Day 317: "But As For Me, I Will Trust In You!"
Read: Psalm 55:22 - 23, Mark 4:35 - 41
Sometimes the seas of life are smooth and a comforting breeze blows
gently across your face. Sometimes the seas are choppy - not so terribly
dangerous, but definitely not very high on the comfort meter either.
And sometimes malevolent storms rage across the waters of our lives,
tossing us like a ship every which way and sometimes as Jesus' Disciples found out, threatens to swamp your boat and send you to the very bottom in a most unceremonious fashion. Then there are sometimes, when our sublime thoughts are so shockingly interrupted with stories of Christians under full scale
persecution, threats to their life, murder, churches and buildings being looted,
burned, and razed to the ground.
The temptation for us who live so far away from places like this, who are so very far removed from the up close and personal horror in places like Egypt as it is right now, to wonder and shudder and wonder some more - where is our true God in the midst of that? The temptation is to assume God is with us in the good times but that
we are truly going to be left alone when times get extraordinarily
tough, dangerous, even lethal. If that wasn't been true for the giants of our faith like Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, then why would that be true for us today, for the Coptic Christians or
for Christians anywhere else in the world? David ends Psalm 55: "But as
for me, I will trust in You."
The 'You' here of course refers to God. I hope you will likewise look upon these words of Jesus "And He awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea,
"Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was great calm." (39)
It is the most natural thing for for our bodies to do when it senses
that we are being or feeling threatened is to take flight and flee
the danger as fast as we can or get real brave or real foolish deciding
we are going to stand our ground right there and fight it out. These are
autonomic functions within the body, in other words, our bodies are automatically engaging our adrenal glands to produce high levels of adrenalin, sending our bodies into overdrive.
When we are in this mode, everything about our bodies becomes about immediate survival. For the disciples to listen to Jesus rebuke them "why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" must have seemed particularly harsh at the time. What did Jesus expect of His Disciples at that moment - to so easily overcome their bodies natural defense to the lethal danger that so quickly manifested itself? To just turn off their adrenal glands? Or to strive mightily to achieve the maturity of their faith and trust in God where any such danger was in the end automatically entrusted to Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Trust and faith in God that is so fully mature, so fully developed, to automatically overcome our human bodies reactions? How say any of you to this?
Let Us Pray: Focus your prayerful attention upon the power and promise of these last two verses of Psalm 55:
22 "Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you;
He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.
23 But You, O God, will bring them down to the pit of destruction;
Men of bloodshed and deceit will not live out half their days.
But as for me, I will trust in You."
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Read: Psalm 55:22 - 23, Mark 4:35 - 41
Sometimes the seas of life are smooth and a comforting breeze blows gently across your face. Sometimes the seas are choppy - not so terribly dangerous, but definitely not very high on the comfort meter either. And sometimes malevolent storms rage across the waters of our lives, tossing us like a ship every which way and sometimes as Jesus' Disciples found out, threatens to swamp your boat and send you to the very bottom in a most unceremonious fashion. Then there are sometimes, when our sublime thoughts are so shockingly interrupted with stories of Christians under full scale persecution, threats to their life, murder, churches and buildings being looted, burned, and razed to the ground.
The temptation for us who live so far away from places like this, who are so very far removed from the up close and personal horror in places like Egypt as it is right now, to wonder and shudder and wonder some more - where is our true God in the midst of that? The temptation is to assume God is with us in the good times but that we are truly going to be left alone when times get extraordinarily tough, dangerous, even lethal. If that wasn't been true for the giants of our faith like Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, then why would that be true for us today, for the Coptic Christians or for Christians anywhere else in the world? David ends Psalm 55: "But as for me, I will trust in You."
The 'You' here of course refers to God. I hope you will likewise look upon these words of Jesus "And He awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was great calm." (39) It is the most natural thing for for our bodies to do when it senses that we are being or feeling threatened is to take flight and flee the danger as fast as we can or get real brave or real foolish deciding we are going to stand our ground right there and fight it out. These are autonomic functions within the body, in other words, our bodies are automatically engaging our adrenal glands to produce high levels of adrenalin, sending our bodies into overdrive.
When we are in this mode, everything about our bodies becomes about immediate survival. For the disciples to listen to Jesus rebuke them "why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" must have seemed particularly harsh at the time. What did Jesus expect of His Disciples at that moment - to so easily overcome their bodies natural defense to the lethal danger that so quickly manifested itself? To just turn off their adrenal glands? Or to strive mightily to achieve the maturity of their faith and trust in God where any such danger was in the end automatically entrusted to Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Trust and faith in God that is so fully mature, so fully developed, to automatically overcome our human bodies reactions? How say any of you to this?
Let Us Pray: Focus your prayerful attention upon the power and promise of these last two verses of Psalm 55:
22 "Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you;
He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.
23 But You, O God, will bring them down to the pit of destruction;
Men of bloodshed and deceit will not live out half their days.
But as for me, I will trust in You."
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Christ Is Enough - Hillsong Live (New 2013 Album) Best Worship Song with Lyrics
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Hillsong Live Album Glorious Ruins, 2013, Name of Song: Christ is enough To purchase this song in
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