Trust Jesus in the Darkest of Times

TRUST JESUS IN THE DARKEST OF TIMES
Who among you fears the LORD and obeys his servant? If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust in the Lord and rely on your God. – Isaiah 50:10

It was a day I will never forget. The doctor looked at me and said my wife had less than a fifty-fifty chance of ever reaching her fiftieth birthday. Our life changed instantly and all of a sudden our world was upside down. Everything that had been significant to me moments before suddenly was irrelevant. All that mattered was saving my wife.

I was frightened. We had a five-year old son. What would he do without his mother? What would I do without a wife? The day before my agenda had included business success, recreation decisions and the like. Now it was deciding treatment options, chemo, radiation, surgery and how we were going to cope while going through it.

We trusted Jesus and knew that many people were praying for us. We decided on an aggressive treatment schedule, knowing that if it didn’t work out we would have done all we could.

It was the best of times and the worst of times. Over the next year and a half, I had to watch my bride go through rigorous pain and our life was on hold. But through it all both our marriage and our faith strengthened. We turned to Jesus and we turned to each other.

We asked why us, and five years later when she was said to be cancer free, we asked the same question. We thought of Deuteronomy 23:5, “I turned the intended curse into a blessing unto you, because I love you.”

We can always trust our Savior in the darkest of times and know He is in control of our lives no matter the outcome.

REFLECTION: Our lives can change in an instant when suddenly we face difficult situations. The key to working it through is to turn to and trust in Jesus. He has a plan for our life and will lead us through the valleys. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, sometimes life gets rough and I don’t know where to turn, but I know I can always turn to you. I trust you and know that if I lose everything I have and am left with only you, I have all I need. Help me this day to surrender my life more deeply to you.

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SOMETIMES TRUE STORIES
WISDOM FOR PASTOR KEN WHITTEN:

Where are you in your spiritual walk? You never know what the next call will be and your life can change in an instant. Just because Jesus is with you, does not mean there will be no storms in your life.

Safety is not the absence of life’s storms. Safety is the presence of the Savior. We must take Jesus as he is, not how we want Him. After all, He took us as we are, but loves us too much to leave us that way. With faith we have no reason to express fear. The presence of fear is the absence of faith. We have to answer and deal with what are our fears in our life.

Our greatest problem is not what is around us. Our greatest problem is what is in us. Jesus dispels our fears and what bothers me doesn’t bother him. Life’s storms can direct us and protect us. We don’t have a life storm that Jesus cannot calm. He develops our faith and we should never doubt in the dark what God shows us in the light. Faith is like a roll of film that has to be developed in the dark. We are safer in the dark with Him than we are in the light without Him. Darkness is not forever. It will end, as everything in our lives is under His control.

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QUOTES YOU CAN USE
If I don’t celebrate the exquisiteness of each day, then I will have lost something that I will never get back.

Treasure each other in the recognition that we don’t know how long we will have each other.

A large part of virtue comes in good habits.

Do more than listen; understand.

Remember that the biggest gap in the world is between “I should” and “I did.”

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door and the whole world will be clean.

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