Why does God care?
Marriage has become the institution where one finds stability. Let me begin by saying I LOVE being married. Let me also begin by saying that I LOVE seeing how some who have experienced bad marriages can now live alone, and in their aloneness, praise the goodness of God.
When I was nineteen, I married. So young. Often, I have told my students: “Marriage is the most difficult job I have ever done.” MARRIAGE.
Two people.
Together in one dwelling.
Now, GO, make a LIFE—TOGETHER, and don’t mess up because when you mess up, then the marriage will fracture.
Today, I would like to tell you a story of a time God restored a marriage.
Today, I would like to tell you about the way God healed my marriage.
The year was 2016. Our daughter had just graduated from high school, and we took a journey out west to celebrate her accomplishment. So, see a seventeen-year-old daughter and her seventeen-year-old best friend. See the two parents there also.
This group of four set out for a journey west, to see what they had never seen, to experience what they had never experienced. Four people who left home & four people who undoubtedly changed during this journey west.
A daughter.
A daughter’s best friend.
A husband.
A wife.
Why does God care that we grow in our faith?
Why does God care that we grow each day, each week, each month, & each year to become more like HIM?
Why does God care?
In the Bible, there is a book of Psalms, one that expresses the multitude of ways we are to praise God. In the 71st Psalm, we encounter the way the psalmist praises marriage and life. In this particular Psalm, the author praises God in the way he offers us hope and in the way God knows us from our very beginning. I never wish for you to believe me, but I do wish for you to go with me into God’s Holy Word.
“For You are my hope; [God is my hope]
O Lord GOD, You are my confidence from my youth.
By You I have been sustained from my birth;
You are He who took me from my mother’s womb,
My praise is continually of You.
I have become a marvel to many,
For You are my strong refuge.
My mouth is filled with Your praise and with Your glory all day long.”
(Psalm 71: 6-8)
When we journeyed to the National Parks as a celebration of our daughter’s high school graduation, we never knew this journey would change the projectory of our marriage. California contains Navy bases, and one such base was our destination (one that my husband deployed from and returned to before—as in before this—our graduation celebratory journey). We had shared several days of travel, enjoyed so many markers, during every step of our journey, and our daughter’s best friend continued to become more fatigued, more in need of rest, and more in need of home.
One leg of the trip was a journey into an elevation much higher than our home. As we drove higher and higher into the mountain, this sweet girl became sicker with each mile. We knew what we must do—Descend Elevation Quickly.
See a group of four travelers.
See a military base.
See a family +1 more enter the base.
See the childhood friend begin to feel better, primarily because the base resides close to the Pacific Ocean, a lower elevation than the mountain just explored.
See the husband leave the Navy Lodge.
See the husband return with a group of papers clutched in his hands.
Papers Giving His Orders to deploy—My husband’s fourth military deployment.
Why does God care?
Why does God care about our birth?
Why does God care about our existence?
Why does God care about our eternal destination?
Why does God care about us?
What began in the summer of 2016 as a celebratory journey—eventually—ended in the following year 2017 as a celebratory journey of praise and thankfulness in what God accomplished through our marriage.
We traveled back (from the military base) to Las Vegas, returned our rental car, and flew home.
Even though we began this journey hopeful to explore the western part of USA, we came home with a sense of pleasure and a sense of dread, primarily because now we knew my husband was to deploy.
This deployment would be our fourth.
Each previous deployment had provided a building project.
#1—Provided a building of our new home.
#2—Provided a building of a foundation for my husband’s garage and for the landscaping that now surrounds our home.
#3—Provided no building because a health issue returned my husband home early.
#4—Provided a building of my faith, of my walk with Christ.
Why does God care—about us?
Why does God care—about our faith?
Why does God care—about our salvation?
Why does God care—about our spiritual growth?
Why does God care—about our walk with Christ Jesus?
Why does God care—about our journey home to heaven?
Why does God care—about our growth, our maturation, our sanctification?
These questions are such easy questions to answer: Let us look back to Psalm 71 to see one declaration, one answer to the question: “Why does God care?”
“For You are my hope [God is my hope];
O Lord GOD, You are my confidence from my youth.
By You I have been sustained from my birth;
You are He who took me from my mother’s womb,
My praise is continually of You.”
(Psalm 71: 6)
God cares because He is our Hope!
God cares because He is our Confidence!
God cares because He is our sustainer!
God cares because He formed us from our conception, from our birth!
God cares because He placed us inside & then took us from our mother’s womb!
God cares because HE KNOWS our birthday!
God cares because HE DESIRES to INTIMATELY KNOW EACH OF US!
God cares because HE IS OUR SALVATION!
MAY WE OFFER OUR PRAISE—CONTINUALLY—BECAUSE GOD CARES !!!!!!!!!!
My husband deployed.
During his deployment, he sustained an injury. This injury led him to a surgery & then to a time of remaining on base rather than returning home.
Our journey returned us home and then led us into deployment preparations.
Our journey led us into a thirteen-month deployment.
Our journey led us through an injury, surgery, and recuperation of my husband’s shoulder.
Our journey led us through an “almost” dissolvement of our marriage.
Our journey led us to see God’s hand of preparation & sustainment & healing.
GOD IS FAITHFUL.
GOD PROVIDES TESTING—of our FAITH.
GOD OFFERS HEALING.
GOD SUSTAINS US.
GOD CARES INTIMATELY ABOUT EACH OF US.
GOD KNOWS US.
GOD WAS THERE—PRESENT—AT OUR CREATION BECAUSE IT WAS GOD WHO PLACED US INSIDE OUR MOTHER’S WOMB.
WHY DOES GOD CARE?
Let us return to God’s Holy Word to answer this question. The Apostle Peter reminds us of where God has taken us from (in our sinful state), and reminds us of how HE made us new, how HE gave us a new birth of salvation through Jesus, & how since we are newborn babies, we are to crave the pure milk of His Holy Scriptures—the Bible. Yes, Peter writes to reveal the TRUTH—GOD CARES—BECAUSE WE HAVE TASTED OF GOD’S GOODNESS FOUND THROUGH HIS SALVATION. It was the study of God’s Word, the building of Darrell’s faith and my faith that saved our marriage in 2016-2017. We focus on finding the plans, the relationships, the career we should seek for our lives, but GOD cares about our spiritual development.
God knows us intimately because it is God who created us and placed us inside our mother’s womb. Since God places inside us a desire to know Him, to receive His Salvation—MAY WE DESIRE THE PURE MILK OF GOD’S WORD—the BIBLE—EVERY SINGLE DAY!
“Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the Word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.”
(1 Peter 2: 1-3)