Does God Know When You are Hanging on by a Thread?
I bought a cellular phone call just lately that no pastor wishes to get a man in my church experienced suffered a substantial heart attack and it failed to search great at all. Four hrs immediately after I obtained to the clinic to be with the household, he died. You can visualize the grief. This man and his spouse had experienced a whole lot of grief about the many years. I was reminded they lost a baby when I saw them weeping over his grave immediately after the woman’s father was buried just a couple months back. I stood with this couple beside an additional casket when their daughter-in-legislation was killed in an car incident a couple months ago. And now this treasured girl who enjoys the Lord was dealing with the reduction of her spouse of 30-three a long time. She requested me a dilemma as we stood in that medical center waiting place: “They say God would not set on you more than you can bear. But, does God know when you happen to be hanging on by a thread?”
Sometimes it does not seem to be like God is familiar with how we experience or what we are heading by way of. There are moments when we really don’t imagine we can make it. The Bible is stuffed with God’s people who felt that way. The Psalmist mentioned, “O Lord, God of my salvation, I have cried out working day and night time just before you…For my soul is comprehensive of troubles and my everyday living draws close to to the grave…I am like a male who has no power, adrift amongst the useless, like the slain who lie in the grave, who you bear in mind no far more” (Ps. 88:1-5). These are vivid images if you consider about them. David himself cried out, “I am weary with my groaning all night time I make my bed swim I drench my couch with my tears” (Ps. 6:6). Extra than after he felt like God had abandoned him. Which is the context of the refrain we sing from his phrases: “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God” (Ps. 42:1). He was in a desert of melancholy and felt there was no way out. That’s why he mentioned “My tears have been my foods day and evening, although they constantly say to me, ‘Where is your God'” (v. 3)? When you have nothing at all to consume but your personal tears, you are hanging on by a thread.
And indeed, God is aware that. The really actuality verses like these are all more than the Bible tells us that God is familiar with how we truly feel and has not abandoned us. When we are hammered by hurts He is with us and we truly have an unlimited provide of grace from which to draw in time of want. That is why Paul claimed, “No demo has overtaken you but such as is prevalent to man and God is trustworthy, who will not allow you to be analyzed further than what you are in a position, but with the demo will offer the way of escape also, that you may perhaps be capable to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13). (This verse applies to trials or temptations).
Now, these problems are “typical to gentleman.” Paul’s very first word of encouragement is that we are not alone in our affliction. What we encounter is knowledgeable by other individuals. We require not feel our load is this kind of that no one has ever confronted the exact.
But Paul also suggests anything about God and His faithfulness to us. In spite of the point that winds of adversity blow, God does not forget about those whom He enjoys. He appreciates there are periods when you’re hanging on by a thread but “will not allow for you to be analyzed over and above what you are equipped” to bear. He will not permit a fat on you that you can’t endure by His toughness and grace. He will not exam you outside of your ability and the aid you have in Christ.
God is the 1 who actually offers “the way of escape.” The image below is that of a ship on a raging sea in the midst of a intense storm. The vessel is bouncing about in the rough waters and the wind is blowing her straight towards the rocks. Almost nothing can be completed and she is about to founder and be destroyed. It is really stormy, dark, and all hope is absent. Yet, just as calamity is about to strike, an opening in the rocks appears and the ship skirts by means of into a peaceful cove where safety from the battering storm is provided. The ship and crew are safe and sound in the cove as they regardless of whether the storm that churns round about them. The stage is not that deliverance from the storm is God’s way of escape. Instead, the way of escape is God’s deliverance into the cove that a person might endure the storm in security. That’s why Paul adds, “that you may perhaps be capable to endure it.” Christians deal with trials and temptations. Still, God is trustworthy. He gives the way of escape to journey out the storm.
You say, “Ok, but what do I do? How do I get to the cove where I can feel like I will be in a position to climate this hurricane in my daily life?” The respond to is our considering. We have to battle the inclination to assume about nothing at all but the struggling we facial area and in fact consider more about God Himself His goodness, adore, grace, mercy, and reason for us in the midst of terrible situation. God utilizes tricky instances to refine us like fire refines gold (1 Pet. 1:6-7). It is the screening of our faith that provides Christ’s power and character in us (Jas. 1:3-4). God works by using hardship like a blacksmith’s hammer and anvil to make us additional like Christ (Rom. 8:28-29). We have to concentration our thoughts on Christ and not the tragedy. And that suggests we have to believe in Him. Isaiah suggests, “You [God] will maintain him in excellent peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you” (Isa. 26:3).
The Lord Jesus is the way of escape “For we do not have a higher priest who can not sympathize with our weaknesses, but one particular who has been tempted/analyzed in all issues as we are, however without sin. Allow us consequently attract near with self-confidence to the throne of grace, that we might receive mercy and may possibly come across grace to help in time of will need” (Heb. 4:15-16). Enable us forged all our care on Him due to the fact He cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7). If we can do that, then slowly and gradually but absolutely, that thread we are clinging to that feels as if it is about to give way will become a chain hooked up to an anchor that are not able to be moved: the Lord Jesus Himself (Heb. 6:19-20). Indeed, in spite of the storm, God knows, and the anchor will hold.