Letters from the deacon: God is never missing
Sweet Lunastelle, Not too long ago (at least in my memory), my parents and the elders to whom I looked for guidance in conversation about any particular ongoing concern or person who was getting away with doing wrong would say, “He will get what’s coming to him.” The common term used in those days was comeuppance. Because that generation and the generations before them believed in a common moral compass, what followed was a belief all was in God’s hands, God was present and the wrong committed would meet God’s punishment. Today, it seems as though the wrong never ends and the pendulum swings toward celebrating the wrong as if it were right, and worse, a right. The watch phrase today is “Love your neighbor if…” Is God missing?
God is never missing when you give your heart to Him, when in the quiet corners of life where truth finds you, you do His work. The good Christian must remain faithful, give God his time and give God His time. Serve the Lord with gladness. There will always be those who say things ought to be a certain way—their way. Gladness and the common compass appear missing.
Not all is what it seems and not what it ought to be. God desires for his children to know this. My response to ought, a winding road of delay, was not God’s desire for me, but it was the one I followed. I learned God’s way is not the domain of man’s will, not some institution or organization or logo or slogan or qualifying if. Man’s ought tempts toward conformity to this world. The only response, the one I live now and pray will remain clear for you, is to love God and follow Him through it all. You must get on with doing God’s work as you are called, as He allows you to see. God will bless you with unintentional consequences. Following Him you will know what you ought to do but not another.
The whole of the Bible leads you to Christ, to knowing him and every revelation prepared for you in coming to know him. And every truth gained becomes a guiding light against all those “oughts” institutionalized attempting to separate you from him. Do not be deceived by someone naming truth what truth is not.
Remember what Luke says in Chapter 6:38, “Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”
With love, measure by these truths. Love in mercy as mercy guides you. Over being right, do right. Tend the garden of your life with good soil. When doubt comes, look to Christ. Glorify God. Better to say, “I ought” than “You ought.” Spend time with God daily. Be watchful in your walk. When the world presses in, give God His time. God is not missing. Love,
Deacon