Sometimes there are these moments in life where I question my ability to continue moving forward. It’s like I’m on a journey and ahead of me is a mountain and the closer I get the bigger it seems. I gaze at the mountain and begin to fret wondering how I will ever be able to scale it or at least how will I ever do it without injury or defeat.
I guess that is a little bit of where I am and have been. In these moments my need for help—my desperation for grace and salvation—becomes so apparent that I often find myself crippled with anxiety or overjoyed at the fulfillment of my need. I find (and am finding) that my deepest moments of despair can be the greatest opportunities to learn to trust God and find peace and joy in Him.
Now, if you’re a Christian and especially if you’ve been one for any period of time, this will sound very cliché. The notion of crying to God when we’re at the end of our rope and finding His grace there is common. What I am finding, though, is that when I actually find myself at the end of my rope, I don’t know what to do. I haven’t been here that much and all the sermons, books, and teachings on trusting God through trials seem to be just vague shadows in my mind. I’m on that border of the lands of theory and reality. The land of theory where the solution is a cliché is comfortable and familiar to me; the land of reality where one must take each step by faith instead of by reciting a phrase to make things right is unfamiliar and scary to me.
But in this land where I must walk by faith and not rely on what my eyes tell me or my heart wants me to believe, I find there is overwhelming peace and joy. These not, though, because of the faith I’m expressing, but completely because of the one in whom I am expressing the faith.
Isaiah 30:18 (NASB) says,
Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you,
And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you
For the LORD is a God of justice;
How blessed are all those who long for Him.
God wants to give us grace and he wants to show us compassion! How often we stumble in the dark instead of just reaching for His hand? We forfeit such grace in doing this.
Psalm 43:5 (ESV) says,
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
Again, why do we get down? Why do we fear? God is worth trusting! We must believe it!
And finally, Psalm 44:3 says,
They did not conquer the land with their swords;
it was not their own strong arm that gave them victory.
It was your right hand and strong arm
and the blinding light from your face that helped them,
for you loved them.
The reality at the end of the day is that victory only comes at the hand of the Lord. Our success is totally up to Him. If we only would seek Him and look to Him when we’re in trouble, we would live lives that would be so much more peaceful and so much more full of joy.
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.