When life brings terrific storms, challenges designed by our enemy, the devil, to turn our boat upside down in the swells, to swamp us with discouragement and drown us with horror, there is always a still, small voice in the wind.
This still, small voice, the sound of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of God and the anointing and strength (I think of Him as the grease in the wheels of our God-given destiny) of God, is accompanied by the sight of Jesus Christ coming to us on top of the water. As He comes, light surrounds him, engulfing the darkness of our trials.
I am in a particularly challenging season of life. The darkness of the trial I am facing is reminiscent of the plague of darkness in the Old Testament. God wanted to demonstrate his power among the Egyptians, who had enslaved his chosen people, the Israelites. He did so through a series of curses. One of these was to send a darkness among them so penetrating that the Bible says it could be felt. The first few days of my current challenging season, I felt plunged into a darkness that could be felt. I am not referring to the velvety black of a peaceful summer evening sky, when the stars string an array of hope across the countenance of the heavens, breathing peaceful sleep into all creatures below. I am talking about a darkness that leaves you groping for an emotional handlebar. I am talking about the kind of darkness an amusement park might plunge parts of an indoor rollercoaster into, leaving the riders guessing about what comes next. Will there be a hairpin turn that leaves you uncertain as to which direction you are traveling? Maybe a massive plunge downward at what feels like a ninety-degree angle.
It doesn't ever take long before the Lord begins to redeem a season like the one that I am in. Right away I stop my rebellion, my spiritual laziness and I start to look for Him, to cry out to Him. If I were God, I would not listen. But He always does. Pretty quickly I sense that He is with me. With that assurance comes hope. It's not necessarily a hope that everything I am facing will be resolved quickly and perfectly, though the Bible does say that I will experience His goodness here on earth. It's more a hope that His blessed presence will go with me WHEREVER I LAY MY FOOT on this fallen planet.
Here is a wonderful promise for those of us who are scaling our own personal Mt. Everests: "The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them." (Psalm 145:18-19.)
Rest in His love today.
(Scripture reference is from the Holy Bible, New International Version, 1984, International Bible Society. Published by Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan.)
This still, small voice, the sound of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of God and the anointing and strength (I think of Him as the grease in the wheels of our God-given destiny) of God, is accompanied by the sight of Jesus Christ coming to us on top of the water. As He comes, light surrounds him, engulfing the darkness of our trials.
I am in a particularly challenging season of life. The darkness of the trial I am facing is reminiscent of the plague of darkness in the Old Testament. God wanted to demonstrate his power among the Egyptians, who had enslaved his chosen people, the Israelites. He did so through a series of curses. One of these was to send a darkness among them so penetrating that the Bible says it could be felt. The first few days of my current challenging season, I felt plunged into a darkness that could be felt. I am not referring to the velvety black of a peaceful summer evening sky, when the stars string an array of hope across the countenance of the heavens, breathing peaceful sleep into all creatures below. I am talking about a darkness that leaves you groping for an emotional handlebar. I am talking about the kind of darkness an amusement park might plunge parts of an indoor rollercoaster into, leaving the riders guessing about what comes next. Will there be a hairpin turn that leaves you uncertain as to which direction you are traveling? Maybe a massive plunge downward at what feels like a ninety-degree angle.
It doesn't ever take long before the Lord begins to redeem a season like the one that I am in. Right away I stop my rebellion, my spiritual laziness and I start to look for Him, to cry out to Him. If I were God, I would not listen. But He always does. Pretty quickly I sense that He is with me. With that assurance comes hope. It's not necessarily a hope that everything I am facing will be resolved quickly and perfectly, though the Bible does say that I will experience His goodness here on earth. It's more a hope that His blessed presence will go with me WHEREVER I LAY MY FOOT on this fallen planet.
Here is a wonderful promise for those of us who are scaling our own personal Mt. Everests: "The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them." (Psalm 145:18-19.)
Rest in His love today.
(Scripture reference is from the Holy Bible, New International Version, 1984, International Bible Society. Published by Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan.)
