WT?G

“It is not when things are going well that we make our progress. It is not even when things are going wrong and yet we feel sure that we can handle them with prayer, that we advance. It is when, smitten by the temptation to discouragement or even despair, we yet stand for what we know is the Truth.” A wise man said to me years ago “there will be days when in pain, seemingly at wits end when you are going to look around and exclaim WHAT THE ? GOD! (Since this man was a Marine, I will leave it to you gentle reader to decipher ?) Having worked diligently, doing all that is indicated and yet life has gone sideways. Prayers seem to be falling on deaf ears and meditation has lost its savor. Negative analysis leads inexorably to wallowing in morbid reflection. Everything is turning from light to dark. Then the deadly thought surfaces: What’s the point? We placed our trust in God and He has seemingly abandoned us at the worst possible moment. We have lost perspective. The reality that we are eternal, that this is just one day in a very long existence, that we are living in eternity has drifted from focus. Dwelling on the false belief that this time nothing will change, the dark only becoming darker, we feel adrift, alone and unloved. Perhaps even so far as to entertain doubts about even the existence of God and all the destructive thinking this path leads to.

We begin our trip back from the brink with the simple recitation of possibly the most powerful prayer of all: Be still and know that I am God. And wait. What an order. The times when the only action is non-action, allowing God to work are the hardest. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord. (Psalm 27:14) Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him (Job 13:15). We must hold to the truth that God is either everything or else he is nothing. He either is or isn’t, no middle ground, no areas of gray. So when our perspective drifts and negative analysis tries to rule the day we must lean even harder on Him who loves us unconditionally, who has all knowledge and power and it begins with: Be still and know that I am God. And wait. Simple, but not easy, how is that for understatement. Peace.