In an Instant
Every valley shall be lifted and filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked and uneven shall be made straight and level, and the rough places a plain. –Isaiah 40:4
During the deep-freeze much of the United States experienced recently, many people (who aren’t normally used to such low temps) experimented with the phenomenon of watching boiling water turn into snow in the frigid temperatures (click the link provided to check out one example).
How amazing! In an instant, boiling water changed from scalding hot to powdery snow. Our lives can be much the same way. We’re just plodding along, going through the motions and routine of life, and bam! Everything changes. Sometimes the changes are good, sometimes they are difficult, but either way, we look back and can say our life was one way before that event and another way after that event. This can be an important and helpful reality to remember, particularly when we’re feeling stuck. What might seem like an endless situation can change in an instant. When God moves at the perfect time, He may release us from something, bless us with something new, or align things in such a way that suddenly the way before us that seemed so crooked is now straight. Our seasons of stuckness (or so they feel to us) actually end up stretching and strengthening our faith. We know intellectually that God is capable of changing the situation or bringing us that breakthrough we’ve been praying for…but will He? The answer is a resounding YES! What seems dead in the water to us is actually alive and in the hands of God, who is always working behind the scenes on our behalf. There is never a moment when He is not actively working on a solution for the situation we’re in. Not for a second does He ever quit arranging things so we can receive our blessing! So this is where we are challenged: to fully and completely trust in God’s power. Do we really believe He is as powerful as He claims to be? Do we really believe He is as involved in our daily lives as He says He is? Do we really trust, on a very deep level, that no matter what our circumstances look like, God’s promises still ring true and will come to pass? Easy questions to answer until we’re the one being challenged, right? Of course. But for each situation God brings us through, hopefully our faith and trust deepen, so that more and more we can say with confidence, “God came through before, and I know He will come through again!”
I encourage you to seek Him this week. Ask Him to reveal to you what He has in store for your life in 2014, and to help you have the faith to trust that it will come to pass as He says, in His perfect time.