What are you clinging to?

(one from the archives) 

“Instead of a river, God often gives us a brook, which may be running today and dried up tomorrow. Why? To teach us not to rest in our blessings, but in the blesser Himself.”  Arthur Pink

How often do you find yourself longing for rivers of blessings and yet all you see are brooks that are dried up or only slightly wet from a trickle of water that slowly winds its way over the dirt and rocks?

I have found myself in past weeks, going back and forth from blessing to burden, burden to blessing and back again. Back and forth, back and forth.

One day, my prayers are answered, and the blessings come and the hope within me rises, and then, not only 24 hours later, down it all comes, and the burdens press in once more. Questions arise and fear wells up inside.

What do you do when it seems that God keeps giving you little glimpses of hope only to seemingly dash them just as you begin to rise from the ashes?

Well, you know what they say about riding a horse. When it bucks you off, you don’t give up, you get right back up there, settle into the saddle, feet in the stirrups and try again.

And so, when God gives and then takes away, you don’t jump off and quit trusting. No. You get right back to where you left off and keep trusting. Keep hoping. Keep believing.

You remind yourself of past victories and the blessings God has sent your way and the good he has done in your life. You remember the times he brought you through the deep waters and the raging storms. You focus on his goodness and what you know of him. You hold to the promises found in his Word. You pray, you wait, and you rest.

God does choose to give us blessings one day, rivers flowing and abounding with water, and he chooses to cause the river to dry up and the soil to cry out for thirst. Why? To cause us to trust him. To draw us closer to him. To teach us not to trust in the blessings only, but in him, the blesser and giver of all good things.

To our human reasoning, it seems counterintuitive. It doesn’t seem to make sense that he would withhold blessing from us, in order for us to love him more. But God, in all his wisdom, sees further than we ever can, and he knows that this is the path to growth.

It’s so easy to cling to the blessings and neglect the giver. When things are easy, the burdens are light, the days are bright and sunshiny, we can fall into the habit of walking in our own strength, content to run things our own way, blissfully unaware of who is giving us the very air we breathe.

But when the darkness falls, we suddenly realise our weakness and how small we really are, and we cry out for help longing for those bright blessing days to return.

God longs for us to cling to him through the day and also through the night. Not just on the hard days, but on those wonderful, carefree days too. He desires our worship and to hear praise on our lips, and words of thankfulness from our mouths. He wants us to be reminded of who he is and his faithfulness.

And so, he sends those dry times. He lets the soil be parched at times. He allows us to go through difficult seasons, longing for us to draw closer to him and cling to him. He knows that it’s at these times we need him most and it’s through the trials he sends that we learn more of his character and we see his love all the more clearly.

It is at these times, we begin searching his word in earnest, longing to read the precious promises of comfort we find there and seeking the rest and peace only he can bring. We find ourselves in prayer more often and longing for his fellowship.

If we only had light, we wouldn’t understand the blessing of a rainbow after a storm. If all we had were easy, happy and carefree days, we wouldn’t know of the power of God and his ability to raise the fallen, strengthen the weary and lift the burdened and overwhelmed. We wouldn’t experience the exhilaration of the sun breaking through the clouds after torrential rain and boisterous thunder.

God knows exactly what we need, and he knows just when we need it. The blessings he sends and the trials he allows in our lives are not just an accident. They are carefully planned and orchestrated by the creator of heaven and earth, the Redeemer of our souls.

Although it may seem that at times, God is far away and silent, turning a deaf ear to our pleas, it is far from the truth. He is always near and always watching and leading and guiding, waiting for us to turn to him. It is not him that has moved, but us.

We are the guilty party. We are the ones who neglect to give honour to the blesser. We are the ones that cling to the blessing and neglect the giver.

Let’s not be guilty of only resting in our blessings. Let us rest during our trials too. Clinging to the one who brings peace and comfort. Let us be like the tree planted by the water that is so rooted in God and so content in his workings, that we don’t fear the drought, we’re not afraid of the heat and the pressures that come, because our faith is in the Lord and we know he will bring beauty from ashes and our leaf will stay green and our fruit will keep bearing, showing to all that God is good and he can be trusted.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.

 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.