Support System

I’m not going to lie.  This week has been tougher than most.  I’ve been up, I’ve been down.  I’ve been happy, I’ve been sad.  I’ve been lonely, afraid, upset…..but I’ve also been secure, empowered and had a sense of calm.  I attribute all of the changes in my life to my walk with God, but I also attribute some of these things to the fact that my support system has been away for so long now.  But luckily, as I write this, my family is finally on their way home from their vacation.

Who is your support system?  Who is there to help you in the bad times, and cheer you on in the good?  We all have somebody we can go to…..someone that we can bounce ideas off of….someone who can push us when we need to be pushed, and hold us back when we are stepping out there a little too far on our own.  These days I have my earthly support system in my family and friends, but I definitely lean on God more and more these days.  And the great thing about that is……that’s God’s job.  God wants us to lean on him at all times in our lives.

The last few days I have been reading from Judges.  I’m not going to lie, I’ve said it before, I’m not a Bible scholar.  Before I started Judges, I thought it was about the court and the judicial system.  I just didn’t know.  But Judges is about the time of the Israelites after Joshua.  They had no true leader.  The “Judges” were like tribal leaders who oversaw day-to-day operations.  This was a time in Israel’s history where they had arrived in the Promised Land, but still had no faith…..and at times struggled to follow God.  They would break God’s law, worship other God’s, become bad people……and when all of a sudden they would be conquered by some other group of people they would realize the error of their ways, pray to God, and God would send someone again to straighten them out.  But it was a cycle that went on for years and years….falling away, coming back, falling away, coming back.  Sound familiar?

The last Judge I read about this morning was Gideon.  He was a coward of a man.  He asked God over and over again for a sign before he would move on God’s word.  “Then Gideon said to God, If You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken, behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor, if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I will know that You will deliver Israel, through me, as You have spoken.  And it was so.  When he arose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece, he drained the dew from the fleece, a bowl full of water.  Then Gideon said to God, Do not let Your anger burn against me that I may speak once more; please let me make a test once more with the fleece, let it now be dry only on the fleece, and let there be dew on all the ground.  God did so that night; for it was dry only on the fleece, and dew was on the ground (Judges 6:36-40.)”

I’m sure God was like, “Come on man, I get it….you are scared, you are weak, you are afraid.  But how many times do I have to do something for you, show you a sign, PUT IT RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, before you will do what I have asked.”

God is our support system.  He always has been, He always will be.  But some days He’s gonna just let us go and do, because there is nothing else He can do or say to convince us of what we are made to do…..what we have been created to do……what is our destiny to do.

My earthly support system will be home in a few hours, but my Heavenly support system is here all the time.  I pray, I sin, I fall away, I pray, I sin, I fall away, I pray………and it goes on and on.  What we need to realize is that God is always there, God is always listening, and even though the “sign” may not be presented to us all day, every day…….He has already pointed you to where you need to be.  Maybe He is just waiting for you to take that step, so He can give you the next one.

So I pray that we will All use God as our support system….but I also pray that we will use His guidance, support, and assistance that He gives us.  We can’t just ask, ask, ask.  At some point we have to move on what He says and shows us.  I pray that we can move when the moment is right, and maybe when the moment doesn’t seem right.  Because in the end….we really don’t know when that right moment is…..only God does.  I pray that you allow God to run HIS plan for your life.