COTR CG Leaders Week 12 Devotional

The Shaping of a Worshipper: Both Prisoner and Preserved 

Genesis 7-8

Have you ever felt hemmed in by a season(s) of painful trials or circumstances that you felt would never end or turn? My family has experienced this reality for the last 6.5 years. Our granddaughter, Paisley Rae York, was born in July 2012 with a devastating neurological disease called RETT Syndrome.

RETT Syndrome consists of 4-5 diseases rolled into one MONSTROUS disease. This disease has left Paisley unable to speak, walk, or use her limbs/hands in a usual manner, as well as a myriad of horrific side issues: complex epilepsy/seizures, severe autism, cerebral palsy like tremors/rigidity and muscle atrophy, heart and lung issues, G-TUBE implant, esophageal and gastric difficulties and scoliosis of the spine. Add to these realities the on-going danger of toxicity in her kidneys and liver due to the 10-12 harsh medications she takes daily to relieve both seizures and a host of other side issues. Paisley’s daily life is one continuous trial.

A PRETTY GRIM STORY.

And, in addition to those difficulties we’ve combatted on-going deep grief, as well as several near death episodes. This included a 27-day stay in Seattle Children’s PICU with 3-4 days on a ventilator wondering if Paisley would ever breathe on her own again!

Paisley’s parents, Sara and Lyone York (as well as my husband, Tom, myself and our extended family) know ongoing loss in a sense that few experience daily. It’s been a legitimate TSUNAMI of grief, pain, heartache, stress, and loss for almost 6.5 years.  RETT Syndrome has battered "normal" hopes and dreams for precious Paisley Rae. RETT, it seems, answers to no one, except perhaps, JESUS! HE ALONE has preserved us amid the engulfing waves of shock, pain, and grief. (That story is a testimony for another time!) While I could go on to pen this as a testimony of God’s mercy and sustaining grace to my family, suffice it to say, ALL humans encounter WAVES OF AFFLICTION on the sea of life! Sorry for the common metaphor, but it’s a truism that exits regardless of who you are, how much money you make, the color of your skin, your politics, or EVEN whether you believe in God or not.

LIFE packs a punch of pain. But, despite life’s punch, what matters most is what you DO with it. A person’s heart and mindset determine, more readily, how they view life, rather than the ABSENCE of those trials.  Those devastating hurts and circumstances do NOT define us unless we allow them to do so. Put another way, do you or I lie down at the altar of pain/trial and waste away, or do we go to ANOTHER altar and experience transformation? Will our pain and hardships forever bind and shackle us, or will we walk amid life’s pain and be changed from prisoner to one preserved?  HOW we live, whether thriving, surviving or drying up and effectively dying, depends upon what kind of worshipper we become, and THAT reality is ENTIRELY dependent upon WHO is the focus of our worship.

As we have said numerous times in this blog: we all worship something or someone, either God or self. Whoever sits on our heart’s throne will determine who WE become as worshippers.

Noah has something to teach us here, so back to the world-wide flood Genesis Chapter 8! It’s been a long-time riding above the waves of calamity and judgment for Noah, his family, and all those animals! The Bible text does not detail Noah’s thoughts for the duration of the (close)12-month + confinement; needless to say, it’s likely that ALL the inhabitants probably felt cooped up, restless, curious and maybe fearful. Life as they knew it was ALL GONE. NOTHING would ever be the same again. EVER. What would they find when the door opened, and they were able to leave the place that had come to feel like both a refuge and a prison? What KIND of life awaited them, if you could call anything “life” after complete, planetary ANNIHILATION? Devastation always leaves some mark. But, again, it’s through WHOSE lens of truth you gaze that will determine HOW you see and LIVE with that mark. 

As we pick up our story in Genesis 8: we lay down a foundational truth that DEARLY matters to how Noah (and all others to follow including you and me!) will see tragedy and grow to thrive despite it:

“But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.”

GOD REMEMBERED NOAH! GOD, although wholly within HIS RIGHT to do AS HE PLEASES for HE IS GOD, does NOT forget man. God is NOT a forgetter, man IS! God is not done with his precious creation, made in HIS image. Man WILL go on because God has a plan! Although God had not given Noah any hint of what was to come, Noah had ONE very key truth to focus and build HOPE upon as he waited in the Ark: God’s Holy, Just, and loving Character. What Noah KNEW about God sustained him in that ark during those long months of waiting. God had stated in Genesis 6: 9 “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.”

Noah had enough history with the Lord before the flood to guide and bolster his heart when fears, doubts, and questions came to his mind. It was (and STILL is) the LORD’S character that proved to be a SURE foundation for any uncertainty Noah faced. And so, it CAN be for us too. When trials whip your heart and mind into a frantic, overwhelmed frenzy or settle like a 2-ton leaden weight on your soul and body, where do you turn to stabilize? Do you turn to money or what it can purchase to deaden pain and heartache? Do you turn to drugs, alcohol or excess sleep or entertainment to distract and dull pain’s voice and constant rant? Where do you search and to WHOM do you look to bring peace out of chaos and turmoil?

Noah knew where to look; he trusted the ONE he knew and walked with before The Flood began. Our transformation from being held prisoner by trials to being preserved through trials is dependent on WHOM we worship. What’s the first thing Noah does when God calls him to come out of the ark? Let’s look in Genesis 8:18-20:

“So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. 19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds‚ everything that moves on land‚ came out of the ark, one kind after another. 20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.”

Noah builds an altar and worships.

He doesn’t build himself and family shelter, nor does he look for food. He surrenders possible food, and a means to get MORE food by killing and giving to GOD a burnt offering of clean animals. He only had precious few to propagate the world and eat, but Noah took action that showed a grateful, trusting heart. Noah's act of worship is the way to begin anew and to set a sure foundation amid hard devastation. Trust. Gratefulness. Bible commentator Matthew Henry says this of Noah:

“…one would have thought his first care would have been to build a house for himself, but behold he begins with an altar for God: God, that is the first, must be first served and he BEGINS WELL THAT BEGINS WITH GOD.” (CAPS mine)

Noah began well. He started with an act of worship. And do you know why that was Noah’s first act? Our actions flow out of what our heart holds most important. Noah transformed from a follower of God into a worshipper of God during that year-long confined hardship. The belief that rooted Noah also preserved and changed him: God is faithful and trustworthy. And, He would continue to be so even during misfortune and calamity.

Noah was a prisoner of sorts on that Ark, but he was also preserved and transformed on that Ark. God provided for Noah. He didn’t give Noah more than one set of directions at a time: build the Ark, bring the animals, enter the Ark, come out of the Ark. But God declared a promise in Genesis 6:18 that held Noah’s heart in anticipation amid the coming storm; God promised to confirm a covenant with Noah: “But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.” The hard storm wasn’t the end; it was another beginning. And God DID begin again. 

Where is your life being rocked by hard things, disagreeable people, challenging tasks, overwhelming pain or turmoil? Where is the Lord God in it? If you cannot see His hand or hear His voice, perhaps you (and I) need to quiet down and listen. Fretting and worrying distract the eyes of our heart from settling and calming. What we need are not answers so much as THE ANSWER: Jesus Christ, The Lord God.

Can you possibly come to see the storms you face as opportunities to settle down with Jesus, our Ark of covenantal protection and life and be transformed as well as preserved? When your storm or rough season diminishes or lessens, what kind of follower and worshipper do you want to be? Noah chose well. I pray that you and I do the same. Begin again with Jesus. He IS the God of the again and again and again. The God of “do-overs.” Lamentations 3:22-23 has given me profound comfort these years as we’ve faced Paisley's hardships:

“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Renew yourself, again and again, with your covenant-keeping Lord God.

In His Great Love

Your sister in our Glorious Savior, Jesus Christ,

Mary Kaye Abbott