix to our monetary distress. There are many godly people who are stuck in a cycle of debt, unable to breakthrough into economic freedom. Well, this is a ‘Now’ Word for someone who is crying out to God for a ‘Now’ answer. When God speaks like this, He is preparing us for an economic revolution. I do not know who I am talking to right now, but God wants me to tell you that, ‘It will be well’. You may not own your own home; you may not be in line for a promotion; you may not even have a job as yet; your family or children may not be ‘the first’, ‘the head’ or ‘above and not beneath’ according to Deut. 28:13. Additionally, you may not be in a country that you can call home as yet, but the Lord still declares: ‘It will be well’. The Lord is aware that you have been waiting patiently for your family to be restored, He listened as you cried out to Him to break every crippling debt, He held you whilst you fasted for your bodies to be made whole. Yet be assured of this one thing, He is not a God to lie, and when He says, ‘I know the plans that I have for you, plans to prosper you, plans to give you a hope and a future’ (Jer. 29:11), He wants you to trust Him, for He will cause you to become fruitful in the land of your affliction (Genesis 41:52).
PROPHETIC PRAYER.
– Father, thank You for loving us: People with flaws; people who make mistakes; people with imperfections; people who slip; stumble, and fall: yet You still love us.
– Father, I believe that You are touched by the feelings of my infirmities, whether they were caused accidentally, spiritually, or intentionally, the bottom line is: ‘You are Touched’.
– Father, thank You for dealing with my flawed past record; for changing the narrative of my foolish life’s choices; for covering my family’s history; and healing my present reality.
– Thank You for not eliminating me. Thank You for seeing me, hearing me, calling me, and choosing me to be Your ‘Masterpiece. Father, Your Word takes precedent. Amen & Amen.