To Share or Not to Share

I often share God’s word with others. Maybe I send a picture or a verse or a thought to encourage or help someone along the way. Maybe you’ve done the same. Today, I was thinking about sharing a verse with someone. Do I share? Do I not share? That was my dilemma. The last time I shared with this person it was taken wrong and misused and misunderstood, so I was hesitant to share today. I feared that would happen again. I didn’t want what was meant for encouragement to be fuel for some misconceived idea. But no sooner than I had that thought did another thought occur to me. God says to us, “So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). God’s word does its job! It fulfills His will.

I was also reminded of Pharaoh in the Exodus story. The LORD told Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let His people go. The LORD said, “But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go” (Exodus 4:12). And that’s exactly what happened; God’s word hardened Pharaoh’s heart, just like it was meant to do. The people suffered through the plagues that ensured due to Pharaoh’s hard heart, and they were terrified and feared death as they were pinned against the Red Sea by the Egyptian army. While this was difficult and scary for God’s people, in the midst of it all, The LORD was revealing Himself to both His people and to Egypt, and even to all of us who know this story. The LORD was showing His power and control over creation. He was revealing His strength to defeat the strongest army. He was making His presence known among His people. He was showing HIs tender care to protect and provide for His own. God revealed Himself through Pharaoh’s hard heart. God’s word did exactly what He wanted it to do. It allowed Him to make Himself known.

In life, it is never easy to walk through difficult circumstances. Life is tough. Times are hard. But if you are a child of God, He is there in your midst. Immanuel, God with us, is there. Jesus promised, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

What we have to understand is threefold: 1) Jesus is with us. We are not alone, not unnoticed by Him. So be encouraged to know He is with you in your trouble. 2) God reveals Himself through our circumstances. If you are going through something tough, then keep looking for Him. He is trying to show you something about Himself: His protection or provision, His love for you, HIs strength, His devotion. Be looking for His revealed character, and when you notice it, thank Him and hold onto it because that was specifically for you. 3) Sometimes God’s word softens hearts and people change. Praise God! But sometimes God’s word hardens hearts, like Pharaoh’s. Either way, His word will do its job. So, if you’ve been called to share His word, and you think that word will cause difficulty or strife, or even a hard heart, then be prayerful and share with grace, but by all means - share! Even though we don’t understand God’s logic at times, remember, a hardened heart may be the result God desires. However, that hardened heart may be the very thing that reveals the LORD’s tender love and care to someone else, so don’t be afraid to share. Let the LORD determine the outcome of His word. And hold onto the beautiful image of the fruitful, life-giving effects of God’s word found in Isaiah 55:8-13:

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts; Nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth And making it bear and sprout, And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. For you will go out with joy And be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, And all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn bush, the cypress will come up, And instead of the nettle, the myrtle will come up, And it will be a memorial to the LORD For an everlasting sign which will not be cut off.”

Not now, Lord

Pulling the carpet back, I knew we were in trouble. My parents installed that carpet before I was born - golden shag over beautiful oak floors. After my parents’ divorce, my dad never upgraded the house. At 92 and needing memory care, Dad left me with the task. The carpet wasn’t the problem. Padding that used to be a soft spongy cushion was now just brick. It clung to the wood beneath. And it wasn’t coming up! After scraping for hours, I finally called Frank, my floor expert, to tell him the tragic news. “No worries,” he said. “I can do it.” I thought he would have some super-quick floor guy trick. He sent me a video a few days later of his process. Sharpen chisel. Scrape this way. Scrape that way. All the while, brick red shards fly through the air. Clear away shards. Do the next little section. On his hands and knees, with just a little chisel, he painstakingly scraped away all of the padding. I thought for sure he would be frustrated and annoyed, but he is an artist at heart. When it was finished, we talked. Frank said, “It took a while, but I enjoyed the process. These are beautiful floors.” The Lord used this hardened padding to reveal some things about my current struggle. Have you ever had something the Lord has nudged you to do, and yet you keep putting Him off? That’s me. All. The. Time. Sometimes I question: “Is that you Lord, or am I making this up?” Sometimes I rationalize: “Oh that doesn’t make any sense.” Sometimes I refuse: “Not now. I’ll do this other thing first.” But as time moves forward, my opportunity is gone. God’s nudges often have expiration dates, and immediate obedience is hard for me. In my struggle, the Lord led me to Hebrews 3:7: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness. . .” If you hear His voice. . . I know I’ve heard His voice. Do not harden your hearts . . . Is that what I’m doing when I put God off with my “Not now” response? Later in Hebrews 3 we learn that a hardened heart comes from the deceitfulness of sin and from unbelief. I am challenged by this. What am I not believing the Lord for? Through prayer and the word, I realized that unbelief is a root that bears the fruit of disobedience. There are many branches that stem from unbelief, but fear is often the branch that grows from my unbelief and ripens into disobedience. Fear of my future. Fear that bad things will happen. Fear of the unknown. My dad, the keeper of the golden shag carpet, instilled in me the demanding sense to stick with what is safe, stick with what you know. But, my Father in heaven does not follow that principle. He often calls us out into the unknown, into places where we’ll be challenged, into new places that He will show us, but maybe not right now. He asks us to obey anyway. If we hold fast to Christ, we will get to that new place, but that requires faith in God. What is faith? First, we must believe Him. Then, we must obey. Believing + obeying = faith. There was a whole generation of Israelites who didn’t believe the Lord, even though they saw His glory and His miracles. Their unbelief led to fear and their fear ripened into disobedience. Their lack of faith hardened their hearts to God’s voice, and they died in the wilderness, never receiving their promised land. Their “not now” closed the door of opportunity the Lord was holding open for them on that day. I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want a hard heart. “Lord, help my unbelief!” is my cry. And my sweet savior brings me hope: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh . . .” (Ezekiel 36:26). Did you hear that? Like Frank scraping off the hardened padding to reveal beautiful oak floors that are clean and fresh, our Lord can remove our hardened hearts. The calluses built from years of “Not now, Lord” can be stripped clean and ready for what’s new. At creation, God looked over each day’s work and thought, “It is good.” I imagine Him looking back at us, His workmanship, after scraping away the hardened places in our hearts, and making us clean and beautiful and thinking, “It is very good!” This process requires believing and often immediate obedience, but our faith pleases the Lord. One day, we’ll get to stand with Him and look back over His work in our life, and together we’ll exclaim, “Isn’t it beautiful!” and our soft hearts will swell with joy at His glory shining over us. Lord, let it be!