{"id":163,"date":"2015-06-03T15:42:10","date_gmt":"2015-06-03T20:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/musings.butchevans.com\/?p=163"},"modified":"2015-06-03T15:42:10","modified_gmt":"2015-06-03T20:42:10","slug":"destruction-and-restoration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/musings.butchevans.com\/?p=163","title":{"rendered":"Destruction and Restoration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I wrote this poem on August 17, 2014. \u00a0I was in a lot of pain at the time. \u00a0This was a very dark period in my life and I really struggled to find God. \u00a0God isn&#8217;t in the business of destroying our lives, rather he desires to ease the burdens of life. \u00a0I was reading that day from Matthew 11, where Jesus was talking about judgement for sin. \u00a0I recall struggling with what was happening in my life at the time and thinking that my pain was my own fault (in many ways, it is my own fault). \u00a0But Jesus words at the end of that chapter spoke to me and this poem came from what he said. \u00a0Matthew 11:28-30 read:\u00a0<em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">&#8220;Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. \u00a0For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.&#8221;<\/span><\/em><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Destruction and Restoration<br \/>\nWritten August 17, 2015<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">As I sit and survey the world around me today,<br \/>\nI can only wonder what tomorrow may bring.<br \/>\nTo my awesome God, let my praises ring.<br \/>\nI sing to Him, but my hurts seem to rule the day.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">My life, as I&#8217;ve always known it to be,<br \/>\nis gone away never to return. It seems so unfair.<br \/>\nI sit here now broken and crying in despair,<br \/>\n&#8220;My God, my God, why did this happen to me?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">As suddenly as the destruction came upon me,<br \/>\nGod&#8217;s presence and love was easily felt.<br \/>\nOnce again, I was struggling, but His spirit indwelt.<br \/>\nDestruction isn&#8217;t His plan, He died to set me free.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">I must take His yoke upon me in place of the one I carried before.<br \/>\nHis spirit within me need only be allowed to work his will.<br \/>\nNot my will, but yours, my Lord, you&#8217;ve tried to instill.<br \/>\nAny burden I have, I give over to you to keep forevermore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I wrote this poem on August 17, 2014. \u00a0I was in a lot of pain at the time. \u00a0This was a very dark period in my life and I really struggled to find God. \u00a0God isn&#8217;t in the business of destroying our lives, rather he desires to ease the burdens of life. \u00a0I was reading [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Destruction and Restoration","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,6,30],"tags":[8,31,14,17,20],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-personal","category-poetry","tag-beliefs","tag-christian-living","tag-god","tag-grace","tag-jesus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Mji6-2D","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/musings.butchevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/musings.butchevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/musings.butchevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/musings.butchevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/musings.butchevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/musings.butchevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164,"href":"http:\/\/musings.butchevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/musings.butchevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/musings.butchevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/musings.butchevans.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}