Rescue and Revelation
We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.
-- John 6:69 (NIV)
A common mission of people who follow Christ is a desire to know Him better. However, we typically despise the circumstances that provide the opportunity to do so. Though we glorify God during the joys of life, it is often in our trials that He reveals His nature.
One example etched in my brain occurred decades ago as I drove my mother back to Florida. My father had passed away two months prior, and we were both struggling to process our grief. Mommy had come to Atlanta for my oldest son’s birthday. I was driving her home because the highways were too treacherous for her to navigate alone.
Unexpectedly, the road proved perilous for me as well. Before we knew it, our car spun three times across multiple lanes and faced the oncoming traffic. Barely a few feet away, a semi-truck veered abruptly to the left. The stream of cars that followed parted on both sides of us like the red sea.
A couple of vehicles behind us hit the same slick patch and collided. Out of nowhere a deputy ran up to my window and hastily sent us on our way. Still dazed, it was only then that I realized we survived. Incredibly, our car was untouched.
I drove slowly trying to regain my confidence. About a half hour later my mother made a confession. “Since your father died, I’ve been asking God if He was with me.”
Too numb to laugh or cry, I was just grateful that my toddlers still had a mother. “Well, now you know," I replied. "And you can stop praying about that please.”
The rest of our journey was uneventful. Still, that lesson never left me. Developing a deep relationship with God is rarely achieved from a place of comfort. Our Savior reveals Himself in the wilderness, in fiery furnaces, and on highways. We will never learn the depths of God’s comfort if we fail to experience life's pain. Likewise, we cannot comprehend restoration without enduring significant loss.
Don’t despise disappointment and death valleys. It is in these times that we learn to recognize the Light.
Question for Reflection:
Identify a difficult period in your life where God comforted you or provided a solution. What did you learn from that experience?
