Revelation 14:11-13
If you worship the beast and the
idol and accept the mark of its name, you will be tortured day and
night. The smoke from your torture will go up forever and ever, and you
will never be able to rest.
God’s people must learn to endure. They must also obey his commands and have faith in Jesus.
Then
I heard a voice from heaven say, “Put this in writing. From now on, the
Lord will bless everyone who has faith in him when they die.”
The Spirit answered, “Yes, they will rest from their hard work, and they will be rewarded for what they have done.”
Scripture taken from the Contemporary English Version © 1991,1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, Used by Permission.
Our
little great-niece Kelsey was sporting a “Hello Kitty” temporary tattoo
on her tummy a few days ago. Her mom let her wear it underneath her
blouse where it wasn’t readily visible…but Kelsey was happy to show it
to anyone and everyone. Her dad teased her and said, “I think we need
to do some scrubbing and get that off of there!” Kelsey giggled. In a
few days, all traces of the harmless little cartoon kitty will be
history.
My cousins Janette and Natalie never steer me wrong. When they recommend a book, I listen. So when Janette told me about One Thousand Gifts* by
Ann Voskamp, I made a mental note to check it out…and now I can’t stop
reading! I have posted a link to a website where you can read the first
chapter. Please keep reading…this first chapter is a tough one!
Voskamp talks about the death of her toddler sister, Aimee, when Ann was
a little girl…and what it did to her family – especially her dad. She
says that after her sister’s death, a church bus picked Voskamp up each
Sunday for services…but her parents stopped going to church altogether.
Ann Voskamp says, “Really,
when you bury a child — or when you just simply get up every day and
live life raw — you murmur the question soundlessly. No one hears. Can
there be a good God? A God who graces with good gifts when a crib lies
empty through long nights, and bugs burrow through coffins? Where is
God, really? How can He be good when babies die, and marriages implode,
and dreams blow away, dust in the wind? Where is grace bestowed when
cancer gnaws and loneliness aches and nameless places in us soundlessly
die, break off without reason, erode away. Where hides this joy of the
Lord, this God who fills the earth with good things, and how do I fully
live when life is full of hurt? How do I wake up to joy and grace and
beauty and all that is the fullest life when I must stay numb to losses
and crushed dreams and all that empties me out?”
Thankfully,
many of us have never witnessed a delivery truck running smack over our
precious baby. But other life events have caused us to turn away from
God, all the same.
Voskamp describes the reaction she observed in her own family…”No,
God, we won’t take what You give. No, God, Your plans are a gutted,
bleeding mess and I didn’t sign up for this and You really thought I’d
go for this? No, God, this is ugly and this is a mess and can’t You get
anything right and just haul all this pain out of here and I’ll take it
from here, thanks. And God? Thanks for nothing.” She adds…”I
wake and put the feet to the plank floors, and I believe the Serpent’s
hissing lie, the repeating refrain of his campaign through the ages: God
isn’t good. It’s the cornerstone of his movement. That God withholds
good from His children, that God does not genuinely, fully, love us.”
In
other words, life gets tough, and we “accept the mark” of the devil’s
name…we tattoo His claim on our bellies or forehead and go on with our
lives. In Voskamp’s words, “Our fall was, has always been, and
always will be, that we aren’t satisfied in God and what He gives. We
hunger for something more, something other. If I’m ruthlessly honest, I
may have said yes to God, yes to Christianity, but really, I have lived
the no.”
I can hear you now. “I would NEVER take the mark of the devil! I would never turn my back on God and follow him.” Really?
Let’s be honest. There have been times when God seemed
silent…distant…and our world seemed to be crumbling around us over
SOMETHING…and we were at the very least tempted to say, “That’s it…I’m
done! Trusting God is simply not working for me!” And that’s where
these verses from Revelation hit home. Stick with God…have faith…hang
in there. “He means to fill us with glory again. With glory and grace,” Voskamp writes.
She points out that “…maybe
you don’t want to change the story, because you don’t know what a
different ending holds. There’s a reason I am not writing the story and
God is. He knows how it all works out, where it all leads, what it all
means. I don’t.” The Bible tells us that the “end of the story” is beautiful…glorious…and worth the effort and faith to persevere.
It’s
time to “remove the tattoo”…to scrub our skin and come clean with
God…and to trust that His plans – and the yet-to-be-seen outcomes – are
perfect. Perfect rest from all of our struggles and heartaches
awaits…it really does…if only we will hold on and keep believing in the
promises of God. Voskamp tells us…”To fully live — to live full of grace and joy and all that is beauty eternal. It is possible, wildly.” I honestly believe this…do you?
©2014 Debbie Robus
* http://onethousandgifts.com/
To read the first chapter of One Thousand Gifts, go to http://www.scribd.com/doc/46474858/One-Thousand-Gifts-by-Ann-Voskamp-Excerpt
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