The Heavy Hand

"Don’t despise the heavy hand of the Lord."

I sit on the couch in a place I feel loved and think about this phrase. My pastor has said it more times than I can remember. Don’t despise the heavy hand of the Lord. He is growing. He is stretching. He is sanctifying. In his heavy-handedness, he is being gracious. Not content to let us fester in complacency or walk blindly into destruction, but rather desiring better for us. And every time I heard it, I looked back at the past three years and heartily agreed. Yes, it’s true. Though difficult, the heavy hand has been the best gift he has given me. Though painful, the heavy hand shaped me into the person I am today, and I would not have grown in faith as I did without it.

I’ve lived through the heavy hand, so I felt I had ground to stand on in my assent. I didn’t agree naively. Those words weren’t just pretty phrases, they were my real past. But still, my agreement was that of hindsight. It is much harder to steel against resentment when the heavy hand is upon you.

I am here again. Thinking the Lord would lift me high, but instead he has rested on me the burden of his hand. And I do despise it. I want it to go away. I want him to lift me out and up and restore my joy. And if I’m honest, I want him to give me the idol I thought I was going to receive.

The heart is deceitful above all else, and desperately sick. Who can understand it? -Jeremiah 17:9

I see it all the time, my heart feeling things and making decisions for me I don’t understand, often leading straight to the path of death. I know this is true, so then why did the Lord chose to make the heart the wellspring of life as well?

I don’t know why my heart can’t stop resenting and just be thankful. I don’t know why it is so hard to look back at all the times the Lord has been faithful and trust that he will be again. Just a couple of weeks ago I wrote that I believed he would be. And I suppose I do still believe that, but right now, i feel the distrust welling up inside me. The doubt that says my God is not for me. I long for a day when I don’t fall back into the sin of fear and cynicism.

I repeatedly find myself in the place of the father who’s son had been afflicted with a demon for many years. Every time I read his words, “I believe, help my unbelief!” I am grateful. How gracious of my father to include this story so that I would know that this is how I could pray.

The heart is deceitful above all else, but it is also the wellspring. And in 1 John, the Lord gives us an answer to this paradox. “This then, is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence, whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” (1 John 3:19-20)

The heavy hand of the Lord is upon me, and there’s a long way to go before the contempt for that is eradicated, but I am thankful for a God that is greater than my mistrusting heart and one who never ceases to push toward my sanctification.