We
had a near tragedy in our New Hope family last week. On Monday morning I received one of those
phone calls every pastor dreads. One of
our young couples had found their 22-month-old son floating face down in the
pool. The baby’s grandma is a nurse and
she lives just across the street from them.
She ran over and administered CPR until the emergency services
arrived. The little boy was revived in
the ambulance on the way to the hospital and then was transferred to another
Bakersfield hospital where there is a pediatric ICU. By the time I arrived at the hospital he was
doing pretty well and it looked like everything was going to be ok. I sat in the family waiting room with the
stunned parents and we talked. “This was
a God thing. God was there. God spared our son’s life.” This experience may have been one of the most
painful trials of their lives but at the same time it may have been the
experience through which they saw God most clearly and felt his presence most
palpably.
The
day before they were to cross the Jordan Joshua told the people what they were
to expect. He explained to them that the
priests would carry the ark of the covenant into the river and the water would
be stopped so they could cross on dry ground.
Notice what is said in Joshua 3:10, “This is how you will know that the
living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the
Canaanites…” This wondrous miracle would
be a sign to them that their God was present with them. It was when they faced this new trial that
Israel was able to see God’s presence.
So that makes me stop and think.
When do we most clearly sense the presence of God in our own lives? And when do non-Christians most feel the need
for God? Isn’t it when we encounter very
difficult times in our lives? There are
so many biblical examples of this truth.
There
is the story of the young Jewish men who were in service to King Nebuchadnezzar
in Babylon. The king made a giant idol
of gold and commanded all the people to bow down and worship it. But these young men, Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, refused to worship the false god.
They told the king that their God was able to deliver them from him and
even if he did not they would not worship his god. Infuriated, Nebuchadnezzar commanded that
they all be thrown into a blazing furnace.
But when the king looked into the furnace he saw not three, but four men
walking around unaffected and unharmed by the flames. It was when these Jewish men faced the
greatest trial of their lives that God showed them the wonder of his presence among
them.
In
the book of Acts we are told about the persecution of followers of Jesus by
King Herod. He executed James, the
brother of John, and when he discovered how popular that made him with the
Jewish leaders he also had Peter arrested.
Peter was in prison and the next day he was going to be tried. He was most assuredly facing the day of his
death. That night an angel of the Lord
came into the prison, awakened Peter, and led him to safety outside the prison. On the night before his trial Peter
experienced the presence of the Lord with him in a most miraculous way.
Sometimes
we think that these stories are only for the Bible times. We read them and think about how great it was
that God was there for those people. We
tend to forget that God never changes and his presence with us is no less than
it was for any of the biblical characters.
We can know that God is with us.
We can be comforted and encouraged by his presence. When we come upon hard times we can expect to
experience the presence of God.
When
we face trials we can expect to see God take action and deal with our
troubles. God told Joshua he was going
to take action on behalf of Israel.
Joshua was able to tell the people, “Tomorrow the LORD will do amazing
things among you” (Joshua 3:5). Taking
Israel across the Jordan was nothing for God.
For men, it was impossible. God’s
people knew there was nothing they could do themselves so they had to depend on
the Lord to act on their part. The same
is true for us when we come up against circumstances that appear to be totally
impossible. These are the times we can
expect to see God take action on our behalf.
These are the times when we should not be discouraged but keep our eyes
open to see what God is going to do. It
is so easy for us to get down and depressed when we have so many trials. If only we could look at it differently and
realize that it is just another opportunity to see God at work! If we spend our time complaining we might
miss what God does! James writes that
hard saying in 1:2, “Count it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials
of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops
perseverance.” We might wonder how we
are to rejoice in our trials. We can have
a positive attitude like that because we know that when we have trials we can
expect to see God’s hand at work.
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