Just Another Opportunity to See Your Grace!
There are seasons in our lives when we feel as if everything is working against us. It seems the we have foes that have risen up against us; it seems as if everywhere we go we come to a brick wall; it can even seem as if the very heavens have been shut up and we can’t help but wonder where God is. Yes, just as sure as there are sun-shiny days bursting with possibilities, so there are cloudy days where the rain keeps on falling. When these seasons occur, it is so good to be able to go to God’s Word and find comfort:
Not a day goes by but that somebody harasses me.
So many in their pride trample me under their feet.
3 But in the day that I’m afraid, I lay all my fears before you
and trust in you with all my heart.
4 What harm could a man bring to me?
With God on my side I will not be afraid of what comes.
The roaring praises of God fill my heart,
and I will always triumph as I trust his promises. Psalm 56;1-4 (THE PASSION TRANSLATION)
David knew what it was to seemingly have the world against him. He literally was backed up in a cave over and over again. Yet, as he cries out in this Psalm, "in the day that I a afraid, I lay all of my fears before you and trust in you with all my heart". When there seems to be no way to go, there is always a way to get to God, and what better place is that to be?
One of the problems we are facing in this cataclysmic culture that we live in is that even our religious teaching has been distorted to make us feel as if everything is always supposed to turn out right the first time. We have lost our understanding that inherent in every new living thing, there is struggle. Babies are born through the pain of the mother. Wars are won at the expense of soldiers who give their life. Olympic triumphs come after years of brutal and often painful) practice. There is going to be trouble, hardship and pain at certain junctures in our life.
The Good News is supreme over that trouble. For as we lift our voice and our heart in "roaring praises to God", He fills our heart with His promises, and those promises triumph over our fears, our failures, our hurdles, our brick walls. Our spirit soars to know that "this light affliction which is but for a moment" is only another opportunity to see God’s grace operating in our lives..
Maria