Tag: trust

Be Strong and Courageous, Part 3

Posted on by Dorci

Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
2 Corinthians 4:16

You might have read about the trial I plunged into 13 years ago. I’ve written about it many times, as it’s given me plenty to write about. In case you haven’t, or you’ve forgotten, I’ll give you a little recap.

I sat in church one Sunday all those Sundays ago, and heard the words straight out of the book of Joshua, “Be strong and courageous.”  Those are the words God gave Joshua as he was about to take over Moses’s job leading the Israelites through the desert and into the Promised Land.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve had the experience of hearing or reading certain words in the Bible, and you were sure they had leapt off the page, stared you straight in the face daring you to adopt them as your own.  

If you’ve known Christ for very long, you probably have.  If you’re relatively new to following Him, I’m telling you right now, the day will come when that will happen. Don’t second guess it. The Holy Spirit, our Counselor in Chief, is speaking to you.

I knew He was speaking to me the first time.  But apparently once wasn’t enough.  Either I was slow or the journey would be long and rough. Both, it turns out. I don’t remember the exact situation each time, but over the course of the next month I heard those words three more times, and each subsequent time they came at me faster and louder.

A friend was there every time, too, and we talked about the fact that it was odd that those words kept coming up. The fourth time I heard them, my friend, who was sitting a few rows in front of me, turned and looked into my eyes. She confirmed it wasn’t just my imagination.  She knew something was up, too.

Of course neither of us had any idea what it meant.  But I was soon to find out. Sort of.

I had been having some bad headaches, and an even more difficult time sleeping. One Sunday, about a month after my four personal exhortations, I just so happened to be at another church our church had planted, and I just so happened to run into a friend of mine in the bathroom, and she just so happened to ask how I was doing, and I told her.  She told me I should have my blood pressure checked.

My blood pressure had never been anything over a perfectly respectable normal, even prior to surgery, and I didn’t have any of the usual risk factors, so I knew it wasn’t high, but just to cross that off my list, I put my arm in one of those blood pressure cuffs while I was at the store shopping after church, and pushed the button.

I looked at the reading, and stared at it for a minute.  Surely it couldn’t be that high. 

Maybe it was just high because I was trying to corral my son as I sat there while that cuff tightened around my arm like the grim reaper was trying to pull me away.  So I took a couple of deep breaths, tried to calm down, and pushed the button again.  This time it was even higher. Before I knew it I found myself in a fire station where they could take it and tell me that the machine just wasn’t working and my blood pressure was just fine.

Only it wasn’t.  Suddenly they were asking me if I could see, was my vision blurry, how did I feel…  I felt fine, except that now tears were rolling down my face. Something was terribly, drastically wrong. They wanted to call an ambulance, but my husband promised to take me directly to the emergency room.

And that started my journey through my own dry, confusing, anxiety-filled desert. My journey into learning to believe God even when things seemed out of control. Even when it seemed like He wasn’t listening to my cries for healing, or even for a diagnosis for that sky-high blood pressure and the many health issues that would follow.

I wanted my old life back so bad.  I wanted to serve and do and be and go…

But God refused to let me go back to Egypt. He had better things for me. Not things you can see, mind you. While I had prayed many times for deliverance from this surely evil thing that had taken ahold of my body, God was delivering me from other things far more important.

The third time God spoke these words to Joshua, He finished His admonition with this: “Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”  Joshua 1:9

And whether I could see Him or feel Him, my God has been with me, too, delivering me from those dark places of unbelief, from lack of discipline, from self-centeredness, from a shallow, self-reliant, self-righteous, works-based “faith.”  He’s been delivering me from myself.

In the heat of the desert He is infusing my heart with His, my character and mind, soul and spirit, with His.

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. John 17:20-23

One day when I stand before Jesus, I’ll see all He’s done for me, the godly character He worked into me that I never could have learned with a healthy body.

He may choose to deliver you a different way.  He knows what each of us needs. He is as much a personal God as He is loving and forgiving and compassionate.

If you’re in a desert now, be strong and courageous.  He’s with you.  And He will deliver you safely, whole and completed, to the Promised Land.

The Goodness of the Son

Posted on by Dorci

Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life…
Psalm 23:6

It is the goodness of God that overflows into this world and makes it habitable. It is His goodness we experience that make our lives bearable, even enjoyable.

But sometimes that goodness becomes overshadowed by pain, grief, disappointment, disillusionment.

Like thick billows of never-ending clouds, they can block out the light. And sometimes there’s rain for days, weeks on end. Maybe it’s like living in Seattle.

I’m sure it can get dreary, and even depressing, and yet, there’s a certain beauty to Seattle.

The frequent drizzles allow for some of the most beautiful growth in the world, and also some of the most diverse, life-giving wildlife.

 

No matter how many weeks the shadows overtake the city, no one wonders if the sun is still there. They know it is, and they trust they’ll see it again.

I have to remember that when my world has been darkened with shadows for too long. The Son is still there. And His goodness will shine whether there are rain clouds that bring new growth, and maturity, and life, or He moves them away.

I have to remember that when everything in me, all my feelings and understanding want to tell me that because I don’t see or feel the Son He isn’t there.

I have to set aside my understanding and believe in what I know to be true – surely His goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life…

Because that’s who He is. What I feel doesn’t change that. What I see doesn’t change that. And I am thankful.

 

“Lord Jesus, help us hold onto our confidence that you are who you say you are.  That you are good, and that you love us, and no matter what’s happening in our lives you’re still there, and you are still pouring out your goodness into our lives, and we are thankful.”

Keep Believing

Posted on by Dorci

“And immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, ‘Lord, I
believe. Help my unbelief.’”
Mark 9:24

Twenty-seven and a half years ago I believed in Jesus Christ as my Lord and my Savior.

Since then I have had countless opportunities to believe in His love for me despite my circumstances, to believe He had a plan in the middle of confusing trials, to believe He heard every prayer, to believe He understood me in my pain, to believe He was not finished with me even when it felt like He was.

For some funny reason, it’s always been easier for me to believe in God for the “big” things rather than the smaller ones.

I knew God would provide us a place to live; I knew God would provide a job for my husband; I knew God would bless my little son at Christmas when we couldn’t.

But, oh, those countless “little” things…  When I’ve trusted in my eyes more than I’ve believed; when I’ve trusted in my understanding more than I’ve believed; when I’ve trusted in my own effort more than I’ve believed.

And I wonder how much I’ve missed out on, how many more blessings I would have had if I’d taken that same belief I had at salvation and applied it every, single time.

“Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness. “
Genesis 15:6

God puts a lot of stock in belief.

It’s not about what we do, it’s not about who we are, it’s about Whom we believe.

And there is only One worthy of our belief.

If we are going to be followers of Christ, we will daily, consciously, make the decision to take the belief we had at the moment of our salvation, and believe Him for everything else.

Why would I ever believe that Christ died for the sins of a singular, unimportant, obscure little girl who lives 2000 years after His death and resurrection, called her by name, and then somehow think He forgot about her afterward?

He hasn’t, and He never will.

My belief in Him need not ever waiver.

He sees each and every one of us, and He is intimately acquainted with our comings and goings, with our every trial – big and small, with every tear, with every, single, solitary detail.

Nothing gets by Him.

The truth is, it’s a choice.  Every day we have the choice to believe in Him – to believe He’s there right by our side, to believe He’s with our loved ones, to believe He wants the best for us, to believe He’s in our futures, to believe He’s bigger, much, much bigger, than our past mistakes.

While we can’t lose our salvations, unbelief is as much a sin after we’re saved than it is before. 

The absence of belief in Christ for a particular situation will create a vacuum that’s usually filled with fear, and that can create a whole slew of messes in our wake.

Choosing belief in Christ or to be moved out of fear will determine the decisions we make and the roads we take.

I know it’s hard to keep believing sometimes when the trials seem out of control, when the world around us is a big, complicated mess.  

But keep believing anyway.

I know when I’ve stood in belief in my prayers for a situation, God has answered.  It’s when I waiver in my belief in prayer that He waits until I stand on faith in who God is – my Loving Savior – to answer me.  He desires belief because it is the pathway to our righteousness.

God knows we’re all a work in progress, though, that the sanctification of our souls is not yet fully realized, that it is what we and the Lord are moving toward.  

As with every sin, when we repent – when we turn around and do the righteous thing – in this case, choose to believe in Him, and ask God to help us with our unbelief, He will forgive us and set us back on the right path.

We then consciously walk on that path of belief, in full faith and trust in Him – in who He is, in His plans for us, in His love for us, in His grace and mercy that are continually poured out because of His goodness and faithfulness.

 

“Father, please help us when we are tempted to not believe in you.  To not believe in all you say you are.  To not believe in your love for us.  To not believe in your plans for us.  To give way to fear instead of believing in your holy perfection and your promises to us.  Please help us choose belief over fear, self, the world, or anything else outside of you.  May our constant belief in you be witnesses of your glory and power. In the Name of Yeshua Hamashiach, amen.”

Cast It All!

Posted on by Dorci

Why is it so hard for some of us to go to God when we’re hurting?

I know for me at least, when I’m feeling down or anxious I naturally want to retreat from everyone and everything.  I don’t want to have to put on happy face and pretend everything’s okay.  I want to find my corner of the world and hide, and that can mean from God, too.

But instead God says to be “…casting all your care upon Him for He cares for you.”  1 Peter 5:7

The word “casting” is the same word that’s used in Luke 19:35 when the disciples cast or threw their garments onto the colt that Jesus would ride into Jerusalem.

We are to take our garments of anxiety and worry and grief and discouragement – all that we care about, big or small – and lay them upon our Savior.

Why?

Why can’t I huddle in my dank little corner of the world until I feel like coming out again?

Because Jesus tells us in Mark 4:18-19 that if we hold onto the cares of this world, we will be consumed with them instead, and the Word will be choked out and rendered unfruitful in our lives.

So I have to decide to walk in the Spirit, doing what is supernatural instead of what is natural, come out of the darkness and into God’s light, giving Him those things and people and circumstances that I care so much about knowing and trusting that He cares for me.

I hope you know that He cares for you, too.  Everything that concerns you, concerns Him.  Nothing is too big or too small or too old or too anything.

And the thing with God is, we don’t have to put on a happy face.  He knows our heart’s pain anyway, and He hates hypocrisy.  We can be real with Him.  He wants us to be real with Him. We can trust Him with our deepest desires and emotions and conflicts.  And then, in place of our garments of anxiety, He’ll give us a garment of praise. 

 

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Psalm 139:7-12

More Rope!

Posted on by Dorci

“Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord Himself, is the Rock eternal.”
Isaiah 26:4 NIV

Every time I’m sure I’m at the end of my rope, God gives me more.

And I rediscover all over again that He’s the keeper of the rope.  He’s the giver of the rope. He’s the maker of the rope.

He is the rope.

He is my hope, my peace, my breath, my life.

He never lets me fall.

Oh, I’ve come close.  You know that scene in the first Mission Impossible where Tom Cruise hangs from a cable and absolutely cannot touch the floor or his cover will be blown, but his partner gets spooked and lets him go?  And suddenly Cruise is free-falling, his partner stopping him only at the last second.

via GIPHY

That’s me.  Only I’m the one who gets spooked, lets go and careens toward the bottom.  But with God there is no bottom.  Not really.  There’s always more rope, and what I thought was the bottom, wasn’t.

And however close I come to it, God is always there to break my fall.  At least He is as long as He’s the one at the end of the rope I’m holding.  As long as He’s the one I’m ultimately trusting.

Are you trusting God today?

If not, He’s only a prayer away.  Tell Him you’re putting your trust in Him.  And if you struggle with trusting Him, tell Him that, too. He already knows, and He loves you.  Open a line of communication with Him right now.  And grab the rope.