Death is very painful and always
associated with sorrow because of the finality of the loss/separation. When
something/someone dies, they never return exactly the same. However, death must
occur sometimes, for us to go forward. For example, a seed has to die for it to
produce a harvest. Our flesh has to die for our spirit man to flourish. John the
Baptist, Jesus forerunner, had to decrease and eventually die for Jesus to
flourish. That sounds very sadistic but
it is a truth that we have to live with. Definitely, if some things must
flourish, then we may have to be permanently separated from some others. I
believe there is a purpose to every “death” orchestrated by God because He is a
God of purpose.
Hebrews 10: 9b – “He
takes away the first that He may establish the second.”
In some circumstances, the second
comes on the scene before the first dies but it is unable to be fully
established until the first dies. In other circumstances, the first dies before
the second even appears. We must learn to accept the death of some things and/or
persons. Some relationships may need to die, some businesses, jobs and even the
love of money, with the best intentions, will have to die that we may go
forward and fulfill our purpose.
This sounds morbid but we have to
learn to trust God enough to know that He is doing the best for us at all
times. No wonder we need faith to please Him. How does anyone “handover” their
life completely to a God they don’t trust and have faith in? We need to have a
confident assurance that He knows what He is doing and is able to do it; so
that we are not tempted to “help Him out:” particularly because we hardly ever
have the full picture of what He is doing in our lives.
1 Corinthians 13:
12 “Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we see
everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete,
but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me
completely.”
Life gets stressful when we feel
the need to understand all God does in our lives. Sometimes, we just need to
submit. David fasted, prayed and wept for God to spare the life of his son by Bathsheba;
after all, the child wasn’t an adulterer and hadn’t done anything wrong; David
had also asked God for forgiveness. But the boy died and David did not murmur, complain
nor did he ask for explanations, which couldn’t have been for lack of pain, he must have understood God enough to know
that there was a purpose to it; even though he did not know for certain that
God would give them another son.
Job 1: 21b - 22 “the
Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away, praise the name of the
Lord! In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God.”
Though it is not easy to deal
with having something removed permanently
from you; like David we have to trust our father to always work out the best
for us. Who would have thought God would give them a son who would eventually
sit on the throne? Why kill that son if they would have another son? I don’t
know. Do you? We can only guess. Like the hymn writer says “God works in
mysterious ways.”
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