WATCHWORDS:
Deuteronomy 31:8 “He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
1 John 4:18 “Perfect Love Casts Out All Fear”
Isaiah 41:10 “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
Luke 8: 22-25a 22 One day Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side of the lake.” So, they got into a boat and set out. 23 As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger.
24 The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!”
He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. 25 “Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples.
Meditation:
Do You Trust God?
The grandparents were driving back home with their granddaughter. The parents remained at children’s hospital with their 11-year-old son, the brother, the grandson. The diagnosis had shaken all of them, left them with a dark cloud of the unknown.
During the drive home, the grandparents spoke to their young granddaughter about faith and trust, reassurances that things would turn out, yet even for them there was a sense of uncertainty. Yet, the mantra coming from that conversation was “God is in charge and God loves us.” Now, 20 years later, that boy is a man, healthy and strong. The spoken belief, written on a little blackboard in the garage that sad night, was still there. The God of Love is in charge.
I think we all share a degree of anxiousness about the future. We do not have a crystal ball, we do not know how to gaze into the future, but we do have something that should reassure us, and bring us an element of peace, even in the face of the storm. We have the six Scripture passages listed above, God’s word to us, telling us not to fear, not to be afraid. Then we have the telling question that Jesus asks us, even now in “Where is your faith?”
Where is your faith? There is one thing that we should all know about faith, and that is faith is not a feeling, it’s not a noun. Faith is a verb, it is an acting on our trust in God. When loved ones speak of fear, of evil taking over or threatening us, I come away with a sense of puzzlement and sadness. I want to raise that same question; where is your faith? Do you not believe that God is in charge? Do you not believe that God loves us? Finally, do you not believe that God knows what He is doing?
I firmly believe that fear has no place in the heart or mind of a believer. Yet, we are human, and as such we are flawed, and we are anxious and we do have fears. To make matters more complicated, tricks are everywhere. In the children’s message at one service I watched yesterday, the teacher asked the question, “A farmer had 15 sheep and they all died but nine. How many were left?” What was your first, impulsive answer? Six? Wrong.
The gospel lesson for this past Sunday was Matthew 22, where the Pharisees tried to trick Jesus with a question about paying taxes to Caesar. The trick backfired.
As anxiety and uncertainty stick their sharp elbows into our peace, we need to reassure ourselves that evil will not succeed as long as God is in charge. We should all be asking God to increase our trust and deepen our faith in his willingness and ability to deliver us completely from those thoughts that threaten.
We need to ask him for a deeper revelation of his love and then we need to pay attention and mark how powerfully He moves. So, yes, He is in charge. He does, indeed, love us. The clincher is this: He knows what He is doing. Do you trust God? Amen.
Bulletin Board:
Humor to start your week — An elderly lady was well-known for her faith and for her boldness in talking about it. She would stand on her front porch and shout “PRAISE THE LORD!”
Next door to her lived an atheist who would get so angry at her proclamations he would shout, “There ain’t no Lord!!”
Hard times set in on the elderly lady, and she prayed for GOD to send her some assistance. She stood on her porch and shouted “PRAISE THE LORD. GOD, I NEED FOOD!! I AM HAVING A HARD TIME. PLEASE LORD, SEND ME SOME GROCERIES!!”
The next morning the lady went out on her porch and noted a large bag of groceries and shouted, “PRAISE THE LORD.”
The neighbor jumped from behind a bush and said, “Aha! I told you there was no Lord. I bought those groceries, God didn’t.”
The lady started clapping her hands and said, “PRAISE THE LORD. He not only sent me groceries, but He made the devil pay for them. Praise the Lord!”
A Simple Morning Prayer:
My Lord and my God, You said that they are blessed who have not seen and yet believe. Yet while you are so close to me, I sometimes doubt your presence and refuse to believe unless I touch and see. Strengthen my faith and trust that you are with me always as the way, the truth, and the life. Amen.
