The Lord of Hosts

Last week I was walking on the clouds....on Friday, my husband called from Germany and said he would be coming home earlier than expected from a 2 week trip; on Saturday, I completed and submitted a lesson by my self-imposed deadline and my family was back together the way it's supposed to be.

On Sunday, however, the clouds that I had been dancing on suddenly began to turn dark and gray as things beyond my control began to surface. Monday only brought rain and by Tuesday thunderstorms were rolling in. I went from bright and sunny one moment to being overtaken by the waters the next -- how could this happen?

What has occurred is not dire nor life-threatening to me or my family, but it has caused chaos and confusion in my life. I had a perfectly quiet week planned to abide by my writing schedule and get things accomplished, and now none of that has worked out. Instead I find myself distracted in my thoughts and my activities, allowing anger from stress to boil over, and trying to make sense of it all and wonder what I'm supposed to do next. Although I couldn't understand all that was going on, God knew exactly what I needed.

On Monday I started a Precept Bible study on 1 Samuel. Within the first two days we studied the name of God - "Lord of hosts" (1 Samuel 1:3,11 NASB). I had heard that name for God before but wasn't quite sure what it meant. During my lesson I discovered that Lord of hosts refers to God as the One in charge of human, celestial, and angelic beings. Basically, God is the One, the Ruler, in charge of everything and everyone. By Tuesday I had locked that away as head knowledge, but God wasn't going to let it stay there!

On Wednesday as I spent more time dealing with my issues and the uncertainty of some them, God whispered to me, "I am the Lord of hosts". And just like that I realized that although the circumstances were out of my control, they were not out of God's, and I just had to quit letting them overtake me. With this new knowledge, not of mind but of heart, the peace that I had on Friday and Saturday was slowly finding it's way back to me.

I wish I could say that my turmoil has ended, but it hasn't and I have NO idea when it will. Until it does my life will be in limbo. But I'm okay with that because I know the Lord of hosts and for now, that's all I need to know.