As I begin, butterflies swirl around inside (or is that the little life within my womb endlessly tossing and turning). Regardless,I wonder if I can still do this thing called blogging. I am a bundle of nerves hoping I can make sense in the words that make it to the page. Bear with me...
I have been traveling through 1 & 2 Samuel the past few weeks, maybe even months. It is not a new place for me to be, but something new brews within as I read and relate to life. Life... my life as been met head on with the heartache of death. A 13 year battle with cancer in a cousin and the unforeseen death of a 5 year old have left me wondering, "Why life?"
At the funerals, comfort seemed to take on the message: "They are with God now. They are in heaven." But, I wonder, as awesome as it that these two precious people now sit in the very presence of God, why were they given life. Thirteen years fighting for life and five years living as though only the now mattered cause me to question whether I might have believed wrongly for many years. Is heaven really the goal? Are we put here to die and go to heaven? Or, should the question be more appropriately worded, is our time on earth a chance to live and go to heaven?
God has a desire for us to know Him. So why does God leave us here to live for 13 more years after we receive our death sentence? Why give a child life for only a short time? I hear Him gently respond, "It is in the living, the fighting, the struggles, the now that you learn to know Me and are given opportunity to see Me, not the dying."
I've been reading about warrior David's fighting and battles in the books of Samuel. David's fighting and daily living (interaction with family and friends) were not about revenge or trying to establish himself as king. God had promised David he would be king over God's people Israel, but David left that victory in God's hands. His actions (i.e. fighting battles, marrying, having children, creating allies, etc.) were an act of faith that God would do what He said He would do. They are a testimony of his faith. He literally lived Paul's words to Timothy, "Fight the good fight of faith." (1 Timothy 6:12)
We must be like David and my cousin and that sweet child, trusting that God is. But, we need not sit around twiddling our thumbs. We must trust God with our living, our actions, believing with all we do that God will take ultimate victory. "... faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." (James 2:17)
Life... yes, life! God's goal in giving us life is not that we get to heaven. His goal is not achieved in our dying rather our living. His goal is that we use the LIFE He gives us to demonstrate our faith that He has and will do what He says He will do and take the victory. May it be said of us all just as Paul knew it of himself, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." (2 Timothy 4:7)
