March 19: Of Turbulence

Numbers 28:16-29:40

Luke 3:23-38

Psalm 62:1-12

Proverbs 11:18-19

Sometimes what God does, what God demands, they don't make sense.  Look at what He instructed the Israelites in today's OT reading.  Does it really matter that the bread was made without yeast?  So they had to hurriedly depart during the exodus, and could not wait for the bread to rise - so what?  Why inflict unleavened bread?  Why all the sacrifice, the festivals, the offerings of first fruits and grains, the days we have to stop work - aren't we supposed to be providing for the people we love?  Why all this?

This is still true today.  This week alone, I've had a friend from church in the ER twice for excruciating neck pain, his wife terribly worried; an old friend in Bible study whose adult daughter passed away unexpectedly.  Good people - people who seek God - yet such pain.  Why all this?

Honestly, I don't know.  But the last two weeks of my life have been an example of both the difficult, painful stuff that I didn't like and didn't understand, with all the accompanying frustration and anger - and the subsequent realization there was purpose - He had a purpose for it all along.  

It's when I face turbulence in my life like this, turbulence He has decided is right for me, that I want to learn what the psalmist wrote in today's reading: I want my soul to find its rest in God - not in my circumstances.  I want to remember my salvation comes from Him.  

Father, life can be really tough sometimes.  When it gets that way, please remind us that You are in control, and nothing happens that You will not have permitted out of Your perfect love for us.  And then, through our circumstances and despite them, give us Your peace.