Our Heavenly Father

On this privileged Lord’s Day Sunday, the first day of a brand new week, and the nearing of the end of the first month in the New Year, we halt. We stop, a conscious, deliberate, mindful stop, to remember. We make this conscientious move for two most necessary and imperative reasons. We halt, to cast our minds way back to remember who our Lord is. We halt, to have our hearts and minds renewed by God the Holy Spirit, who brings us to Divine Remembrance and Holy Response.

As we have been given the honour and favour of seeing the first three weeks of 2024 and we have the blessing of seeing the beginning of week four and the final full or complete week in the month, many of us are scattered all over the place in our minds, hearts and emotions.

I had the pleasure or perhaps displeasure to some, of listening to a young man speak his woes, difficulties and misfortunes. He told me that this New Year has begun with great trials, unprecedented misfortune and mishap after mishap. He has been lashed and wounded on every side. As I listened and understood exactly what he was saying and from where he was coming, I was quickly made to see Naomi, this child of God, as she returned home after years of living in a far country.  

Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth, have arrived safely in Bethlehem, Naomi’s own home place. Remember, she has not been home for decades and now that she has returned, she and her companion, cause quite a stir among the town-folk. Will your minds allow you to see this as an experience, all new in the lives of Naomi, Ruth and all the people around? Bethlehem is all new again, in that God has visited them and brought them, new, bright, bountiful living. He has blessed them with the best harvest ever, after such a long drought. God, who has visited His people, has so touched Naomi that she is constrained to leave where she is and return home.

But what is her testimony to the people who have recognized her? What is she saying about the Hand of Father God upon her, in this new start, this new beginning? Please listen to Ruth 1: 20 – 21. Some of the women, when they see Naomi, are asking whether or not the person they are seeing is truly Naomi, whom they once knew. Naomi has a most human, typical and expected response. Don’t call me Naomi, she told them, Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me. 

This is what I was hearing from that young man, who really saw himself as a Mara, at the beginning of 2024. What about you? How are you describing yourself. How are you speaking about Sovereign God, in the midst of all that is happening with you, all that you never expected?

Whatever your disposition, experiences and misfortunes in this time, know that God is not dead, nor does He sleep. He is the God who came to us, when we did not come to Him. He is the God who loved us when we did not love Him. He is the God who saw us when we did not see Him. He is the God who sought us when we did not seek Him. He is the God who saw us, helpless, hopeless and dead in our sins and left His place in heaven to come to us, in sinful flesh, to save us. He is the Saviour who gave His life for us.

Tell me! Why would He abandon you now?

On this day, regardless of how your life may seem, turn to Father God and simply bow before Him. He will see you! He will hear your unspoken words! He will feel your true heart!

He is LORD!