Intro

This is a special day: Happy Mother’s Day ladies.

I heard this quote this week and I thought it was fitting for what I’m going to talk about this morning- the sovereignty of God.

The only way we can understand ourselves is through the light of who God is, and viewing

scriptures as a way to learn about God takes a shift in our perspective.”

Today will not be your typical Mother’s Day sermon. But in light of the last few weeks, I have felt like this was a way that God ministered to me this week and I’m going to share it with you. Because Our life’s victories and trials don’t begin or end on certain days, even special holidays like today.

Pray

When we say that God is Sovereign, He

For royal power belongs to the Lord. He rules all the na5ons. (Psalm 22:28). We like to praise God’s mercy and His grace or His love and compassion in one context, all true, but then talk about God being a “just” God in another as if we are separa5ng His aXributes. This type of separa5on distorts who God is and gives us this one-dimensional view of Him and God is so much more complex.

I mentioned earlier, the last few weeks have been very hard for us, we recently had a litter of chocolate lab babies and many of you have heard us talk about their growth and their antics or seen video and pictures of them. But in the two last weeks, four of them had to be put to sleep. Through no fault of their own and every protection we could think of, they caught parvo. We had them vaccinated and within days they got sick. We prayed every prayer, laid hands, pleaded the Word over them, gave every treatment and antibody possible, but we lost them. I have been sick, mad, frustrated at everything including God. Mostly God, because I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t save them, I came with praise, prayer and expectancy- that’s what the Word says. God knew what was going to happen, why didn’t He just say no and close that door. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing in me that thinks God had anything to do with the sickness, but I believed the all-knowing, all-

“Anytime you come to the scriptures trying to pull something from it to deal with your

current issues, you are asking the Bible to speak to you on your terms.

has the power, wisdom, and authority to do anything

He chooses within His crea5on. In the Bible,

God is

described

as all-powerful and all-knowing

(Psalm 147:5), outside of 5me (Exodus 3:14; Psalm 90:2), and responsible for the crea5on of

everything (Genesis 1:1; John 1:1).

In other words, nothing in the universe occurs without God’s

knowledge; “

powerful God could have just said “no”- this isn’t for you. In the last weeks, I’ve had to wrestle between feeling like God hurt my feelings and knowing that wasn’t possible. I just felt betrayed in this one small thing.

I’m sure you don’t quite understand the depth of the anger or the hurt I had against God over some puppies, but it is more complex than that, let me go back a bit and tell you some of our story so you’ll understand:

In 2012, my 17-year-old daughter developed the early onset of schizophrenia. She was on the cusp of her dreams of college, having her own place, new adventures, as we all do. As the illness progressed, she changed and we’ve walked with her through 11 years now of devastating ePects of mental illness. In those years, we’ve seen the bad and sometimes the really ugly, but we’ve also seen the blessings of God come through and we are waiting in expectancy for God’s promise to us.

One of those blessings came in 2015 when my granddaughter was born, we’ve raised her since she was two days old. I felt like God gave us this huge blessing in the middle of walking through our daughter’s pain. At four years old, she was diagnosed with epilepsy. Which started the multiple doctor’s appointments, diPerent medicines to help her cope, lots of testing. We’ve watched her progress from a one to two seizures a day to 10, 15, as high as 28 a day, whether she’s awake or asleep. But Even in our confusion and hurt, we’ve never had any doubt all of these years that God was with us, and we’ve waited.

This past year has seen several of our family and friends pass away, many our age, and the potential of brain surgery for Belle is near, but in every occasion when we’ve reached for God, He’s reached back and has given us the strength, comfort and peace.

We’re not diEerent from anyone else, challenging, painful seasons happen to everyone even to those in the Bible. There is David, a man after God’s own heart, he was roughly 15 when God chose him as the next King of Israel, but he didn’t see that Kingdom until he was 30. For 15 years he was either serving King Saul, or he was running and hiding to keep from being killed by him. I can’t imagine he thought after being chosen he would spend years running from town to town, hiding in caves with a bunch of rag tag followers while waiting on the Lord to act.

There is the story of Joseph, when he was young, he had a dream from the Lord that his brothers, mother and father would bow down to him. It was 14 years before he would see the fruition of God’s promise. He didn’t know that to get to this promise, he would be sold into slavery, falsely accused of rape, and imprisoned before he would see God’s promise fulfilled. There’s no way he thought his life would look like this; there had to be times when he wondered where was God, why was this happening?

-Sometimes things happen in our lives that don’t make sense. I’ll argue that most of us even know that God will use seasons of discomfort and frustration to produce something good in us. I’m sure we’ve all ques5oned God at one 5me or another.

• Why does God allow painful seasons like these in our lives?
• What is the purpose?
• What was God saying?
• Why can’t I hear Him or Why isn’t He showing up
• Turn to Genesis 25: 19 in your Bible. We’re going to look deeper at the story of Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebekah. It’s a common story, we’ve heard many times of Jacob’s tricks and his wrestle with God:
• In this story the son of Abraham, whose name was Isaac married Rebekah and she became pregnant with twin boys. Now the boys struggled with one another in the womb and the Lord told Rebekah in verse 24:
• When it was time for their birth, Esau was born first and Jacob, the younger, came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel. And Isaac loved Esau best while Rebekah loved Jacob the younger best.
• I’m sure growing up, Jacob knew of the promise God gave to his mother, a promise that God repeats in Genesis 28: 13:
• “

24 “Two nations are in your womb,

and two peoples from within you[a] shall be divided;

the one shall be stronger than the other,

the older shall serve the younger.”

I am the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on

which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Also your descendants

shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and to

the east, to the north and to the south; and in you and in your seed all the

families of the earth shall be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you

wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you

until I have done what I have spoken to you” (Gen. 28:13-15).

Years had passed, and Jacob the wondered how and when the promise would be fulfilled and the frustration of when it would finally take place. When Jacob and Rebekah, his mom, got tired of waiting, they took matters into their own hands to

secure God’s promised blessing for Jacob. First was to trick his brother Esau out of his birthright.

We are at verse 29: (Genesis 25:29)

29 Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he

was exhausted. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew,

for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.[e]) 31 Jacob said,

“Sell me your birthright now.” 32 Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a

birthright to me?” 33 Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him

and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil

stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised

his birthright.

Jacob would also need his father’s blessing to receive what God promised. At this time, Isaac was old and blind and nearing death when he called his son Esau to bring food and upon receiving it, Isaac would bless Esau, but Rebekah overheard it and she sent Jacob in to trick his father and take the blessing by pretending to be Esau.

God had already promised Jacob the blessing and either Jacob believed God forgot, or was going to allow Esau to have it, or he was frustrated with God’s inaction and tired of waiting.

We too can become frustrated at inaction, timing or perceived forgetfulness. Sometimes our frustration plays out in different ways: you act on your own or become indifferent, ignore God, maybe you stay busy, pray harder, serve more faithfully in hopes of getting God’s attention. Or lash out at others, maybe you’re the one whose heart is shattered by prolonged frustration, so it shows up as anger, resentment.

My frustration played out in hurt and anger, I felt let down by God...saving a few puppies was an easy fix (not that I don’t know everything is an easy fix with the almighty God, but at the time my mind wasn’t rationalizing well). I’ve have obediently believed and waited on the Lord for all these years... in this, why did He didn’t hold up his end of the bargain.

I can’t imagine that I am alone. Those of you who have been waiting on God to repair your relationship with your children or family, you’re waiting on God to restore your marriage or praying for God to bring you a spouse. Perhaps, you’ve been praying for years for a child you so desperately long for, maybe the child you have been blessed

with has a severe illness or is no longer here. Maybe it’s a healing that you haven’t see any fruition on.

In God’s sovereignty, we know that he does not intentionally hurt our feelings or do anything with maliciousness, but

I’m sure as you’ve listened to this quote, there are several things that well-meaning people, including myself or maybe another Pastor have said: “this is your season of growth or the Lord is preparing you for something bigger (something I know I’ve said at one point) and when it was repeated back to me, I remember thinking “Then I don’t want it”. Evil and pain isn’t from God, He doesn’t make it happen, evil exists.

Jacob had disappointment and frustration with God. I can’t imagine he thought his life would be continuous waiting and then fleeing for his life to a foreign land. After Jacob tricked his father for the blessing, Esau promised to kill him. Jacob left his home and everything he knew behind. He went to his mother’s family and fell deeply in love with a woman named Rachel, but before he could marry her, he had to work 7 years for her father. Jacob completed the seven years, but Laban tricked him into marrying his other daughter, Leah. Jacob had to work another 7 years to marry the one he loved, Rachel. During those same years, Jacob managed livestock for Laban, his father-in-law, and he prospered which made Laban jealous and when Jacob was ready to leave and take his family to create a home of their own, Laban wouldn’t let him leave. Again, Jacob had to wait for the right opportunity and flee. For two decades, Jacob experienced disappointment after disappointment. God promised a blessing, but nothing was coming out the way Jacob expected.

Let me point something out here that sometimes we miss: interwoven in the trials of David’s, Joseph’s and Jacob’s life, there were so many blessings from God. I don’t have the time to go through them today but go back and read the stories.

I know I felt this two weeks ago when we entered this round of brokenness and disappointment. I spend

C.S Lewis has a quote, “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us;

we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be”.

John 10:10

puts it this way, “The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come to give

life and life more abundantly.”

There are times when our expectations of how we think God should come through

for us don’t come close to what we are experiencing in our lives.

time with God, I trust Him and He’s walked with me through years of expecting and waiting and our faith has grown. God is in every aspect of our lives, we surrendered our lives to him years ago. And When our pups came, we sheltered them and protected them, but they got sick, not all at once... for weeks we went back and forth to the vet...until 4 of them passed in our arms. God had let me down. That’s the only thing I could think. I was standing toe to toe with His sovereignty, and I no longer felt sure about who God was. He wasn’t answering, I had faithfully waited for years, I was tired. I couldn’t see how this was God’s best for me.

I know someone else who couldn’t see God’s best for him, that’s Jacob. Jacob was running for a second time and this time God told him to go home and face Esau, the one who wanted to kill him. Jacob had come to a place in his life where the only thing left to do was run from God or run to God-- and instead of God rushing in to fix it, He invited Jacob to hold on tight and wrestle with Him.

God needed Jacobs full surrender so that he could understand God’s calling. From Jacob’s life we can see that everything that happens to us is under God’s sovereignty for our transformation.

That deep gut-wrenching pain I felt, the betrayal, the willingness to shut God off was because the years of trusting God and waiting had turned into a bartering system: I would wait and be faithful on the big “problems” but God had to fix the “simple” ones and this was one that I thought was simple for Him...... Sounds illogical to hear me say it.

God’s not in the bartering business. He wants all from us. Life hurts, sometimes it doesn’t seem right or just. It’s okay to grieve, to feel “over it”, to be mad at God- He already knows. He is still there with you. And you have a choice, our free will.

I had a choice to make- I wanted God to show up in those weeks and I wasn’t going to move until he did. Last Sunday, I had decided that I wasn’t going to teach today, I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to be on stage anymore, I stopped praying, I stopped my Bible reading and devotionals, I didn’t have anything to say, and I was still waiting on God to say something. From that time scripture kept coming to mind: I will never leave you nor forsake you; I am the Lord your God; I have a purpose and plans for you. God was ministering to me through the Word in my heart. That’s why knowing God’s Word is so important. When you stop communicating and all you can do is feel, He can push His

For those who love God, He arranges all things, matters, and

situations in a sovereign way to work together for good, for their transformation

(Roman 8:28-29).

Word through. The entire week, God has put people in my path to talk about Him and His goodness. The Holy Spirit in me would quicken and before I knew it, my heart was softening and then having to sit down and write this and spend time with the Lord, I know He only has His best for me. He’s healing my heart.

God’s asking us to trust Him when we don’t know what the outcome will be.... sometimes that comes with brokenness.

When it does hurt, and the outcome aren’t what we expect:

• Let God know- be honest, however it looks. He’s not scared of your crying, yelling, complaining or you are being mad at Him; there are plenty of Psalms that tell us exactly how people were feeling.
• Study the Bible- you are not alone and there are plenty of examples in the Bible that point to this, and when you shut yourself off and your emotions and feelings have taken over and it’s all you can do to say two good words; scripture will still be in your heart and God can use it to comfort you.
• Let yourself feel- when you shut down, you’re not feeling at all. Don’t push past the pain or ignore it. Enter a wrestling season with God and hold on. It’s not easy and it’s not fast, but God will do the work. I’d once heard
• from.
• Give it time- sometimes the progress seems small and takes a long time while other times you’ll take a big leap forward; whichever is a step forward.
• Surround yourself with people who love you and love Go- you’ll need people to have faith for you when you don’t and can speak life over your life when you can’t. Don’t isolate, as much as you want to protect yourself. Recognize the enemy uses isolation to keep us in the lies that people don’t understand or care.
• I don’t want to end this with the thought that within a week my grieving has ended. It hasn’t and will take some time, the whole complexity of it. And I know there are many women in this room who may be feeling or have felt the feelings I have described. You are not alone. He made us to help bring life and to carry the burden for those he puts in

when you chose to

 wrestle with God, you chose to bravely face all that you’ve have been running

our lives. God is not aloof nor is he removed from our feelings. He will allow us the grace to walk through our pain and teach us lovingly. Sometimes It’s easy to blame God for the pain in our lives, but remember He comes to bring life and life more abundantly!