trust | Revelations From The Road

The Big Picture

October 19, 2008 by Bill Leave a Comment

Given October 13, 2008

This is the first post from a trip my wife and I took to Senzhen, China to visit our third son who lives and works there. Flying out of Knoxville’s McGhee Tyson airport, as were climbing to cruising altitude, I noticed the beautiful mountains and land of East Tennessee below. You could see a lot! It made me realize how much I could see compared to someone on the ground. From my perspective, I could see so much more than a guy standing at the base of one of those mountains. If it was cloudy over his head, I could see that the clouds broke jus a few miles away. I could say, “Wait awhile, it’ll clear up soon.” He may be dejected that he was under a cloud of despair. It was my location and perspective that made the difference.

We, as humans, down low on the earth, are very limited as to what we can actually see. We have to trust and rely on someone who is much higher than we are who sees the big picture. That’s God. He sees it all and, if we trust Him to guide us, we will make it through. Even though what we see may look impossible, God sees it from a higher perspective and knows what we should do. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.“We must not “lean on our own understanding” but trust the all-seeing God to guide us.

God has told us, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:9“.

Trust Him, He sees it all.

Heap O Trouble

December 31, 2007 by Bill 1 Comment

Given December 22, 2007
Jesus said in John 16:33, “In this world, you will have trouble“, and we can all agree this is true. We all have trouble of different kinds and magnitudes. I heard something the other day that made me think of troubles in a different way.

What if….a decree went out in your community to create a Heap of Troubles. This would be a voluntary thing and anyone who wanted to participate could bring their troubles to a pre-determined location and pile them up. This would go on for one week and, at the end of the week, all the troubles heaped up there would be divided into equal parts according to the number of people who had participated. These equal-sized troubles would then be re-distributed to all those involved. What do you think? Would you participate?

I can see a man with an armful of “troubles” coming up to the heap. As he begins to toss his problems onto the pile, another guy backs his pickup truck loaded with his troubles up to the pile. The first guy thinks, “Well, maybe my troubles aren’t so bad after all.” Do you get the point?

Many times, we think we have troubles and problems until we see someone else’s. Then ours don’t seem so bad. But, you know, God DOES have a program like this. He DOES want us to bring our troubles to Him and leave them there. But the good news is that they won’t get re-distributed back to us. God will take care of them all! “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7“. Now, notice that, “due time” part. Most of the time, we’ll still have to deal with the results of our bad decisions but God will be right there with us to take us through. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for Thou art with me. Psalms 23:4“.

Do you have any troubles? Toss them onto God’s heap then let Him direct your paths, Proverbs 3:5-6.

Cast Your Care

July 21, 2007 by Bill Leave a Comment

Given July 17, 2007
We live in a world with troubles, don’t we? Every day, news stories chronicle trouble somewhere and even if it’s not too bad, it’s still something we may have concern over. But that’s just the way it is. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. John 16:33“, but He ended that statement by assuring us, “But take heart! I have overcome the world.” He’s already taken care if it. So why do we still have “care” over these things?

So, if we’re in the middle of trouble, and Jesus has overcome it already, we shouldn’t worry about at all. We can, (and that’s important), we CAN toss the anxiety of it over to Jesus and sit back and let Him handle it. “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7“. We have the choice of letting Jesus take care of it or trying to do it ourselves. Here’s one way of looking at it. When Satan comes knocking on your door, just say, “Jesus, will you get that please?”

Walk This Way

May 5, 2007 by Bill 1 Comment

Given May 2, 2007
God has provided a way for each of us. I wrote about this recently relating to some erroneous advice I’d given my boys about their future and recently God showed me another way to look at it.

Isaiah 30:21 says, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it”.” So, I get the picture of a path laid before me, it’s a good road and I can see pretty far up ahead. That’s not too hard to follow especially if God is behind me encouraging me to go on.

But, what about when the way ahead is really foggy and you can’t see where you’re going? You’re almost walking blindly into who knows what. That’s where trust and faith comes in. We don’t need to see where we’re going if God has planned our journey and is behind us telling us to keep moving. God told Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. Genesis 12:1“. Abram didn’t know where he was going but he trusted God to know what was best for him and his family. We must do the same. If we trust God and keep moving, eventually the fog will disipate and the path will be clear. Besides, there may be distractions along the path God doesn’t want us to see.

I will be entering into the ranks of the retired soon and I was sort of whining to God in prayer recently about Him not telling me yet what He’s got planned for me. The scripture above immediately came to mind along with the phrase, “You’ll know when we get there.” Okay!

The Big Picture

Heap O Trouble

Cast Your Care

Walk This Way

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