Trusting in Tough Times

Ok, so maybe life is not so bad. The DJIA went up 300+ points yesterday. But still the question hangs out there, "Do we trust that God will help us in our time of need?"

Through the scriptures God regularly hears the cries of the people. Consider the call of Moses. The LORD says, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their suffering, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians." (Exodus 3:7-8a)

The LORD God does deliver them from the Egyptians. God does bring them into a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey. This is the good part of this incredible story of our faith; they are delivered. The tough part is trusting God enough to hold on until the promise becomes the blessing. It took ten plagues, crossing a sea, and forty years in the wilderness before the promise was fulfilled, and even then the people doubted.

Trusting God in hard times is, well, hard. God does hear our cries. It may still take time to deliver on the promise.

Watch for "Do we trust God enough to share" coming soon.

Scarcity and Faith

This morning, I find myself still thinking, in part because of several comments and questions, on the subject of scarcity. Scarcity means we have an inadequate supply or items or resources. We, as people of faith, buy into a theology of scarcity when we begin to believe that God will not and cannot supply our every need. It was the belief of the disciples when they had only a few fish and some bread to feed 5,000 people, and miraculously, Jesus provided more than enough.

Often our sense of scarcity comes not from a lack of God’s giving, but from our focus on the wrong things. Victor Frankl was one of the many Jews arrested by the Nazi’s. As a psychiatrist, he had written a manuscript and hidden his life’s work in the lining of his jacket. When he arrived at Auschwitz the manuscript was taken from the lining of his jacket along with all his other processions. Eventually, even his jacket and clothes were taken from him.

Frankl says, “I had to surrender my clothes and in turn inherited the worn out rages of an inmate who had been sent to the gas chamber. . . . Instead of the many pages of my manuscript, I found in the pocket of the newly acquired coat a single page torn out of a Hebrew prayer book, which contained the main Jewish prayer, Shema Yisrael.” The Shema reads, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one God. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).

We want an abundance of what we think is important, valuable, and worthy. These are often things that have little real importance, value or worth. God has already poured out, many times over, everything that we need for life, for joy, for salvation, and for peace. We do not lack for anything except the faith to trust that indeed God will provide.