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Walking hand in hand

I am musing....

about walking hand in hand.

Our unshakable God is shaking up the world.
He loves us and He wants our attention.

Today we have a big, crazy, confused, beautiful world facing some pretty big stuff.

I know. It has happened before. There have been wars, plagues, famines, floods, nuclear threats, riots, unrest, holocausts, genocides, civil turmoil and economic collapse. And more. We live in a very fallen world.

Yet I have spoken to many Sr. citizens; after all I work in a nursing home. I have also questioned neighbors and elderly friends and family. They all agree. They have never seen anything like this before. The global involvement and ramifications also make it unique.

I feel very blessed in so many ways. Blessed by the beauty of the days in our quiet, peaceful town, precious interactions (though not quite as frequent lately) with dear family and friends, a job that I love (but one that has definitely become more complicated and challenging in some ways), ministry opportunities, a church family with church leaders that have been so focused on keeping Christ at the center of  our lives, times of travel, etc. Yes, so much to be thankful for!

But as I spend time doing real life, there is just a lot of hard. A lot of confusion. A lot of questions.
Once easy decisions are now complicated ones. People's feelings are involved at a strange, new level.

So, in my Bible study today (on Jeremiah), I was able to see a correlation between now and the days of that great prophet. The people, God's people, had turned away from Him. Because of His great love for them, He was warning them through His prophet and vying for their attention via captivity and hardship.

And so it is today. God loves His creation. His Creator heart hurts, and His Father heart aches. He longs to gather new believers into His loving family as well as  to draw His straying children back to His abundant grace and joy.

Our unshakable God is shaking the world.

Are we holding on with both hands for "dear life"?
Or are we throwing our hands up in despair? It seems many are doing just that. They sense that this shaking world is falling apart. And it just may be.

Or are we walking calmly on, with our hand in His. Trusting our Father to lead and provide. Using our other hand to bring others along?

I love thinking about it this way.

I admit to the first response at times. Just hanging on for dear life.... to Jesus. And although this sounds like a good place to be (and it is), it is actually  precipitated by a faith struggle. And thus His precious Holy Spirit pulls me back to His Father heart to strengthen my wavering faith and adjust my perspective. It is a precious time; time well spent. So necessary.  

And then because of those times, we can walk on confidently and joyfully hand in hand with that calm, peaceful, trusting assurance in His goodness and His sovereignty. We are then equipped to reach out to those around us, to take their hand and help bring them along into the presence of Jesus. And as we are walking hand in hand with Jesus, we are in a continual, precious, energizing, peace-instilling communion with Him. 

The words of a beautiful hymn just came to mind...
"Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand"

So as this world gets shaken up, and possibly escalates in intensity....may we all hold on to Jesus, walking confidently and calmly on in great anticipation for what lies ahead. This is not always easy as the day to day realities of life bog us down and those around us speak of disaster and despair. But there-in lies our hope, knowing God holds our hand and will see us through.
 

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