Sunday, June 24, 2012

He Gives, He Takes Away

Take just a minute to let your mind wander. But with a purpose. Direct it to a specific person in your life. Not just any person. The one person you count yourself closest to. The person who knows your secrets. The one you trust the most (besides God) to know your thoughts, fears, hopes, and dreams. The person who has shared their secrets with you. The one you could not imagine your life without. The person God has blessed you the most with. It could be multiple people. Family. Your best friend. Heck, even a special pet.

Now take them away.

Take them out.

Mentally remove them from your life as you currently know it.

What do you feel? What are you thinking?

If God took away the person or persons in your life that you are closest to, the one(s) you deem most important, would you be okay?


Think about it. Really, truly think about it.

What is crossing your mind?

I can't imagine life without them. God wouldn't do that to me. He knows I need them. My life would be a mess without them. I need them.


Do you?

I know that may seem harsh. But do you really need them?

My grace is sufficient for thee.


Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.


Our sufficiency is of God


These three phrases are straight from God's Word. Friends, isn't He enough? Isn't God sufficient to meet all our needs?

This is the part where I get brutally honest about myself. This post is for me just as much as it is for you. This topic has not been on my mind for just today. It's been all year. More than that. Months on end.

Every day, God has been asking me...

Autumn Rose Johnson. Aren't I enough? 


And every day, I answer...

Yes, Lord. You are enough.


But I don't necessarily apply it. Truth is, I have been struggling to apply it.

Every time I have embraced a friend going through a trial, reminding them that God is enough, I have been speaking to myself as well. Because, friends, I struggle with this too. So much. I daily teeter on the dangerous edge of believing I need "God and." God and my best friend.

I have been battling the mindset of believing that I need my Perfect, Holy, Undisappointing God plus a fallible, imperfect, disappointing human who struggles with sin just as much as I do. I have been adding on someone who will not fail to disappoint me into my room-for-one need category.

Don't get me wrong. My best friend is an incredible person. I have been blessed to have this person in my life. But I should not need him. He is just as human as I am. Thus, there will be (and have been) times in my life when he will (and has) disappoint(ed) me. Because he sins, he falls, and he makes mistakes.

The only person in my life who will never, ever fail me is God. The only person I truly need is God.

So what am I doing putting up someone doomed to fall above my infinitely perfect God?

Who is the greatest treasure in my heart? God? Or my best friend?

For where your treasure is, there where your heart be also.


Nearly every single day since late January, early February, a question has echoed through my mind.

What if God took him away? What if he temporarily or even permanently was no longer apart of my life? Not necessarily dying, but just no longer being a part of my life? Would I be okay?


I would constantly knee-jerk respond.

I'd have to be. I'm not a best friend worshipper. I'm a Christ-worshipper. Of course I'd be okay. I'd have no choice.


Am I?
Would I be (okay)?

And that, friends, is where I am always stopped.

Who do I worship?

A guy I admire and look up to in my life as my closest friend?
Or God--the ultimate example, the perfect and holy one, my Savior?


A friend can't save me. A friend will fail me. A friend sins. A friend disappoints.

God has saved me. God never fails me. God never sins. God never disappoints.

I'm skilled at excuses, though. It's a being human thing. You can probably relate.

God would never take him away. It's not gonna happen. I don't need to worry about it.


I can just imagine God's sad laugh whenever I thought that.

Because, friends, God took away my best friend.

God saw my rebellious and wayward heart, and knew what needed to be done.

It is only temporary. A not only physical, but emotional separation. God has given him a season in life that I cannot truly understand. It is a time for him in which it would be cruel and selfish of me to ask him to prioritize time for me. Because that is not in any way what he needs to be doing. His family is, and always will be first. And I have to respect that.

So God has taken away my best friend. One of the "I couldn't imagine my life without" people in my life. And I have two choices.

I can sulk, think about how unfair life is, and go through the motions of life, jumping every time my phone buzzes with a text message or someone chats me on Facebook because I think it's him. I know because I've done it. I've been doing it. Pretty pitiful, eh?

Or...


I can live. Pray for my friend and rejoice in how good God is and draw closer to Him: my perfect Savior. I can devote time to others. I can give more time and thought towards God, because He deserves all my time and thoughts. And with this choice, friends, is the one in which I will be truly happy.

It will not be easy. It has not been easy. I must make a daily choice to not allow my missing a close friend to consume my thought life. My thoughts, actions, words, and attitude must be filled with God.

When God is my #1 priority, every other want and desire will slip away. I will view them as I need to view them: nice, but not necessary.


Everything. Yes, even an earthly best friend.

Because I have a Heavenly best friend who will never go away.

What more could I ask for?

Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: 
the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
Job 1:21

2 comments:

  1. You're a strong girl, Rosie. I love you and know you can and will grow closer to God through this. Praying for you! ♥

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  2. Love you and praying for you! Thank you for writing this-- hard to live by but so true.

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