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By Lindsay Christerson
The Lord is at work.
Here we are, almost a month after the retreat, and what the Lord has taught me in this “retreat season” is the Lord is at work.
The Lord is always at work.
From my seat at the retreat, it was impossible not to see the handiwork of God leading, guiding, healing, restoring, whispering, holding, and pushing back the evil one. I could also see so much pain, suffering, and struggle. And all this tells me… The Lord is at work.
We see in Scripture how the poet-king David holds both the good redemptive work of the Lord and the difficulties that we experience together in both hands. In Psalm 29, David opens by saying “Ascribe to the Lord…” three times (which means it’s significant) and then to drive it home—“Worship the Lord.” As he moves through the psalm, there is a whole variety of natural world experiences, the mundane, glorious, and calamitous. Verses 3,7-11 say:
The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over many waters.The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.
The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;
the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth
and strips the forests bare,
and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.May the Lord give strength to his people!
May the Lord bless his people with peace!
He acknowledges that even though the waters were a dangerous mystery, they are still under God’s control. Fires, earthquakes, births, storms, worship, all come find their source in the voice of the Lord. Even as God’s judgment over the evil of mankind was displayed through the flood, He still gave strength and peace to His people. This life is filled with hardship, and the Lord is at work in all of it. But this could potentially cause us to fear. If Almighty God uses suffering and calamity in His work… so much is uncertain. And we would be correct in that assessment.
There is a reason that Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” When you realize what the Lord is truly capable of doing, a proper response is fear—a reverent fear of a holy, good, and trustworthy Father. He is the only One we can both reverently fear and simultaneously lean into to give us strength and peace (Psalm 29). He can ordain a flood in our life and the lives of those around us, and at the same time give us strength and peace.
The Lord is at work in every joy of our life.
The Lord is at work in every sorrow.
The Lord is at work in every mundane moment of your life.
The Lord is always at work.
If we let that sink in, truly, it is the fear of the Lord that leads to knowledge, which gives us wisdom and instruction. Maybe the wisdom and instruction is the recognition that the Lord is at work. In every circumstance, we instruct our hearts in that the Lord is working — good or bad, joy or sorrow, mundane or intense.
Sometimes it looks like submission. Laura Madden, a Bible study leader who has gone to be with the Lord, and who’s life we celebrated as a testimony at the retreat, used to say when she received negative news about her health and cancer journey, “You will not believe what the Lord is up to.” Pouring out her heart to women while enduring suffering in her body minute by minute, she submitted herself to His work in her life, wherever He led. It was His story she was telling with her life.
Sometimes it looks like faith. When you are in the dark, gloomy waters of the unknown, faith that pours out from the Spirit in you is the only way you can trust the Lord is at work in the unknown. You might not know where you are going, like on a foggy, dark day, where you can only see one step in front of you. The Lord working is strengthening your faith in the uncertainty. He cannot be surprised by the outcome. He is there waiting for you and will not leave your side in the fog.
Sometimes it looks like celebration. When the Lord pulls back the curtain and shows you what you are asking and it becomes clear what He is up to, we rightly praise His name. The timeline isn’t always what we want it to be, but sometimes you get to see the fruition of His work and can trace each step, and celebrate, exalting His name.
Whatever it looks like, the difference between the fear of the Lord causing us to fight, freeze, flee, or walk in freedom is attuning your heart to see His hand.
“Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.”Isaiah 43:19
The Lord is always at work. He is constantly doing new things… making ways in the untamed wilderness, bringing flowing rivers into the dry desert of our lives… can you perceive it? God is always working, are we tuning our ears to hear it? He is always moving, are we turning our eyes to see it? Have we limited our perception to the things we can control and the players in our circumstances, that we cannot perceive what the Lord is up to in our lives?
The unanimous answer is— Yes.
If we could always stay tuned in, Romans 12:2 wouldn’t have to tell us, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
My fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge
The Lord is always at work. Can I perceive it?
Attune my heart to how You are working.
