With God by my side, I have no reason not to trust. My gaze should be so focused upon Him. I should be so enamored of who He is that no perilous cliff (or rainstorm) should shake my belief. God and I have traveled the years together and I have found Him to be faithful. I won’t lie, some trails are hard, sometimes dark, and often a bit confusing. I have allowed myself to take a wrong path, but my safety and security along with my choice to believe is rooted in the company I keep. I know I can trust Him. I do, but oh for the grace to trust Him more! (Paraphrased from the book, I Give Up, by Laura Story, page 124)
God has been challenging my faith by calling me to a deeper level of trust. One of His challenges recently was in the rain. I was driving in a persistent rain on unknown roads. My husband followed behind. We were moving our daughter to her new home. She was my extra set of eyes in the car. We experienced 12 hours of rain with the wipers on high. Semi-trucks on a highway in the rain made for lousy visibility.
Focus was the word for the day. I had to focus on what lied ahead of me. As I focused on the task at hand, I was able to make my way through the rain. And my faithful Lord spoke as I drove. “See how focused you are? Your mind isn’t wandering causing you to be stressed or irritated. You aren’t fretting from one thing to the next. Apply this same focus throughout your day. Make your gaze be focused upon Me.”
This helped me because by the time we got to Nashville, we hit a severe thunderstorm that dumped buckets full of rain with tornado-like winds. You simply could not see. “God, really?” I thought. Hazard lights came on, cars slowed way down or pulled to the side. Here I am in the dark in the middle of a city I had never been to, and who knows what’s around me or what the roads are like. Do they flood easily? Was a tornado going to come through? Being tired was an understatement. I pulled to the side and told my daughter I can’t do this anymore. Later, Katie told me she didn’t have the heart to tell me we were still 15 miles from our hotel.
My husband went on ahead and he told us to go slow and stay to the right. I had no choice but to trust God. He faithfully led us all day, He won’t leave us now. Even if something would happen, God would provide whatever our needs were going to be. We were in His hands.
God wants you to know that in His hands you are safe. He will provide for your needs. No matter how hard the rain may fall, He will walk with you and help you to arrive at your next destination. Pulling into the hotel and seeing my husband already there was a beautiful sight.
I sat trembling and tired, “Thank you, God, for getting us here safely.”
I think every believer will say this when they stand before Christ one day. “Thank you, Jesus, for getting me to heaven safely.” This faith journey with Jesus Christ is not for the faint-hearted. It’s not a well-paved road with all the comforts one’s heart could imagine. It’s not full of sunshine, nor enjoying the luxuries that this world beckons you to. Every true believer will have sacrificed their own wants and desires to make room for Him, and the world will throw everything at you so you will walk away. No one arrives home looking all pretty and put together.
God knows how to get His child to give up worldly comforts. He allows for rainstorms to fall, casualties to happen, and your feet to stumble so you will look up and see that the only reason you are still standing is because of Him. The reason you keep going is because of Him. You know that a better tomorrow is coming. Jesus, the Lover of your soul, will come back for you.
Learn all you can in the rain. God is holding you ever so close, loving on you, and tending to your undisciplined mindset, soured heart, and weary soul. He is why you keep living.
Be encouraged by some scriptures that God uses to keep me focused on Him: 1 Peter 5:10, “In His kindness, God called you to share His eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus So, after you have suffered a little while, He will restore, support and strengthen you and He will place you on a firm foundation.”
Psalm 22:5, “They cried out to You and were saved. They trusted in You and were never disgraced.”
Proverbs 4:25-27, “Look straight ahead and fix your eyes on what lies ahead before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path. Don’t get sidetracked; keep your feet from following evil.”
1 Corinthians 15:10, “But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out His special favor on me and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it wasn’t I but God who was working through me by His grace.”
Carol J German 