Even So by Lisa Burkhardt Worley
The pressure is mounting.
I still have some residual effects of COVID, a little congestion and occasional headaches, and a week from Monday I leave to speak at a Fatherless Summit in Wisconsin, the following weekend at a women’s conference in College Station, then we hold our Level-Up Conference in Lewisville, TX on October 9th. That alone requires a lot of work and time. But I trust and know that God is faithful and compassionate and the One who called me to these events will accomplish the task through me and our POP team.
This week, as I was reading in Psalm 106, I was especially thankful for the LORD’s compassion and forgiveness. It’s an account of the Israelites’ history—the good and the bad. After God saved them from a life of slavery in Egypt, they were obedient for a while, but then turned on Him by worshipping idols and sacrificing their children. That understandably made God angry so he allowed His chosen ones to be taken captive by their enemies.
But here is the verse that impacted me: “Even so, he pitied them in their distress and listened to their cries. He remembered His covenant with them and relented because of his unfailing love. He even caused their captors to treat them with kindness” (Psalm 106:44, NLT).
God was forced to issue discipline, but His love remained the same, so much so that he made sure they were treated with kindness by their enemies.
And I thought about my “even so’s.”
When Lisa turned away from God for seventeen years after salvation, even so, God pitied her in the midst of a career crash and brought her back into His fold.
There have been times where Lisa placed other idols before God, but even so, He allowed her some success and patiently waited for her to come back to Him.
And when, because of the roots of her fatherless past, Lisa feels betrayed, even so, God always restores her faith in mankind through acts of love.
What is your “even so?”
No matter how you may have “failed” in your faith journey, God’s compassion and love never changes for you. He is the God of “even so’s.” He will always forgive. He always restores. And he’s always waiting for us to repent and return to Him. The warranty never expires on His love.
The remembrance of the even so’s gives me the strength to move forward—in difficult times. Today I am thankful that God will never cast me aside. What about you?