DEVOTION: Week of March 15

I imagine it was excruciating, the wait between appointment and assignment. A shepherd boy, brought in from the fields to be told by the prophet of God he would be king. Oil running down his head and into his eyes. The sheer exhilaration of being chosen—the youngest one, the afterthought, the one not even mentioned by his father by name—pointed out over all his brothers, chosen by God himself. 

And then the waiting. Ten to fifteen years of running and hiding and crawling. Questioning and begging and asking.

“God, I thought you said…”

“What about what you promised me?”

“Did I mess up? Have I sinned? Did I do something wrong and you’ve taken what you said back?”

“God, it seems like you walked off and left us! Why have you turned against us? You have been angry with us. O Lord, we plead, come back and help us as a father. The earth quivers and quakes before you, splitting open and breaking apart. Now come and heal it, for it is shaken to its depths.” (Psalm 60:1-2)

Maybe you can relate.

Maybe you’ve been waiting to be a mother. Or a wife. Maybe you’ve been waiting for a breakthrough in your finances. Or your body. Maybe you’ve been holding a dream near to your heart that steals your breath and leaks tears if you pause to think about it for too long. Maybe you’ve been waiting ten years, fifteen years, even more, for that promise of God to come to pass. 

Maybe, like David, you’ve spent a decade or more holding God’s appointment in one hand and adversity in the other, wondering how on earth to reconcile the two.

“God, listen to my prayer! Don’t hide your heart from me when I cry out to you! Come close to me and give me your answer. Here I am, moaning and restless.” (Psalm 55:1-2a, The Passion Translation)

Perhaps we’re drawn to read and re-read the psalms because David’s raw emotion and transparency hits us in our feels. He knows what it’s like to crawl, to wonder and to question. To explode in anguish and be heartsick about feeling forsaken. Of all our biblical heroes, his story feels the most human, his emotions the most normal. Perhaps God put all his writing smack dab in the center of the Bible so we’d know we have company when we come face-to-face with our own Crawling season. So we’d grab our Bible and let it flop open right in the middle, and there would be an example of how to allow ourselves to feel what we’re feeling, yet never pull away from God in the middle of it.

“So here’s what I’ve learned through it all: Leave all your cares and anxieties at the feet of the Lord, and measureless grace will strengthen you.” (Psalm 55:22, The Passion Translation)

David was chosen as king because God knew his heart. All that time in the fields tending sheep had given David time to contemplate and reflect, rejoice in the glory of God, and grow in wisdom. The raw material was there to be king. But the years of crawling was a time of refinement. Testing to see if David worshipped the promise more than the Promise Giver. Testing to see how strong his foundation of faith really was. 

The thing is, though, is that God already knew how David’s time of crawling would go. He already knew how David would again and again pour out his heart and then tell his own soul to rejoice. He knew how David would cry out in desperation and fear, then turn his problems into praise. I think for most of us, the crawling phase isn’t to prove to God what we’re made of…it’s to prove to ourselves. So we know when all is shaken and crumbled down around us, we realize we really do believe what we say we believe. 

God was more concerned with David’s character than his calling, and He needed David to be more concerned about that, too.

Those of us who have crawled through despair and have lived to tell can attest to this. We who’ve suffered miscarriages and misfortunes, divorces and diagnoses, bankruptcies and betrayals…we can share in ever-detailed technicolor how we never knew how much faith we really had. We didn’t know that our love of God would overwhelm our disappointment in Him. When all was said and done, no one was more surprised than us that He still won our hearts again and again; even if those hearts were left shattered in fragments all over the floor where we kneeled in desperate prayer day after day after day.

“I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born.” (Isaiah 66:9)

In the Birthing phase we learned our interpretation of God’s word has to die so we can accept God’s definition of it. But in the Crawling phase, we have to work incredibly hard to not let our faith die along with our interpretations. We have to trust that when all seems lost, God is still at work and remind our souls to bless the Lord.

“Friends, when life gets really difficult, don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job.Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner.” (1 Peter 4:12-13, The Message)

And one day, in God’s way and God’s timing, the crawling will come to an end and we’ll take refuge in the cocoon.

QUESTIONS FOR THIS WEEK:

MONDAY

The beauty of the book of Psalms is it’s filled with emotions and sentiments that echo our own. David cries out to God in desperation time after time from a depth of anguish in his heart. He wonders if God is watching. He tattles on his enemies. He defends himself against accusations and begs for intervention. He has felt every single thing we feel today; the difference is, he took all his feelings straight to the source, where we take all our feelings straight to everyone else. Of course we should have people who can help us bear our burdens, but we can’t neglect first taking every single thing we feel and experience first to the Lord. What are you wrestling with today, that you’ve avoided sharing with God? Maybe your frustration, anger or disappointment with Him has prevented you from being vulnerable and laying it down. Write out your deepest fears about why you have avoided sharing with Him, and being to slowly release it to Him.

“I’m leaving you well and whole. That’s my parting gift to you. Peace. I don’t leave you the way you’re used to being left—feeling abandoned, bereft. So don’t be upset. Don’t be distraught.” (John 14:27, The Message)

TUESDAY

We have more than just David as someone to relate to — the entirety of the Bible is filled with God-lovers who handled their adversity and crawling in ways we can learn from. Ruth, for example, lost a husband, a father-in-law, and a hometown, yet continued to choose mindset over matter. She was devoted to a God she was just beginning to learn about, and trusted Him as she crawled through the desert with Naomi in search of a somewhat better life. Abraham walked his son up a mountain with the intent to sacrifice him, trembling and teetering along the way, yet believing with all His might the Lord would show up and intervene. The woman with the issue of blood suffered her entire life, spending every last penny on medical intervention to no avail, yet knew all hope was not lost, she only needed to touch the hem of Jesus’s garment to be healed. Even in the midst of whatever adversity you’re facing right now today, there is a story of hope for you. Read the word of God and find a real-life example of someone you can learn from, instilling hope into your soul.

“For we have the living Word of God, which is full of energy, like a two-mouthed sword. It will even penetrate to the very core of our being where soul and spirit, bone and marrow meet! It interprets and reveals the true thoughts and secret motives of our hearts.” (Hebrews 4:12, The Passion Translation)

WEDNESDAY

Think back to when you survived a crawling season. Were you surprised by the certainty of your own faith, or did it leave it shaken? Did you expect to want to distrust God and turn your back on Him? How did your faith diminish or grow? If you walked through the fire and came out stronger, praise God for that discovery and continue to grow your relationship with Him. If you walked through the fire and are still barely breathing, but want to trust Him, be honest about that tension and struggle, admitting you want to believe, but asking for Him to help you with your unbelief.

“Upon hearing this, the apostles said to Jesus, “Lord, you must increase our measure of faith!” Jesus responded, ‘If you have even the smallest measure of faith, it would be powerful enough to say to this large tree, ‘My faith will pull you up by the roots and throw you into the sea,’ and it will respond to your faith and obey you.’” (Luke 17:5-6, The Passion Translation)

THURSDAY

David’s greatest gift was his ability to turn his problems into praise. He poured out his anguish and pain to God, very honestly, vividly and in precise detail, but always ended with a “Yet will I praise you” vibe. If you’re walking through a crawling season, emulate David today. Write your own psalm in the structure of David’s. Pour out your pain, your frustration, your desperation, then end with your “yet.” Examples to reference are Psalms 54, 55, 59.

“Lord, I will offer myself freely, and everything I am I give to you. I will worship and praise your name, O Lord, for it is precious to me.” (Psalm 54:6, The Passion Translation)

FRIDAY

Let’s end the week reflecting on how much God has transformed you in your life already. Think back to past cycles of transformation, and how each phase led you to this moment today. Acknowledge your growth, no matter how small it seems. Maybe you have better control over anger than you used to. Maybe you don’t find esteem and worth in the eyes of others. Maybe you feel more confidence to use your voice in an uplifting toward others; or even find yourself feeling strong enough to speak in a challenging way when necessary to speak up for yourself. We’ve all lived through multiple cycles of transformation in life already, and being able to name them and see where you’ve grown will help as you navigate future cycles.

“Now all of us, with our faces unveiled, reflect the glory of the Lord as if we are mirrors; and so we are being transformed, metamorphosed, into His same image from one radiance of glory to another, just as the Spirit of the Lord accomplishes it.” (2 Corinthians 3:18, The Voice)

WANT TO HEAR MORE?

Go back and listen to one of our earlier podcasts on the Crawling phase of transformation, from the series Be Transformed and Fly.