"Stay your hand"

“Oh Lord stay your hand. . .

I was thinking about this today. I know for me when life gets tough and the remembrance of my peaceful existence is drowned in the brutal reality of life and its hardships it is easy to plead “Lord please stay your hand”. Recently I have gone through a time in my life where it seems that I and everyone I know have been bombarded with painful situation after painful situation. Situations alone monumental but when stacked up one after another seemingly insurmountable. It is in situations like these that we acknowledge God’s Omnipotence but question His motives. Last week I was at work in a miserable state of mind, I was worn out weary and weak from everything that had been happening and on top of that I was having issues with my job. Life sucked. I was praying for some of my friends and for the situations they were going through when I said in a despairing voice “Lord, please stay your hand I’m being crushed.” Then I felt as though I heard a voice saying “But how then can I hold you? Whether it was thought of my own or something else I don’t know but what I do know is it really made me think. Sometimes we forget that God is our Father as well as being ruler of all things. We see that He orchestrates situations but we fail to see how he cares for us in those same instances. Sometimes it is the hard times that brings us to the Lord, Sometimes life hurts so that we may be drawn closer to Our God, Sometimes we must fall so we may be lifted up higher. Sometimes hurt and comfort go hand in hand and to ask Him to stay one is asking to stay both. I know I was praying for comfort from my situations but also asked that he remove his hand for a moment. It cannot be done. I know I want the Lord to comfort me, so I must also bear through the hard times if only for the sweet moments of being held and comforted by Him who ordains the universe yet cares for one as small as me.

. . . “But how then shall I hold you?”