Keep on Trusting!

The following article is from http://www.crosswalk.com/spirituallife/11595374/ (Answers with Bayless Conley) It really hit home in many ways for me. It is a great follow-up to yesterday's post about waiting.

If you’re like me, there's been a time in your life when trusting God has been tough. Perhaps that time is right now! Maybe your marriage isn't where you would like it to be. Perhaps it's far from ideal… even very far from being happy… and you've been praying and trusting God to turn things around. Maybe you're trusting God for the healing of a physical affliction in your body. Maybe there's a difficult financial situation in which you're trusting God for favor. Maybe it has to do with your kids or some other situation in the home. Maybe it has to do with something that's going on at work and you're trusting God for something to change. Whatever it is, I want to encourage you with a word from the Lord today. I want to share with you one reason to hold fast. A reason to keep believing. A reason to hold on to the promise that God has put in your heart and to keep trusting Him.

That reason is this: If God ever helped you in the past, He can help you in the now.

I read a true story recently about a guy who was totally distraught over some bills which had come due. And in the midst of his panic he remembered an experience he had as a World War II soldier fighting in the South Pacific. He had become separated from his comrades, and some enemy soldiers had spotted him. In his attempt not to be caught, he scrambled through the jungle on the island he was on and managed to wedge himself inside a tiny little cave. And being a Christian, he prayed, "God, please protect me." In that moment, he noticed that a little spider had started to spin a web at the mouth of the cave, and for the next 30 minutes he watched that spider spin a web as his enemy searched the caves around him. Pretty soon, the enemy soldiers appeared at the mouth of the cave—and in an instant, they were gone. The soldier realized the enemy assumed nobody would have gone into that cave if there was a spider web in front of it!

He had let the distress about his bills overwhelm him… before finally remembering that God had saved him with a spider web! God had been faithful in a situation that had been much worse! This human tendency to forget God's faithfulness… our failure to trust Him… is the same thing we find in Mark chapter 8, right after Jesus miraculously fed over 4,000 people with a few fish and seven loaves of bread. Right after that miracle, the disciples had jumped into a boat with Jesus and crossed over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. And they immediately forgot the miracle they had just watched Him perform.

Let's pick up the story in Mark 8:14…

Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat. Then He charged them, saying, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have no bread.” But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, “Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?” They said to Him, “Twelve.” “Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?” And they said, “Seven.” So He said to them, “How is it you do not understand?” (v. 14-21)

Jesus is telling His disciples that they don't get it! He has just performed two amazing miracles feeding thousands with a few fish and a couple of loaves of bread. Yet they are panicking because they realize that they only have one loaf of bread now for themselves. Somehow they have forgotten God's provision… His faithfulness. They are panicking in this situation because it has not dawned on them that what He did before he can do again.

But God does do repeat performances! He is faithful! What He has done in your life He can do again. And that's a good reason to hold fast… to keep believing… and to hold on today to the promise that God has put in your heart