What happened to 'normal'?
Kathleen Maxwell-Rambie
copyright 2019
Kerrville Daily Times
copyright 2019
Kerrville Daily Times
c
My life has been anything but normal for quite some time now. I have discovered that walking with God is anything but boring and normal.
God marches to the beat of his own drum, and that melody is found in scripture. Normal for him is to pour out goodness on the biggest sinner. His normal is to always love, no matter what. He is good and rich in love. This lets me know I need to adjust my thinking and trade it for God’s normal.
God does not ration his goodness. He is not reluctant to bless you. Over and over again in scripture, it states that He is good, and his goodness will follow us all the days of my life. For me, that means I need to look for His goodness.
Psalms 118:29 says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good and his loves endures forever.” ( KJV)
Sometimes those words are hard to swallow as we try to make sense of life’s difficulties and disappointments.
What I have found is, the jewels are found in the waiting and persevering. In the middle of life’s turmoil, we must keep looking for the silver lining and trust God.
I find that too many people quit trusting and quit looking for how God is going to work things together for their good. I know I have struggled with this personally in several situations and have had to discipline myself to hang in there.
One of my favorite scriptures is Romans 2:4, which says, “Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” (NIV)
Think about that for a minute. In our society, when someone does something wrong and needs to repent of their wrong, we normally do not think of how good we can be to them.
God says, let’s pour out more goodness and let that convict them, leading them to wanting to repent.
I will have to say, I have not always felt like being good and kind to those who have done wrong, especially to me. If I live in those feelings, they can lead me on a wrong path.
God’s ways are so much higher than mine and his work. My ways do not always work, and therefore, I must submit to his ways.
It’s normal for God to pour out kindness, so I guess we need to learn a new normal.
What do we do when someone takes advantage of us? Normal to God is found in Romans 12: 19-21: “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay’ says the Lord.” (NIV)
We frequently have seen in our society evil ways and evil things invading our nation’s families, politics, businesses and even churches. Evil is around us. What if that is because we believe God is on a budget, and we keep His goodness for ourselves instead of giving it away? God pours out his goodness on us all the time. I believe we often just don’t realize it. We feel that God is reluctant to bless us, and that is just not true.
What if we became a community that poured out our financial resources, our time, our energy to help those that have broken the law, have unkept neighborhoods, are irresponsible and don’t know God?
Normal in our society is to criticize and judge those who have messed up in life. I know, because I have been guilty of judgement and have had to repent. I believe we are called to live above the norm and bless and bless again those who struggle in life. We really are not called to live a normal life when we walk with God.
There was a time in my life when I really felt misunderstood by someone. They totally misinterpreted my actions and words. It hurt my heart that their communication was harsh, judgmental and that they withdrew their love and support in a time I needed it the most.
My challenge was “How am I going to respond?” Withdraw myself? Continue being kind and walk in love?
Love is a choice, so is kindness and forgiveness.
I think we have a world around us that is longing to see God as he really is. He is good, He is for us, He is with us, and therefore, we can be full of joy, peace, kindness and His goodness.
What if God wants to use you and me to reveal his mercy and love to another?
Will you join me in letting God mold you and shape you? Will you be the one to pour out a kind word or goodness to someone who has not valued you or who has dishonored you?
All of mankind is waiting for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed. You could be the next one God wants to use!
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