For a time like this

Dear friends in Christ,

What a blessing to say Happy New Year to you all! How great is our God. We are so blessed and privileged to be alive and have the opportunity to start another year, when there are so many people who will never be a part of 2015. Thinking of this makes me wonder why God chose to keep me safe and allow me to be alive and healthy for yet another year when there are so many other people who seem to deserve it so much more but they don’t get to be with us anymore? Have you ever wondered about that?

I think back ten years ago to the 26^th of December 2004. I was still in varsity and we were on our farm for the Christmas holidays, when I switched on the television on Boxing Day and became aware of the horror of the earthquake off the coast of Sumatra that caused around 250 000 people to die. I remember the shock and confusion and how the death toll rose per minute on CNN for days and weeks on end. Recently I saw a documentary on the Tsunami and the footage and survivor accounts of the incident and the weeks thereafter drove me to tears.

I literally felt sick for a week afterwards as I realised for the first time after seeing the recorded footage that had been recovered over time, how many lives were lost and how many entire families were wiped out. It bothered me and I repeatedly told God that it doesn’t make sense and that I don’t understand why I, why we, all should live in a time where such horrific events keep on occurring more and more frequently. We as a generation have to see and experience and live through all these things. Hurricanes, earthquakes, nuclear disasters, wars and so many other heartbreaking things and it doesn’t always feel like we are equipped to handle it emotionally.

Ok, I accept that these same things have been happening throughout all generations since the beginning and will continue to happen in generations to come, but add to that the way everything else in our lives are changing at a tremendous speed because of global warming, technology, a hunger for money, greed, addiction, politics and everything else in the modern world that seem to cause the world to sometimes vibrate too fast to handle. Add to that the amount of stress that we face on a daily basis specifically due to the challenges of the age we live in and you have to agree that we are alive in a very challenging and stressful time with a lot of hate, heartache, tragedies and death.

We are in the middle of it, part of it and we need to survive and live our lives in the best way we can and raise our kids to the best of our knowledge in a world that seems to be spinning out of control in so many ways. So I was really confused about why we have to live in a time when all these things are happening. Is it just me or have you wondered about these things too at some stage?

Well dear friends, I then went to the Bible and started looking for answers and I would like to share with you what I found. I went to the book of Esther, chapter 4 where Mordecai asked Esther to go to the king and beg for mercy for the lives of their people. In verse 14 he said to Esther “…. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” Reading that, I suddenly just realised again that God didn’t just put us on earth on a random date or in a random generation or even in a random family.

God knew us even before we were born, (Jer 1:5.) He knows everything about you and me. When we sit and when we rise, our thoughts and words before we even speak to them. He even searches out our paths. (Ps 139.) I don’t think we realise the impact of this on our lives. God chose each and every one of us, not just to be alive, but He knew us in our inmost being and He knew what our thoughts and emotions and personalities would be along with our inner strengths and He placed each of us on earth at exactly the right time and place where He knew we would thrive most.

I truly believe that God knows who would be the right people to make up every generation, He chooses us specifically to fill the exact place and time slot in life where we would fit in perfectly.

Have any of you ever thought:  “I am not made for this technological age” or “I wish I was alive when life was still uncomplicated or not as expensive or not as cruel.” Or maybe: “I should have lived in a more peaceful time, I can’t handle this word with all its hatred anymore.” “How will the children of the next generation cope in this world where things don’t make sense  and wars are arising everywhere and diseases are thriving and and and…?”

Dear friends, we need to realise our God has thought things through much more intensely than we can imagine and each and every one of us has been placed on this earth on the exact spot and in the precise time that He knew we would fit in perfectly. We would NOT have been strong enough physically, emotionally, spiritually or capable in any other way to deal with life on this earth in any other time frame than now! Those who God knew would fit in during the 1800’s were alive in the 1800’s. We would NOT have coped. Those who will come in the future, will be made to handle a future that we were never meant to be a part of on earth and you and me – WE WERE MADE TO LIVE RIGHT NOW-

God made us strong enough to handle what we need to handle and to face what we face every day in our time here on earth. Whether we face the biggest technological advances or the newest scientific inventions, a global economic crisis, wars, religious wars, cancer and other diseases, natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes, no matter what happens during our lives we can rest in knowing that our God MADE us FOR this specific time. He made everything about us to belong and fit in and adapt on earth during this specific time. Thus, no matter what happens all around us, we are made to cope with this life and with our Creator and God on our side, we can rest in knowing that we are strong enough and able to handle whatever comes our way.

Prayer: Thank You Lord for forming me in such a way that I am a perfect fit for life on planet earth right now. Thank You that You knew that in this day and age I am able to flourish and live abundantly and that when I have You by my side I CAN handle life and everything it throws at me.

Thank You Lord that I am alive in 2015. You are everything and You are all to me. Amen.

Be fearless in Christ and stand strong.

Lizz