Forward

My morning consisted of a contemplation of Psalm 42, a long drive, and plenty of down time at my job to contemplate its application to my life. David describes his intense thirst for God at the same time revealing his soul is down in the dumps. David feels drawn to God and abandoned by God all at the same time. What is this mysterious faith where we experience the presence and absence of God, often simultaneously?

I think this plays out quite often in each of our lives. It certainly is an experience that I am very familiar with and one I am thankful David owned in his own life. In difficult times, is our first response to seek deliverance? That is often my first "go to" prayer. I believe in deliverance - just not deliverance ministries. Most modern day takes on deliverance offer a rescue plan where no one suffers and that pain is not an option. It truncates the gospel and makes light of the entirety of God's plan of redemption.

On this day I would come to a new place in my understanding of deliverance. In my contemplation I played over this passage of scripture and tried it out on different scenarios of my past two years, seeking to find how God's word could transform my thought process. And as often happens, the Spirit spoke the word "forward" into my spirit as a substitute for deliverance. I began to contemplate the implications of that in the Psalm and other scriptures and I found my mind and soul encouraged. David was not simply asking for deliverance, he had an intense desire to move closer to God. David was asking in the presence of the sin of humanity how do I move forward in the daily presence of God? David acknowledged that the sin present in himself and others can cause the soul to be downcast but there must be a way forward into the presence and peace of God. David recorded in Psalm 23 that the way forward is through the valley of shadow and death. Deliverance? Yes, but David realized there were times his soul needed to be restored, his spirit quieted, and the strength of God to hold him in dark hours.

I began to pray "forward" over my current situation and applied that to my past. God has been delivering me or more exactly moving me forward into his peace all my life. The things I often wanted deliverance from were simply opportunities to move forward in a greater peace and strength than if I had not passed that way. When the disciples entered the boat to cross the sea of Galilee they found themselves in the midst of a storm. They didn't need deliverance they needed a way forward through the storm. Jesus was the way in and through the storm. The disciples needed to experience the storm, the chaos the sea represented, and they needed a Genesis experience where the Spirit hovered over the waters. I need to be, and we all need to be in the chaos of humanity, and at times feel desperate and even desperate for God and find Jesus is the way forward.

I think of Mary and Martha and how desperately they wanted deliverance and healing for Lazarus. They were not looking for a way forward in this sickness, they wanted deliverance. Jesus' plan was to simply delay because he had something greater in mind for Lazarus - resurrection. We want our pain instantly resolved and Jesus is wanting to lead us forward into something much greater.

All through the gospels Jesus does not avoid the Cross, it was God's plan to move all of creation forward into his divine grace and bring ultimate deliverance. I think Jesus' prayer in the garden echos Psalm 42. Jesus was desperate for the presence and fellowship of the Father and yet his soul was deeply troubled. Jesus was not simply asking for deliverance but the way forward. The way forward was death and resurrection.

The way forward may appear to be death or harm or injury but Jesus is our way and with him there is life and resurrection. He has been abandoned once and for all at the cross so that we will never have to be abandoned. What ever we are going through there is a way forward. Our pain and sense of being downcast cannot be because God has forgotten us nor that he does not love us. The Cross is the way forward for us all and it forever is the testimony of God's love for us. If I am downcast then I need to find the way forward in his truth, in his way and in his life.