MOVING FORWARD

How do we move forward after loss?  

How do we look forward to the future when it looks so very different to what we thought, what we’d planned, what we had built our very lives around?

How do we form new connections, new relationships, new roles when the breakdown left us with so many questions and left us feeling so disoriented and cynical and questioning our discernment? 

How do we get excited about life again when we’ve experienced a lot of disappointment?

I don’t know, but I do know that He gives us a pathway.  He is the God of pathways.   That’s a theme that runs throughout Scripture, both in the stories of His people, and in His promises to us in Psalms and Proverbs. 

And I know the power of hope, because I’ve had to dig into it many times before now.

I’ve lost my church family, essentially, and it has left me feeling pretty unanchored, if that’s a word.  

The people I thought I would be doing life with are, for the most part, keeping their distance, because of various things that have happened over the last few months, though it’s been coming for a while, when I look back.   

And I’m now keeping my distance because things are unresolved that need to be resolved if there is going to be healthy connection.  

Those things seem unresolvable at the moment, maybe indefinitely, so I have to leave it alone, and stay away.    That’s a tough call, because there’s so much I want to resolve, and I can’t.  

I’ve been trying to get His perspective, and in my head sorting through all the what-ifs, and the various conversations and outcomes.  

In seeking clarity about the recent past, and a pathway for the future, the Lord has brought me back, again and again, to Psalm 16.   Just when I think I understand all there is to understand, He’ll take me back there again. 

Honestly, the Word of God seems like a bottomless well in its ability to provide more – more counsel, more hope, more comfort, more clarity on my current situation and His deep, deep grace for moving forward. 

So, I decided to write some things down that He has shown me from this psalm, recently and in times past.   It’s not exhaustive because there’s always more.   I’m taking it from the New King James version, because that’s what my Bible is.  

O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup……

The Lord is ALL I need.   That doesn’t mean that He won’t put people in my life to be carriers of Him.  He absolutely does and has.    But some of those key people are no longer doing that, for all sorts of reasons.  

Sometimes, when people are used powerfully in our lives, we can get caught up in them – who they are, how they’ve helped us, who they think we should be or what they think we should be doing, their value system, their validation, their approval, etc.   

But the Lord Himself wants to be our cup – our resource, and our inheritance – everything we need.  He wants to be our first port of call, not our last.   I think sometimes, He needs to reduce the giants in our lives so we can truly see Him and know Him.  

 

You maintain my lot.  

I love that He cares enough to be my maintenance man!!   As a single person, and a single parent, I often feel the lack of a man in my life, our lives, to do the maintenance.   And yet, here is the Lord, maintaining my lot.  I’m sure there is a much deeper meaning in this sentence than the English reveals, and I don’t want to reduce Him to simply a maintenance man, but Him maintaining our lives is a good thing for me and shows His intricate care and concern over every aspect of our lives.

 

The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places………….

Boundaries!!  

People say that boundaries are not Biblical and yet they are also woven throughout Scripture.   Guard your heart, keep away from the fool, don’t sit with sinners or stand with mockers, shake the dust off your feet, don’t steal – these are all examples of Biblical boundaries.

We need boundaries to live healthy lives.   But we need to make sure they are Biblical boundaries, and done from a heart of grace, for others and ourselves, not from bitterness. 

Yes, I have a good inheritance.

I can know that the Lord has a good inheritance in mind for me, planned already, before any of this started, or finished.   None of this caught Him by surprise, even if it has left me shell-shocked by its intensity and suddenness.   God has a good plan and it’s not contingent on me belonging to a certain church or group of people.    Yes, He builds those things into our lives, but sometimes we lose sight of Him, even in that.   Sometimes, He has to remove that network to allow us to move into the next part of His plan.  

I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel; 

My heart also instructs me in the night seasons.

I’m leaning hard into His counsel at the moment, as I should always be doing, but have not always because I’ve leaned hard into the counsel of others.    It’s about Him first, and He wants to speak to us directly.   Does He have to remove people from our lives so we will actually listen to Him first, above the noise and the busyness? 

Is the night season a season of difficulty and loss?   Perhaps it is.  There has been plenty of loss for me personally, and I have definitely found Him to be present in those seasons of loss over the last few years.  

I have set the Lord always before me;

Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.

I have been feeling very moved and unsettled since this whole thing went down but He doesn’t change and He hasn’t moved.    Once again, it’s time to refocus on Him, to set Him always before me, intentionally, to look beyond the people who were ‘big’ in my life, and see Him.   See Him in the good that they did me (and there was plenty of that), see Him in being asked to speak up about what was wrong, see His perspective on what actually happened once I did, not how things appeared – from either side.  

When we see things the way He sees them, we can get our eyes off the human aspect and realise there’s more to it than just ‘them’.   If we can hate the sin, not the sinner, it frees us from taking everything so personally, and allows us to see the sin in our own lives, not just in what they did to us. 

 

Therefore my heart is glad….

Therefore – therefores are so pivotal in the Word.   We have to look at what comes before the therefore.   Because of all that He has done and is doing, the seen and unseen, I can be glad moving forward.  I can get excited again, even when my heart is heavy with many unanswered questions, and a sense of loss and injustice.  

Sometimes, we have to choose to look forward with gladness, and stop looking back.   There is definitely a time to think through what’s happened, but there is also a time to stop doing that, leave all the mess in His hands, and ask Him for the forward plan.   That doesn’t mean we forget the people or the lessons, but we look forward with gladness to what He will do, even before we can see it in real terms.   Sometimes, it feels like betrayal and dismissal of all that’s been important to us, to move forward without certain people, but it’s so necessary in our healing, and in our walk with Him.  

 

and my glory rejoices…………

My glory?   Who I really am, all that He has put in me - for Him, from Him, to others.  

We each contain and hopefully reflect and give out a portion of who He is – His glory.   No one person can contain all of Him.  Not a chance!!   But each of us can contain a small part of who He is, a small part of that glory.  We are made in the image of the Father, and we reflect Him – sometimes well, sometimes poorly.  

I know that when we are free from the constraints of other people’s opinions, validation, rejection, shaping, value systems, false authority, etc, then we can be who HE created us to be.  Not in bitterness or anger or defiance, but in a confident knowing of who we are in Him, and what He has for us to be and do. 

We have to see beyond the giants to who He is, so we are not acting like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we can move into our inheritance.     

True humility is taking up our God-given space – not being more nor less than who He has designed and equipped and redeemed us to be.   And we can do that with joy, even in the midst of hard.  

Sometimes He will remove people, and remove us from people, so we are free to do that. 

My flesh also will rest in hope.

For You will not leave my soul in Sheol,
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.

I don’t really understand this verse, other than in the context of eternal redemption, won by Jesus, but I suspect He is going to show me more about how this relates to physical wellness. 

You will show me the path of life……

He has a definite path for each of us.   It’s a path of life and abundance and wellness and freedom – in Him.    When we’ve been on a journey with others, walking the same path, it can be pretty gut-wrenching to then get to a fork in the road and realise we have to walk a different path, especially when that separation comes suddenly or with rejection, slander, injustice, etc.  

But to really thrive in Him and in our purpose, we have to walk the path He has for us.   That requires surrender - of all what we thought life would look like - which is rarely easy.

But that path is the place where we really get to know Him.   Like Much Afraid in Hinds Feet on High Places, we learn who He really is, and we become who we are meant to be. 

 

In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

It’s in Him that we find the fullness of that joy that life can bring – knowing Him, and living in all that lights us up, gives us purpose, warms our hearts, allows us to give and receive.  

He has so much for us, but it requires so much of us.   We simply cannot walk our own path and expect a fulfilled life.   And yet when we do surrender, as hard as that is, we find that there really are pleasures at His right hand.   They may not look like what we thought we should or would have, but they are what we need. 

 

And back to verse 1!! 

Preserve me, O God, for in You I put my trust.

It’s back to that place of choosing trust, when nothing is making sense, when everything hurts, and we can’t see what’s ahead.    We really can rely on the One who has been faithful thus far, even in the mystery of unanswered questions and unresolved issues.  

I love this song from John Drolet, After the Storm.

It’s based on one of the key life verses the Lord gave me about four years ago, heading into a storm.   This side of that storm, and having been through some others since, I can say with certainty that He is faithful and true, and that gives me the faith and courage for moving forward, stronger, wiser and better, not bitter.  

Like these beautiful gum trees who've been through some storms, and therefore have some fallen timber that I can burn, the Lord can strengthen us to stand and have something to offer people because of our storms.     

 

But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.   1 Peter 5:10

I’ve stumbled, I’ve wept

But You still called my name

Through suffering and silence

Your promise remained

Now I rise with the dawn

In the light of Your grace

What the enemy broke

You’re starting to replace

After the storm, You restore

Make me strong forevermore

You call me to glory, You lift me again

By the power of Christ, I stand in the end

Firm and unshaken, faithful and true

You are the God who sees me through