Living in Exile...

For every decision you make, there is a cost.  If you choose incorrectly, there will be detrimental consequences.  If you make the correct decision you assume all will be well.  Rarely is it mentioned that the right decisions will also have a cost.  For me, there are significant costs now that I live in exile.

I no longer dream.  There are no goals to pursue.  If by any chance I should dream, the first question that pops into my head is: “Is this really the Lord’s plan or is it mine?”  If these are my plans, I know soon enough.  The Lord reveals my motives quickly and my desires are exposed. There are days when it is a struggle to get up now that dreams are no longer present.  I walk, and do the works that the Lord prepared beforehand for me to do.  At the end of the day, I praise him and thank him for the opportunities.  When I close my eyes though, I am reminded that there are no goals, no dreams, and no plans.  So I grieve for the dreamer in me that no longer exists.

Some days living in exile brings tears to my eyes.  I grieve for lost relationships.  For those who offered me their friendship, laughter, companionship, time and are no longer here.  I could never replace these significant people in my life.  For you see relationships are not interchangeable.  Grief always makes me think of Job.  Job lost everything including his wife and children.  Eventually the Lord restored all, and blessed him with double of what he had before.  Do you think Job ever forgot the children he lost?  

To survive in exile I live by faith.  The words of the Lord become food for my soul.  “Man does not live by bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God;” Matt 4:4.  “Your words were found and I ate them, and your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart.  For I have been called by your name, O Lord God of Hosts;”Jeremiah 15:16.  So even though there are sorrows I continue to learn, to live, to delight in my Lord.  One day I will be able to say like Job: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away blessed be the name of the Lord”; Job 1:21.     


Copyright 12/10