12-21-2015

Good Morning All!!     

          Genesis 21:19; “Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.”

   “If it would have been a snake, it would have bit you.”  I bet I heard that phrase a couple of dozen times a day when I was growing up.  I think I drove my mother to exasperation.  “Mom, did you see my belt?”  “Mom, do you know where my hat is?”  “Mom, did you take my gloves?”  Then she would ask, “Where did you have it last?”  “It didn’t grow legs and walk away.”  Then she would find whatever it was that I was looking for and pick it up and look at me and say those dreaded words, “If it would have been a snake, it would have bit you.”  (If it would have been a snake, I would have seen it)

    I admit that sometimes I am not the most observant person in the world.  There is a lot that happens that I miss but I don’t think I am alone in this fact.  I think most of us miss most of what happens.  It is either too fast, too distant, there are too many things going on, we just don’t care enough to remember seeing it or we are looking the wrong way.  We miss a lot but there are times when it hurts.

    There are many times in our life when we are like Hagar from our verse.  She and her son Ishmael were in the desert about to die when God opened her eyes and she saw the well of water.  It is interesting that she saw the well not that God in some miraculous fashion made the well appear.  I think God does this often in our lives.  When we pray for God’s help, he rarely does something out of the ordinary and miraculous; he oftentimes just reveals what is there for us to see.  God always provides for us; the problem is that we don’t always like the answer.

    Many times the answer to our troubles is for us to change, for us to repent.  We may have to do something to fix the problem, like apologize.  We may have to stop doing something to fix the problem, like spending too much money.  God often opens our eyes to the solution like apologizing to a friend or a loved one to end the hurt or spending less money on wasteful things in order to have more money for the necessities.  Yet in our sinful nature, we want it our way.  We want God to change the other person or find us more money.  We pray to God for help and then reject his grace as “not what we want.”

    The interesting thing is that God does not give up on us.  He continually provides for us.  He continually provides for our needs and provides answers for our lives; he provides in advance of our needs even though we often don’t like what He does.  Our selfishness always wants more but God pours out his grace upon grace on us and continues to open our eyes.  We simply need to trust him.  We need to have faith to trust that God will keep his promises to us.

God of all we have and need, open our eyes to see your mercy is always there and always what we need.  Wrap your loving arms around us and enable us to follow your will.  Be with those who struggle at this time.  Guide them with your loving Spirit that we all may see you more clearly.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret