Facing Fear

As I was reading this morning this verse stood out and I remembered how God used it to deliver me in a very dark time of my life. I often create a verse image as a way of underlining its importance for the day.

Later in the day I met a woman who had just been put into hospice care as I greeted people at the end of the chapel service at nursing home. Kathy was sweet, gentle and yet naturally afraid at knowing she had come to the end of her life. As we talked I shared how God had helped me when I had passed through a time of great fear and anxiety. I wish I could say she instantaneously received peace, but she did begin to become more calm. Then Kathy began to talk about her own experience of needing to perform CPR on her mother. She recalled that time and how difficult it had been being the care giver. We prayed together and committed ourselves to God’s care. I know that finding ourselves weak and helpless is not easy. God loves all the Kathys and the Sues, the Joes and the Bobs. We are all loved whether we are just beginning our voyage or whether we are pulling our boats into shore. God is our light. He is our Salvation. He alone gives us courage at every dark hour. Who shall we fear? He is also the strength of my life and His promise is that every fear will be defeated!

Only God Sees

Hagar had literally come to the end of the road. In a strange combination of doing what was asked of her and one bad choice her life could have ended in tragedy. But the God who sees us as we are and still loves had not forgotten her.

No matter what you are facing. No matter the missed opportunities or mistakes of the past God is watching over us and stands ready to help. So many things we do are for drawing attention to our situation in hopes that someone will come with a solution. We wear ourselves out trying to be good enough but we feel we have failed when no one notices or sees. This morning the great news is that our God is the God who sees and it is enough. He knows our hearts and will not only make a way in the wilderness, He also promises to walk it with us. He is the seeing God Who we see today with eyes of faith!

Are you Blessed Today?

Do you feel a lot like Thomas some mornings? Wouldn’t it be wonderfully satisfying to see some miraculous sign from heaven showing us the way instead of needing to just take someone else’s word for it? I really would!!!

But God has chosen two astonishing ways to build our faith. First He decided that the Bible itself (the stories of those who witnessed the resurrection) would be all we needed to believe. Secondly God chooses to bless us more than even the apostles if we will believe without seeing. That’s a lot of blessings! We can have more blessings than Thomas who brought the gospel to India. We can gain greater blessings than even Peter, who walked on water with Jesus. We can see greater miracles than Andrew who brought a child’s bread to Jesus and saw it multiplied enough to feed 5000. God loves us and will save and forgive us at just the tiniest step of faith when we believe without seeing. We do not need to move a mountain because God has already moved it for us. The mountain of sin and shame was no match for our Savior. Jesus comes with His greatest blessings when it feels like we have missed the big moment and it seems we have been left out. No one of us is too far away for Jesus to draw near. He is at the door waiting on us to simply and wonderfully believe. We cannot see Him now but we can have a wonderful unexplainable unextinguishable joy full of blessings both today and forevermore!

Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
1 Peter 1:8 KJV