God Has Not Forgotten Your Affliction!

Описание: God Has Not Forgotten Your Affliction!



Psalm 44:22-26 “Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake, do not cast us off forever! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?  For we sink down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. Rise up, come to our help. Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.”



The original verse I started with this morning was verse 24. “Why do you forget our affliction and oppression. Yet, when I looked up the verse, all these verses were together, and it reminded me of so many people. There are so many of you who listen to this podcast who have reached out and said this same thing. Maybe not in these exact words, but these are the thoughts going through your head. You are wondering where the Lord is in all of this. You are wondering why He is not answering your questions when you know He can. You are wondering why?



Why the broken dreams?



Why has He not healed you?



Why has he not brought the provisions?



Why does it seem He has not kept His promise to provide for you and to protect you?



Why are your loved ones still hurting?



Why has your protigal son or daughter not come home?



Why again, why now? Why? What is your why that you are wrestling with right now?



What the Lord put on my heart is that He wants us to know that if we are asking why we are not alone. Many times, we can think we aren’t supposed to ask why. We might hear things at church or from other people who say that if you are struggling, you just don’t have enough faith. You might hear that you can’t be mad at God, you just need to work through it on your own. If you are mad at God, you are bad or doing something wrong. You just don’t trust enough. You might hear a bunch of different things. Most of them are not true.



God wants you to know that it is ok to ask why. It is okay not to understand His plan. It is ok to cry out to Him in anger and frustration. I feel He gave me this scripture today to show you that you are not alone. The psalmists cried out to the Lord. They asked Him questions. They expressed their frustration with His timing and with feeling abandoned. Many of the Psalms were written by David. He was blessed beyond measure by God. He knew God, and He knew how much God loved Him. He was never afraid to take His sins back to God and ask for forgiveness. He had a very intimate relationship with God.



David also did not have an easy life. He went from being loved by the king to being hunted by the king, from being king to being pursued by his son, who wanted him dead. If we don’t know David’s whole story, we may think he killed Goliath with a stone and then became a mighty king. There is so much more to David’s story. He had some great years, some awful years, and everything in between. I tell you all of this to show you that you can be beloved and blessed by God and yet still have lots of trouble in your life. Having trouble and suffering do not mean that God doesn’t love you or that He has turned His back on you.



Many of you have been praying some pretty big prayers for a long time, and you feel angry that God is not listening. He wants you to know that He hears every one of your prayers. He is acting even if you can’t see how. Sometimes he is arranging things that you won’t see enter your life for years. Sometimes, He is changing people’s hearts, and that takes time. Sometimes our children have to learn their own lessons, and that takes time. Yes, God could heal you in a minute. Yes, God could change your heart in a minute. God can do all things. Yet that is not always how he chooses to do things, and it is our job to cooperate with God’s plan. I promise you, God knows what He is doing.



He is not placing amazing dreams and desires in your heart to tease you. He is not cruel. He is not showing you amazing things just to take them away from you. Only good comes from God. If He is placing amazing dreams in your heart, it is because He wants you to believe it can happen. He wants you to reach for it. He wants you to see what your future could be. He wants you to know you won’t always have these same limitations. I know it hurts to believe sometimes because we are tired of being disappointed. But hope in the Lord does not disappoint. (Romans 5:5) What if you could take away your timeline and just fully believe that all your prayers will be answered? How would your life be different if, instead of focusing on the when, you just celebrated that it would definitely happen someday? What if you pictured what you would do the day your prayers were answered? What if every time you started to ask why, you changed it and started thanking the Lord for answering your prayers in the most beautiful way?



I think the Lord is talking to me personally for that last part. I am constantly asking Him why he hasn’t restored Bruce’s eyesight yet. Why are my friends Suzanne, Rosa & Danielle still struggling? Why so many I know have not been healed y...