Monday, August 4, 2014
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We have three children. My wife has had four pregnancies. At the end of the third month of her first pregnancy, she had a miscarriage. It was tough but God gave us grace to deal with it. That might be an experience you've had. We were all geared up for this new life to come, and suddenly there wasn't going to be one. When people heard that we'd experienced a miscarriage, it seemed like women came from every direction basically saying, "Me too."
In fact, had I done my own informal survey at that point, I was pretty sure I would have found out that fifty percent of American women had experienced a miscarriage. (At least that's what it felt like from the people who came to us.) So many people talked with us about it and how you can get through it. It's sad when something God has conceived doesn't come to full term. You know, there's another kind of miscarriage that is happening all the time.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Miscarriages of God's Best."
Our word for today from the Word of God is found in Psalm 37; one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. I'll be reading verses 4 and 5, and then I'll jump to verse 7. "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him, and He will do this. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him." Now, there are many verses like this in scripture that indicate that there is a plan that has your name on it; a plan for your life, a plan for the different decisions you have to make that will decide that life.
God in His great Father love wants you as His child to have His best, and He's laid out a roadmap, a pathway, a will for your life that is the road to His best. It's the life that He put you here to live, including the choices you're making right now. You're not just making choices, you're picking a road, whether you know that or not. There's a plan that covers all of this. But all too often, the baby of God's best is never delivered full term, because there are miscarriages of God's best.
You may be in a situation right now where God's plan isn't very clear to you, or where the outcome is unsure. Your needs are great. Well, I want you to know today about the three reasons you might miss God's best so you don't. I've watched it happen over the years in my own life, the lives of a lot of other people, these three reasons for miscarriages of God's will.
First one – loneliness. God says in Psalm 37:4, "Delight yourself in the Lord." "Let Me, (He's saying) be your central relationship." He will give you the desires of your heart. Let this relationship with Him be enough, or your desires could carry you right out of God's will.
Did you know that lonely people often leave God's will because they want to somehow help their loneliness? They often make lousy decisions that end up making them even lonelier in the long run. Don't rush into a wrong relationship. It might look good now. It might meet your need right now, and all you're doing is setting yourself up for a greater loneliness and discontentment in the future. Don't leave God's path because of loneliness. There is a loneliness worse than being alone. It's being connected to the wrong person.
Secondly, God's will can be miscarried by stubbornness. Verse 5 says, "Commit your way to the Lord." Release it to the Lord; let it be His to decide. Maybe you've already made up your mind how this is going to come out and you're going to figure out a way to make your will God's will. That's backwards. We're supposed to be making God's will our will. If you're insisting on one particular outcome, stubbornness is going to carry you right out of God's best--miscarriage.
The third miscarriage comes from impatience. That's why we're told to "wait patiently for the Lord." But some of us can't wait. We make our own answer and we regret it for years to come. See, God's best often comes at the eleventh hour and it requires a wait of faith. God's conceived a beautiful provision for this moment in your life. Don't miscarry it because of loneliness, or stubbornness, or impatience.
The plaque that was on my daughter's wall said it right: "God reserves His very best for those who leave the choice to Him."