When God Limits

I wanted to write earlier, but when God limits us it is for our good. It qualifies us to share depths that far outreach our flights of fancy. And we need the deep well of living water in times like this.

After all, it is a time of crisis. Perhaps our mind rivets on the big ones. Earthquakes and tsunamis that turn society upside down. Perpetual drought and famine that drain all resources and vitality. But we all face crisis situations. We feel the stretch of being at our limit. When the stresses of life wash over our head, or a difficult situation drags out unbearably long. Crises are the things that show us our need of God more than anything else. It is at times like these that we find out where we are building - the unshaken Rock or the shifting sands.

Some dangers are harder to recognize. It is easy to see the crisis of being deprived of our resources, our loved ones, our health, or our sanity. But what struck a cord with me recently was the reality of another type of crisis altogether. I was looking over a life summary of king Hezekiah described as four crises. The first was the choice to forsake his father's idols, where he emerges as righteous king. Later, in the crises of enemy invasion and sickness, his faith takes hold of God and mighty miracles are wrought. But it is in the crisis of prosperity that he fails.

Prosperity.
That's what we are all after, aren't we?
And surely that's why we need a God who limits us. We don't know when we have too much. We don't know when we getting "too big for our britches" and setting our hopes on air castles, instead of the mansions eternal. So, in faithful love, our heavenly Father crosses our wills and reproves our attitudes.
Do we then bawl and kick like a rebellious child?
Give the cold shoulder to such cruel authority?
Let us not miss the heart of it all! He strips us "for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness." (Heb. 12:10) Breaks up our rough earth and wrenches out our vain desires that He might grow His fragrant lilies there.
How are we responding to being reduced?
It is time to catch a vision of the beauty He is after!

It also puts a heavenly perspective on the recent news from Makindu. As usual, progress is painstakingly slow.

Among other spiritual labors, Lawrence updates on the Bible Center: We have been collecting the building stone for quite a long time. It is slow work as we cannot engage transport as we did at the beginning, so we transport it slowly using the bicycles. It will be some time till we will be able to collect enough at this rate. We also had to make bricks and burn them--just by ourselves as we are not able to engage paid labor. We will be sending some photographs as soon as we start the building work again.

And regarding the drought conditions: The rains came quite heavily on the night of 18th March and never came back again. It rained enough to get the vegetation sprouting again, but we could not sow until we had enough rains to get the seeds germinating. Now as I write, it is cloudy and we are expecting the rains to fall any time now. Praise the Lord.

Among the many blessings of being limited by God is our greater awareness of His mercies and goodness. It is a privilege to be small enough to fit in God's hand, and to witness Him working moment by moment. Let us not despise the day of small things.