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We are not like those people who turn back and get destroyed. We will keep on having faith until we are saved. Hebrews 10:39 (CEV)
God’s judgment was imminent. Because of the prayers of one faithful servant of God,Lot’s family was miraculously led from ground zero just before destruction fell. In spite of the udder destruction behind them,Lot’s wife looks back. This wasn’t a casual observation like a freeway ‘rubber-necker’. This was a longing for the life she left behind, a longing for a lifestyle that was completely removed from God but all that she knew. Her longing to live in the past is what turned her into a pillar of salt.
The Israelites lived for over 400 years in a foreign land waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled. Not long into their journey of deliverance, they began to long for the familiarity ofEgypt. The pain of abuse, and the promise of better things ahead wasn’t enough to keep them from longing for their past.
Jesus walked the paths ofGalileehealing the sick, raising the dead, giving hope to the hopeless. The crowds followed him because of the hope he offered of physical life, political freedom and financial security. When his message turned to the pain and death he would suffer; when his message began to shed light on the pain that following him would bring into their lives, they began to fall off, not one by one, but by droves.
We still search for a God of convenience. A God that will grant our every need, make us comfortable in life, and provide for us in the ways WE seek. Our Heavenly Father isn’t a God of convenience. He isn’t a vending machine God that we can come to and choose our blessing. He has never, ever promised that in the midst of our deliverance there would not also be pain.
We are all on a journey. That journey takes us through many life-situations. Some pleasant, some not. But our God never intends for us to stay in one place. His desire is for us to move forward regardless of what lies ahead. Trust comes from a refusal to let life circumstances dictate our belief in a God who is passionately in love with us.
Don’t let your past confine your present. Those things in the past that are positive can be used to build a bright future. Those things in your past that are dark can be used to grow wiser. Whatever the case, never let your past be anything more than a stepping stone to a closer relationship with Jesus.
PRAYER: Lord God, I find myself longing for the good things you’ve done in my past and forgetting the things pain that brought me here. Help me learn from my past as I constantly look forward to a future you have planned for me. Let me never turn back from total faith in you. Amen.
Now they were more afraid than ever and said to each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” Mark 4:41 (CEV)
When you need to make the winning shot, or score the winning touchdown you look to your ‘go to guy’ the MVP, the one who seems to thrive on the excitement and tenseness of the situation. In most cases you don’t put the rookie into that situation. He doesn’t know the game, he lacks confidence, and he may choke under the pressure.
I remember watching a professional basketball game on TV one time. The underdog team had played its best game of the season and was within a point of tying the game with a few seconds left. They were playing the defending champions on their home court. As you can imagine, the crowd was going wild.
On the free throw line stood the home team’s rookie sensation. He was the one that had been keeping them in the game all night. As he prepared to make that shot to tie the game, a veteran player from the other team walked past him and slapped him on the back. The TV cameras just happened to zoom in at that moment and you could see the veteran smile and say “Don’t choke.”
That’s all it took. The rookie shot the ball, bounced the game-tying shot off the front of the rim, and it was rebounded by the veteran to end the game for the home town team! He listened to the words ‘don’t choke’ and focused so much on what was said he missed an easy shot to tie the game.
When you are in the midst of battle you don’t want someone who is going to choke. You want someone that you know will get the job done. There will be close games. There will be battles and struggles to contend with. But with your ‘go to guy’ in the game you know the outcome is more likely to end in your favor.
In life, my ‘go to guy’ is Jesus. Unlike a sporting event, I don’t go to him because he is my best hope; I go to him because he is my ONLY hope. Unlike a sporting event, putting Jesus on the line doesn’t give me a better chance of victory, it guarantees my victory.
The disciples were in the boat. It was dark. Most of them were fishermen and knew the dangers of the storm. Perhaps they’d even lost a friend or two at sea. As their terror mounted, Jesus slept. He knew the outcome. He wasn’t concerned.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, the storm I’m going through now has me more than a little worried. I’m scared! I can’t fight the battle ahead of me without your help. I need you in control of this situation. Empower me with your Spirit to rely on you for the outcome. I put all my hope and trust in your ability to work all things out to your good. Amen
Why, LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? Psalm 10:1
It’s during the wilderness time of our lives that we expect God to be present. After all, doesn’t scripture say ‘He is an ever present help in times of trouble?” (Psalm 46:1-2) Aren’t we told we can hide in him? (Psalm 91:1-2)
Too often it seems like he is the one hiding. If we are honest, the times of trouble we go through aren’t nearly as hard to take as the feeling that in those times of trouble we struggle to see God’s face. “I could endure this trouble if I could see you!” we tell ourselves.
Those struggles of our heart, the painful wandering in the wilderness of our souls are the true test of our trust in God and our belief in the hope we have through Christ. If God were to carry us through every trial and make our journey effortless; if he were to keep us from all pain and suffering and show us the easy way to traverse the rocky path of life; if he were to protect us from all pain, then from where would we learn to be strong. Troubling times are the skeleton, the muscles of life that give us strength to carry on.
Somewhere along the line we’ve gotten the mistaken idea that if God is a God of love, then pain will be absent from our lives, but this is never found in scripture. On earth, during this life we should not be surprised when trouble comes, we should be expecting it.
Sometimes we have to admit that the trials we endure are the consequences of past sin. We are forgiven to be sure, but the consequences of that sin can last a lifetime. Sometimes those consequences are natural results of our choices. Sometimes those consequences are the result of critical and judgmental people who refuse to allow us to forget our past. Either way, the consequences of our past can keep us from seeing the Father.
Times of trouble can be lessons of grace as well. Paul prayed three times for some unknown thorn to be removed from his life. The answer? My grace is sufficient. Were we to be trouble free, we might naturally assume that we are in control of our destiny, that we are able to make our way on our own strength. Grace reminds us that we need God. Times of trouble remind us that we need grace.
Times of trouble come at the hands of evil men as well. People who call themselves messengers of God can be the worst. They put the label of their religion on everything they do, but there is no grace. There is no understanding. There is no compassion. We are misjudged, misunderstood and mistreated. Sometimes for our past (which was forgiven) sometimes for our stand for God.
There may be other reasons you can think of for why this ‘time of trouble’ has come into your life. It may be to teach you some lesson on life, or to strengthen you for the future. Whatever the case, when you can’t see the Father you can know two things. One, he is not far away. Two, he has good reason to allow you this ‘time of trouble’. Use it to grow more closely to him or it will be used by the enemy to pull you away.
PRAYER: Father, I don’t understand you. I confess that openly. It’s especially hard to understand you during those times when I feel like I need you the most and can’t find
But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with its windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to his God. Daniel 6:10 (NLT)
Most of us, when faced with a crisis of any sort, resort to the lessons we learned at the University of Worry.
We worry when the marriage relationship begins to grow cold. We worry when the credit cards come. We worry when the doctor calls us and asks us to come in to discuss the test results. We worry when the phone rings late at night, or sirens go by our house and the kids aren’t home yet.
Worry is basically a human ‘skill’. Animals don’t worry. Jesus tells us the flowers of the field don’t worry. Humans worry. Worry really doesn’t do us any good. Worry redirects our focus for a solution away from God and towards ourselves. It’s really saying “God can’t handle this one, I’m in this alone.”
Worry causes all sorts of emotional, physical and spiritual stress in our lives and none of us needs more stress. When that happens we blame God, others or ourselves for the problem. Playing the ‘blame-game’ when we are worried is self-defeating. Worry is paralyzing and keeps us from seeing solutions clearly.
Daniel was a great man of God. He’d learned through experience that breaking away from the crowd and following God when it didn’t make sense eventually paid off. One day, a law was passed that no one was allowed to pray to their God. Prayers, and faith, were only to be put in government. The sentence for breaking the law was death by lion pit.
So what did Daniel do? He went to his room, opened the window, and began to praise God for all he’d done. Did he pour out his heart for mercy? Doesn’t look like it. Did he plead for protection? Don’t see that in scripture either. Did he beg for deliverance? No sign of that.
What did Daniel do in the face of crisis? He thanked God for all the things he’d done. Paul tells us the same thing in Philippians. He says, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” Philippians 4:6 (NLT)
That’s not an easy thing to do. Our humanity screams lies at us. We’re told we are in this alone. We are told God won’t hear us. We’re told lies like ‘God helps those who help themselves’. It’s a hard, hard truth to learn. When faced with crisis in your life, don’t focus on the crisis, focus on the cross.
PRAYER: Father God, it’s easy to say I trust you. It’s much harder to live ‘I trust you’. Especially when the future looks so dark and scary. In the face of adversity help me to praise you for who you are. Give me strength to believe you will do what you say you will do. Amen.
The LORD has heard my plea; the LORD will answer my prayer. Psalm 6:9 (NLT)
A small boy sits by the curb looking down the street. A passerby asks if he needs help. The little boy looks up and states confidently, ‘No sir, I’m just waiting for my daddy. He said he’d be home at 5:00 and it’s almost that time. I don’t want to miss him.”
Intrigued by the little boy’s faith, the passerby asks, “How do you know he’ll come?” The child looked up with confidence and said, “Because sir, my daddy always tells me when he’ll be home and he’s never been wrong.”
A simple story. A simple faith. What was it that caused the little boy to wait with confidence? Faith in the consistency of his father. Consistency is defined by the character of an individual. In essence a consistent person is one that does what he says he’ll do. And, because he did it in the past, he can be counted on to do it in the future.
Why did the woman risk ridicule by reaching through the crown to touch Jesus? Why did Mary and Martha send a message to Jesus that Lazarus was sick? Why did four friends dig a hole in the roof to drop their paralytic friend down to Jesus? Consistency.
Jesus could be counted on to do what he says he’d do.
David writes in Psalm 6:9 “The Lord HAS heard my plea, the Lord WILL answer my prayer.”
Was David’s reliance on prayer an act of blind faith in a religious activity? Not on your life. David knew God. He’d seen God deliver him from lions and bears. He’d seen the giant fall before him. He’d felt his presence on cold, dark, lonely nights and in the midst of the storm. He knew God and God’s track record assured him that he’d be heard.
Often times, when our prayers aren’t answered we fall back on the idea that if God didn’t answer it’s because he didn’t want to because of his anger towards us, or his disdain for our past, or because he is powerless to do so.
He may not always answer in the time or manner we’d like, but history shows that we serve a God who is consistent. He does what he says he’ll do time after time. The original word picture David paints in his statement refers to mercy and grace. He knew his God was a God of mercy and grace and because of that, because of what he’d seen God do in the past, he knew he could count on him for the future.
Regardless of what you are going through today, the Lord God, knows your heart and your need. He’s been meeting needs for 1,000’s of years. He’s not about to change that now. You can trust that he’ll do what he says he’ll do.
PRAYER: Father, it’s hard to comprehend what it means to be consistent in faith since there are so few things that are consistent today. Marriages fail, friends leave us, religion seems empty. Help me to rely on your consistency in my faith walk. Amen.
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 