This post comes from Calvary Chapel Pastors
When the pressure is on and it seems as if you will be swallowed up by some calamity—when you’ve been waiting and waiting and nothing at all appears to be happening—you may feel tempted to give up on any divine response or action from the Lord. But then the Spirit leads you back to the Word of God and once more you recall the faithfulness of God to His promises.
And that is where your soul finds rest.
“God,” you say, “it is in Your loving hands. You are just going to have to take care of it. I cannot do it. I’m going to trust in You.”
Of course, people will do their best to scare you, although usually not on purpose. Don’t let them. Enjoy that beautiful rest, knowing that your problem is in the hands of your loving Lord, come what may. So what if the whole thing collapses? So what if it all goes down the tubes? Hey, it’s in His hands. If God wants it to go down the tubes, then how can you stop it anyway
But as long as you strive to see that your own will gets done, you’ll wrestle with it and groan under its weight and endure all kinds of mental turmoil. You’ll insist, “God, You need to do it my way, or else!” I’m telling you; you will have no rest as long as you insist that God sees things your way and does things your way. But when you finally say, “Lord, I know You love me. So You just do it. You just take care of it the way You know is best. You do what You want to do,” then you can kick back and say, “Well, it’s in His hands. God’s going to take care of it, one way or another.”
I remember when I was trying to get the county to approve a conference center that our church wanted to build. I was just grinding over this issue until I finally came to the place where I said, “Lord, it’s Your problem. I know You love me. I know You love Your church. So it’s Your problem from here on out.”
Thank God He brought me to a place of patience. Through this incident He taught me a great lesson: “tribulation worketh patience” (Romans 5:3). Tribulation and dealing with recalcitrant county officials had worked patience in my heart. I’m not striving with it anymore. It’s in the Lord’s loving hands.
But then my mind would wander and think, I wonder when the officials are having their next meeting. I need to get ready in order to gain their approval. To tell you the truth, while I was waiting for the next hearing to take place, a better piece of property that had been a Boy Scouts’ camp became available, in a much more desirable location and in a more heavily forested area. It was much closer to the church, already zoned for a camp, and more suited in every way for our needs. We bought this site instead and have built a beautiful camp that has ministered to over a quarter of a million children. We saw the hand of God’s love revealed through this recalcitrant planning commission, who were putting us through so much time and grief until the other property became available.
As the psalmist wrote in Psalm 73:26, “My flesh and my heart fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” And I rest in my heavenly Father, “who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace” (2 Thessalonians 2:16).
Believe me, it’s a good place to rest. And there’s more than enough room for you, too.
– excerpted from Love The More Excellent Way by Chuck Smith
continue reading the views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of Calvary Southampton
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