Have you ever thought that just perhaps, God has forgotten you?

Have you ever thought that just perhaps, God has forgotten you?  You try (I say try because none of us are perfect) to live a righteous life.  You try to have morals and fight on the side of justice.  You try to live in a way that you think is pleasing to the Lord. But then it sometimes seems as if God does not hear you.  You go to church.  You pray and expect results.  You meditate on God's word and expect an answer.  You study His teachings and expect to "hear a word from the Lord." Yet, nothing happens, sometimes things even get worse.

You try to stay the course but you feel your resolution wavering.  You tell yourself "keep the faith", "the race is not for the swift", "fight the good fight" or like in that old Negro spiritual you sing, "I know I'll understand it by and by." And as much as you fight the feelings of doubt you sometimes feel it creeping into your mind.  You say to yourself and sometimes out loud, but Jesus said... all I need is a mustard seed of faith and I can move mountains.  So, why isn't my mountain moving? But the Bible says...knock and the door will be opened.  So, why is the door closed, locked and bolted shut?  But the Lord said ask I shall receive.  So, I'm asking and asking and all I hear is silence.  I'm doing all these things, and nothing is happening.  Has God forgotten me?

Well, the answer lies not in what we are doing, or what we think we're doing to please Him.   I was in that situation and that was when God showed me Psalm 77. Like the psalmist my spirit began to faint, I was too troubled to speak, my spirit groaned and cried out in distress.  Like the psalmist who laments in verse one;

I cried out to God for help;

I cried out to God to hear me.

When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;

at night I stretched out untiring hands,

and I would not be comforted.

The psalmist complains for several verses.  However, if we continue reading we find the sorrow in his spirit starting to turn around.  He begins to remember all that God has done for him in the past.  He begins to remember all the times he was saved, bailed out, relieved and comforted.  As he searches for the unfailing love, favor and compassion he was once given, it forced him to remember exactly that...IT WAS ONCE GIVEN. He did it before, He can do it again.  As the psalmist cries out for Merciful God, his song changes and he sings;

"Then I thought, To this I will appeal:

the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand.

I will remember the deeds of the LORD;

yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.

I will consider all your works

and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”

The psalmist cries and complaints turned to remembrance and finally in the last verses they turn to praise.

Your ways, God, are holy.

What god is as great as our God?

You are the God who performs miracles;

You display your power among the peoples.

With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,

the descendants of Jacob and Joseph...

He ended the song with recounting God's parting of the sea and leading the people by His mighty Hand to safety, and the fulfillment of His promise. Has God forgotten us? No but, like the psalmist we groan and complain and question, where is God?  But instead we must encourage ourselves, not to give up hope.  We should ask God to forgive us for not trusting Him enough.  We must turn our cries and doubts to praise and thanksgiving for all the times that God has seen us through. He, after all is our Grace for today and our Hope for tomorrow.  God has not forgotten us. He knows us by name, the Father knows what we need before we ask Him and, most importantly of all we know that the Bible teaches us that “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?"  In knowing this we also know that, No! God has not forgotten us.

Poor Not Lazy Proverbs 21:13

Today on face book someone posted Proverbs 21:13 " Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor, will also cry out and not be answered." As I read his post about helping people out and he is inclined to help those in need.  He also stated that he verifies the need. I read this and my mind went to people that I have helped and continue to help to this day.

  

I am often taken advantage of because I do not "nag", I do not demand, and I continue to treat the person(s) as I always have.  I often tell myself "THAT'S IT, NO MORE LENDING! whenever I am having a particular financial hardship, or I feel as if the person(s) is taking my kindness for weakness (I remember my step father once describing me as a cornered rat, I'll scurry away until you trap me in the corner, then I will bare my teeth and fight to the death).  Recently, one such person(s) who owes me a good deal of money, called me and asked me to pay a bill that is in his name but I used the service.  Now me, I would have said, since I owe you, I'll just pay the bill (which is much less than he owes).  But not him, he called me several times a day until he reached me.  What makes a person do that? What makes a person think that what they owe is moot?  Well, I was angry and out of character (but no where near how some would have behaved), I simply said when I get, I'll pay it and hung up.  

But back to the Proverb.  I have no problem giving to the POOR.  I give to Children's Hunger, Autism, Muscular Dystrophy, every catastrophe we Americans have suffered lately (Sandy, Boston etc.), the man/woman in the street, among others. I can truthfully say that I give  to the poor with clean hands and a clean heart. I have a few friends, that I can see myself in (I guess that's why we're friends) who give over and over to the same people all the time.  They are never repaid, and appreciated only WHILE they are doing the giving.  These people my friends give to are not POOR.  They are LAZY. They do not work, have no motivation to work,  further their education, have no life plan, and just mooch off of people.  I would venture to say, that these are NOT the people this proverb is referring to. Helping this sort of person is like using a teaspoon to dig yourself out of a ditch.  

I can see myself clearly in them, I give advice (that I dont follow) because we are cut from the same cloth.  We try to be hard hearted, but it is not in our nature.  The apostle Paul writes in Roman 12 "We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your^[a] faith; ⁷ if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; ⁸ if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,^[b] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully." So during these times when I fall into a state of regret and make false promises to myself of "never again", (I do this when I am need and cannot see how I will get out of my predicament). I will remember this proverb, because I know that I DID NOT and CANNOT shut my ears to the poor, therefore I CAN cry out and I WILL be answered.