Think of your biggest fears...you know the ones. They are so horrifying even to imagine that you never have allowed yourself to fully do so. They might include fears of being penniless and homeless, of losing a loved one to sickness, or of being abandoned by a spouse. They might range from being unloved to being unlovable, or from being too successful to being a total failure.
So ask yourself this. What if the worst case scenario came? Would it mean that God had left you?
I can tell you that human beings are never the same after a disaster comes, and I've come to believe that they can never, by their own power or craftiness, heal themselves. However, I have hope that God can heal what a man cannot, and that even the worst case scenario cannot separate Him from us. There isn't a pit so deep that God cannot reach the bottom of it. In fact, the lowest place we can sink is still held in God's hands (Psalm 95: 3-4). God is bigger than the worst disaster.
Apparently David's worst-case scenario was his fear that Saul would catch him and kill him. David wrote often about feeling that God had cast him into a pit, in other words, that he was at the lowest point he could be without being dead. In fact, the imagery is like the grave.
Even at that lowest point, David demonstrated the attitude that God wants from us--a dogged hope and trust in Him. David understood that God could stop Saul, yet had chosen not to. Though he couldn't understand this, he didn't lose faith in God's goodness and power, because even in the depths of his pit, God was still with him. David could face the greatest fear in his life because he knew he wasn't alone.
That's the kind of faith God wants in us when He goes to the depths with us. He is capable of lifting us instantly out of the deepest depths, but sometimes He lets us go there to test the genuineness of our faith. In these depths, He can refine dirt into diamonds. Can we stand with Him in the process?
Furthermore, He has promised to raise us up from the last and greatest of our fears--that is, death--so that even at those depths we will be with Him. In fact, Jesus was already there, and by the testing of His faith and obedience, salvation came to all who would believe.
So ask yourself this. What if the worst case scenario came? Would it mean that God had left you?
I can tell you that human beings are never the same after a disaster comes, and I've come to believe that they can never, by their own power or craftiness, heal themselves. However, I have hope that God can heal what a man cannot, and that even the worst case scenario cannot separate Him from us. There isn't a pit so deep that God cannot reach the bottom of it. In fact, the lowest place we can sink is still held in God's hands (Psalm 95: 3-4). God is bigger than the worst disaster.
Apparently David's worst-case scenario was his fear that Saul would catch him and kill him. David wrote often about feeling that God had cast him into a pit, in other words, that he was at the lowest point he could be without being dead. In fact, the imagery is like the grave.
Even at that lowest point, David demonstrated the attitude that God wants from us--a dogged hope and trust in Him. David understood that God could stop Saul, yet had chosen not to. Though he couldn't understand this, he didn't lose faith in God's goodness and power, because even in the depths of his pit, God was still with him. David could face the greatest fear in his life because he knew he wasn't alone.
That's the kind of faith God wants in us when He goes to the depths with us. He is capable of lifting us instantly out of the deepest depths, but sometimes He lets us go there to test the genuineness of our faith. In these depths, He can refine dirt into diamonds. Can we stand with Him in the process?
Furthermore, He has promised to raise us up from the last and greatest of our fears--that is, death--so that even at those depths we will be with Him. In fact, Jesus was already there, and by the testing of His faith and obedience, salvation came to all who would believe.
Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens, you who have done great things. Who is like you, God? Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once more....My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you—I whom you have delivered. My tongue will tell of your righteous acts all day long, for those who wanted to harm me have been put to shame and confusion. Psalm 71: 19-21; 23-24 NIV 2011Will you, like Christ, praise God in the deepest depths?
1 comments:
Thank you for the post.
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