Amidst the pressures of this present darkness, it seems that unexpected waves come crashing in one after the other. You’re drying out, then comes another. This happens in grief, and it will happen to everyone.
Yesterday we had a great service online followed by connection times with all of our site leaders and I talked about that joy we know, no matter what. Later Zoe and I went out for our walk and left the phones so we could just be together, then came home to find out that one of our very best friends had a heart attack, being resuscitated three times by the paramedics on the way to hospital. PRAY FOR DAVE CLARK!
Within the hour I was at the hospital (outside in reception) praying for – and later with – family members, and there is much to be positive about. He’s in the best of hands, medically and spiritually – but the prayer need is urgent. I woke Zoe up crying in a dream in the night, I cried again as I woke and we prayed together, and realised that I’d just done it again now in my porridge. The Scots say it tastes better with salt.
What would we do without the Lord?
I saw on Facebook the same day an old schoolmate had written, ‘If there is a God why did he send this plague?’ Philosophical answers don’t tend to help present pain, but I knew everything about the question would lead to the wrong answers anyway. (There is no if, and He didn’t send it). It just made me think, “Wow, there was a time i didn’t know the Lord, how on earth would anyone get through these times alone like that?’
If that’s you – you can know him. Click here to find out how.
Occasional musings about a God you don’t know won’t help at all, but getting and growing in relationship with Him will. What we do in crisis affects who we are in every season and when I don’t know what to do I try to do what I do know to do.
I start every day reading about 4 chapters of the Bible on this plan (on Youversion) and have done for many years. I know there’s a God and He’s real then, because He speaks to me on good days and bad.
This is not my Bible study or exegesis. I am reading looking for that ‘now’ word – that rhema word direct to my spirit from the Holy Spirit and this morning what jumped out at me to underline was from 1 Thessalonians 4:13f “You do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again…”
Yes we get sad. We are human. But I always have a reason for hope. My reason for hope now and forever never changes – it’s JESUS. He died and rose again. Now what’s too hard for Him to do? Nothing is impossible for someone who walked out of his own tomb. As Pilate and the Pharisees found on Easter day, you can’t put Jesus on lockdown!
You can’t put Jesus on lockdown.
He healed the sick, still does. He raised the dead! Remember his friend Lazarus? How he called him out of the graveyard by name, because if he hadn’t been specific everybody would have come back to life at his command there and then, ahead of their appointed time.
He speaks such words of power and hope and life every day – when I start it not with the worry of the world but the Word of the Lord.
This Holy Week, we focus our prayer and attention on the Lord of life, the one who defeated death and hell, and holds its keys. He is the same – yesterday, today and forever. He is for us and with us.
So I never have to think ‘What would I do without the Lord?’, because He has promised to be an ever present help in times of trouble. He will never leave us or forsake us. Jesus is the friend who sticks closer than a brother. He’s with my friend Dave because He’s his best friend too, and He’s here with me and you too.
Dave had an op last night, he’s in ICU right now, we can’t be with him or in the waiting room but the Lord is, and we’re in that waiting time to pray and trust – so PRAY FOR DAVE NOW!