Walk By Faith

"O LORD, be gracious to us;

We have waited for You.

Be our arm every morning,

Our salvation also in the time of trouble."

"Lord, what am I supposed to do now?"

I'm in one of those extremely challenging seasons in my life where I know that eventually, the painful trials that I am going through are all going to work out in the end—but right here, right now, I don't have the slightest clue of how I'm going to get there.

I just can't see exactly how this is all going to work out.

Perhaps you too are in a season like that right now in your life.

You're not alone.

I know a lot of people who are going through all kinds of difficult and painful trials.  Marriages that have ended, or are on the brink of divorce.  People who have been out of work for extended periods of time, and whose options are running out.  People who have serious health issues and don't know what the outcome is going to be for them.  People who are close to losing everything they have and don't know what to do next.

So many of us have been praying for an open door in whatever our situation is, but that open door we so desperately long for, seems elusive.

What do you do in times like this?

In your despair and desperation you cry out to God with all that is in you. 

That's what He wants you to do.

Today, I hit the wall and pretty much lost it.  I felt like I had hit rock bottom.  Emotionally, there was nowhere to look but up. I haven't cried out to God like that in a long time. Oh sure, I've asked for help and wisdom and for many other things.  

But this cry to the Lord was from the deepest place in my soul.  It was primal.  My cat came and brushed up against my leg as I sat at my desk.   He was checking on me to see if I was okay.   Thank You, Lord, for that little guy.

Just a few moments later, a friend of mine called and just wanted to talk, and see how I was doing. The timing of his phone call was literally a God-send.

Cry out to the Lord.

That's what we do when we hit the wall—when things look hopeless—when we don't know how all this is going to work out. We cry out to the Lord.  And then, we call someone else who is going through hard times and we reach out to them, to see how they are doing, and we encourage them. We reach out and extend God's love, kindness and mercy—to them.

Unbelievable!  I have been taught this lesson so many times, and yet, here I was, again, so focused on my own problems—so self-absorbed—that I let myself wallow in my little pit of despair.  I have no excuse for forgetting this lesson. I've been down this road way too many times, and I have reminded so many other people who are going through hard times that the secret of joy is to forget about our problems and reach out and encourage someone else.

Today, when I cried out to God with all that was in me, He did answer my prayer.  He did intervene and had my friend call me when I absolutely needed to hear from a friend.  But more importantly, He reminded me that it's not about me.  It's about serving and encouraging others.  No matter how difficult my trial is, many other people are going through far more difficult times than I am.  

Jesus came to heal the broken hearted.  

As Christians—the Body of Christ—we are His hands and His feet.  We are to be "Jesus with skin on" to others who are hurting and suffering.  We are to bring encouragement and comfort to those who are lonely and who need hope in the dark night of their souls.

This is a timely reminder of the acronym for J.O.Y.

Jesus

Others

Yourself

Our love, devotion and adoration is to always be for Jesus first. This the first and great commandment.

The second commandment is like the first—to love others more than you love yourself.

Your focus on yourself should always come last.

And the secret is, if we will invest all of our time and focus on loving and serving God and loving and serving others, we won't have time to dwell on our own problems and circumstances.   And we will experience great joy.

Jesus said, "It is far better to give than to receive."

It really is.

Waking by faith is to trust in God and wait for Him—even when we can't see how things are going to ever work out.  Walking by faith is trusting in God, that He will do all that He has promised to do, even though we can't always see Him doing it in that moment when we feel that we can't go on. Walking by faith is trusting in God and not giving up, even though we may feel that God didn't answer any of our prayers in the way that we had expected Him to.  Walking by faith is loving and trusting God, even when He didn't heal us when we prayed and asked Him to.  Walking by faith is trusting in God to provide for us, even when we've been out of work for a year and still have no prospects for a job.   Walking by faith is trusting in God, even when our spouse wants us out of their life forever, even though we've done all we can do to love them and seek to be reconciled to them.

Walking by faith is trusting in God to cause all things to work together for our good—even when our whole world is falling apart.

Most of the time, the difficult things we go through in this life just don't make any sense.

But remember, God said, "My thoughts are higher than your thoughts; and My ways, higher than your ways."

A good friend of mine and I were having lunch today and he reminded me that Jesus, responding to Thomas who had doubted that He had risen from the grave, said to him,

"You believe because you have seen Me.  But, blessed are those who believe and who have not seen."

Friends, we walk by faith—not by sight.

We can't see right now how our problems and situations are ever going to work out for our good.  Many of our situations appear hopeless... at least to us.

But our God—Jesus Christ—defeated Death, Hell and the Grave by rising again and ascending to His throne in Heaven. 

To us, our problems and situations look impossible.  

But with God, nothing is impossible.

We can only see where we are at in the parade of life.  We can't see the end.  But we know the end of the Story.  We've read the Book.

The same God that defeated death and rose from the grave, knows the end from the beginning.  He holds us safely and securely in the palm of His hand, and absolutely no one can snatch us out of His hand.

Cry out to Jesus today, with all that is in you. Wait for Him. Trust in Him.

He is the Arm of our Strength every morning.

He is our salvation in times of trouble.

Look up.

—God is Love, and Love Never Fails.