Never Forget_ Discovering Hope in the Aftermath of Tragedy [NOOK Book] - Max Lucado [2]
How can God be everywhere at one time? (Who says God is bound by a body?)
How can God hear all the prayers that come to him? (Perhaps his ears are different from yours.)
How can God be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? (Could it be that heaven has a different set of physics than earth?)
If people down here won’t forgive me, how much more am I guilty before a holy God? (Oh, just the opposite. God is always able to give grace when we humans can’t—he invented it.)
How vital that we pray, armed with the knowledge that God is in heaven. Pray with any lesser conviction, and our prayers are timid, shallow, and hollow. Look up and see what God has done, and watch how your prayers are energized.
This knowledge gives us confidence as we face the uncertain future. We know that he is in control of the universe, and so we can rest secure. But important also is the knowledge that this God in heaven has chosen to bend near toward earth to see our sorrow and hear our prayers. He is not so far above us that he is not touched by our tears.
Though we may not be able to see his purpose or his plan, the Lord of heaven is on his throne and in firm control of the universe and our lives. So we entrust him with our future. We entrust him with our very lives.
—MAX LUCADO
America Looks Up
AIM YOUR HARD QUESTIONS
AT GOD, NOT MAN
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). . . . It is perhaps the most dramatic word spoken from Calvary. It trembles with emotional anguish, and nothing dramatizes it more passionately than the heart-piercing cry of God’s Son, feeling a sense of abandonment at the darkest moment of this very bad day: “Why? Why? Why have You left Me now?” . . .
This is the central moment of Calvary: it is the fourth of seven words. It is filled with questions, with darkness, with a sense of ultimate forsakenness—God forsaken! Even if we never experience the dimension of Jesus’ depression, all of us have had moments when we have wondered, “Why, God?” And then we know we have a Savior who has been there and understands our despair, and we have His example pointing us in the right direction. When you’re in the middle of a bad day—or worse, when you feel sure you’ve lost touch with heaven and are mystified in your loneliness—aim your hard questions at God, not man.
Why? Because in life’s darkest hours, there are usually no human beings with adequate answers. Counselors may analyze; associates may sympathize; experienced friends may empathize. But finite minds and feeble flesh can never satisfy us with the Presence we seek, for we truly cry for God Himself, not answers. When “bad day blues” turn black with the unanswerable, and everything you thought you knew backfires, forget human philosophies or riddling theologies. Cry out to God. He doesn’t mind our complaints, and although He may seem absent, He’s never far away.
—JACK HAYFORD
How to Live through a Bad Day
GOD IS ALWAYS SPEAKING
Let me state something important. There is never a time during which Jesus is not speaking. Never. There is never a place in which Jesus is not present. Never. There is never a room so dark . . . that the ever-present, ever-pursuing, relentlessly tender Friend is not there, tapping gently on the doors of our hearts—waiting to be invited in.
Few hear his voice. Fewer still open the door.
But never interpret our numbness as his absence. For amidst the fleeting promises of pleasure is the timeless promise of his presence.
“Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
There is no chorus so loud that the voice of God cannot be heard . . . if we will but listen . . .
—MAX LUCADO
In the Eye of the Storm
GOD IS FOR YOU
These questions are not new to you. You’ve asked them before. In the night you’ve asked them; in anger you’ve asked them. The doctor