Sunday, April 26, 2020

Trust God In The Middle of Nowhere





        Do you live in a 'what if'' world?  Or does your faith overcome your fears?  When you say you trust God to provide, do your actions backup your words?  Your fears may revolve around your sense of not being in total control.  Guess what?  You never are, God is in control over all things at all times.  Even Satan is powerless, unless God allows it.

       God is our source to provide for all of our needs, care, and help.  Job 10:12 "You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit."  Psalm 65:9 "You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it."  Psalm 111:9  "He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant forever— holy and awesome is his name."

       "There are at least 169 verses in the Bible that refer to the ways God provides for us. Philippians 4:19 puts it simply: “My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”  Like any good parent, God would never give us what He knows would harm us. His intent is to help us develop Christlikeness so that we become salt and light in the world.  God differentiates between our needs and our wants because He knows that where our treasure is our heart is also  He wants us to know that this world is not our home and that part of what we need is to shift our focus to the eternal life while still living this one.  God is concerned with every part of our being: spirit, soul, and body. As the facets of His character are infinite, so the ways God provides for us are beyond anything we can ask or imagine.  Psalm 84:11 states, “No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” This verse carries a reminder that there is a part we play in God’s provision coming to fruition in our lives. We must walk uprightly.   In whatever physical state we find ourselves, we can be content in the Lord.  God’s love and direction began even before conception. What a gift to know that God has been involved in our lives from the very start! His love for us is encompassed in His desire for our highest good.  Often, we take for granted the rain that falls, the sun that comes up every morning, the refreshing winds that blow, and the tides that cleanse our shores and invigorate the life in our vast oceans. But all these things are watched over by our loving God in His provision for us."  [gotquestions.org]

        As for myself, I know many people who limit their activities because of 'what if'' scenarios in their mind.  Most of what we are scared of, never comes true but for those moments that do catch us off guard, we must trust God to provide and work things out for our good.
        Most people are either for or against going on a cruise, there's no in-between.  My first cruise was with my parents on a 7-day trip to the Caribbean islands.  It was perfect, flawless and so much fun, as a teenager.  My second cruise was with Charlene and some other people we knew to Cancun, Playa del Carmen and another place I can't recall on a 5 day trip.  Charlene and I did things on our own and at our own pace because we are night owls, not early birds.  We had such a great time and partied as much as anyone on the ship.  One night after going to the nightclub for 80's music, mudslides and dancing until 1am, we came back to our room that we shared with a friend that was sound asleep.  We tried to be quiet but my scooter ran into the bathroom wall.  LOL, that was the funny part.  Then, reality hit hard and it was no joke.  At this time in my life, I had to wear a big, bulky iron-lung like apparatus to sleep and breathe correctly at night.  After getting ready for bed, we discovered my breathing machine was broken, quit, died, whatever you want to call it.  So, it's the middle of the night and we are in the middle of the ocean and I can't safely go to sleep.  What do we do?  Panic, yes, Pray, yes, Call my parents in AR, yes.  Thankfully, we were to dock in Cancun the next morning.  So, my dad found another machine like mine [rare] and got an expensive airline ticket to meet us at the port in Cancun.  This wasn't our first time to stay up all night because of my machine breaking, but it was the scariest.  My dad made it safely to us with a new machine.  Did we sleep?  No way, we're on vacation time so we all went to this beach resort area for the day and had dinner in the port area.  My dad found a safe little motel for the night and flew home the next day.  We kept on cruising a few more days without any troubles, just fun times.

Where God guides, He provides. Where He leads, He supplies all needs!  Trust in Him always... on land, in sea or in air...He's got you!