When it Comes Back to You

Recently I was blessed to listen to a webinar with Stacey Thacker and Brooke McGlothlin, who wrote Hope for the Weary Mom and its companion devotional. They were sharing about strategies for busy moms to spend time with God in the Bible. I was really blessed by their practical suggestions and genuine reminders of how alive and powerful God’s word is.

Here’s one comment they made: even when we show up and read God’s word and feel like nothing sticks with us, God can and will bring back what we read when we need it most. It reminds me of a passage in the book of Isaiah:

As the rain and snow come down from heaven and stay upon the ground to water the earth, and cause the grain to grow and to produce seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry, so also is my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It shall accomplish all I want it to and prosper everywhere I send it. You will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills, the trees of the field—all the world around you—will rejoice. Isaiah 55:10-12 TLB

God lives in his word. His Spirit takes the words we read and like water filling a creek bed, runs into all the cracks and crevices where we need it the most.

I realized just how true that was the very next day. I spent an evening studying Psalm 2, which is not the most devotional poem in the Bible. It’s a royal psalm, written by a king about God blessing on his people and defeating his enemies. It’s Messianic, which means it was ultimately written about Jesus, the Messiah. My study time was fairly educational but I didn’t leave with anything immediately encouraging or challenging me.

At the end of the psalm, David writes,
Serve the Lord with fear
and celebrate his rule with trembling.
Kiss his son, or he will be angry
and your way will lead to your destruction,
for his wrath can flare up in a moment.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

A commentary I used made this comment: “It is better to bend than to be broken” (earlier David had written that God would break his enemies into pieces).

Well, fast forward twelve hours and I had a toddler-free morning and a plan to sit in a coffee shop with my sleeping baby and write for 3 hours. Unfortunately, the baby didn’t sleep but fussed in his car seat. So I drove home, fed him, tucked him in his bed and reluctantly started cleaning my house. I was deep in the throes of sorting toys and putting boxes in the attic while crying my heart out because I was sick of motherhood when like a bell I remembered, “Better to bend than to be broken.” Submission. When things are hard, God asks for my willing heart. “Serve the Lord. Take refuge in him.” A hard, rebellious heart must be broken before God. I can choose the better way – to bow before my King and say, “Yes, Lord.” The night before I may not have felt particularly challenged by those words but because I sat down and read them, soaked in them and tucked them away, God brought them back just when I needed them. His word does its job, like rain on the parched earth. As I submitted to God, he brought me peace and joy and I definitely later appreciated how gave me time to clean my house top to bottom.