Hope for Your Heart: Finding Strength in Life's Storms (13 page)

This story reminds me what it’s like for people who embark on a new life with God, freshly adopted into His family through faith in Jesus Christ. Often we walk through the doors of Christianity with that same sense of uncertainty: Does God
really
care about me? Will He always keep His promises to me?

It is simply an incredible concept that the sovereign God of the universe invites us to trust Him with
everything
. Nothing is so big, or small for that matter, that it doesn’t matter to Him if it matters to us.

Just like the precious Korean girls, totally dependent on their adopted parents to meet all of their needs, we are totally dependent on God to meet all of our needs. And He is faithful . . . eager to help and to provide, eager to fill the deepest holes in our soul, eager to be the Captain of our ship.

But when people let us down or we see trust abused, we tend to hold back even when it comes to trusting God. People who grew up in households where parents were not trustworthy, particularly father figures, often ascribe those marred characteristics to our perfect heavenly Father.

They have a jaded perception of what He’s really like. Sometimes it can take years for their deep emotional wounds to be healed by the sound counsel of God’s Word.

Psalm 27:10 assures us: “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” All those abandoned by their earthly fathers are indeed not fatherless. Psalm 68:5 consoles, “A father to the fatherless . . . is God in his holy dwelling.”

Trust is foundational for the strongest friendships. In fact, trust is the foundation on which the most stable, the most solid, the most secure relationships are built.
¹
Thus, to enjoy God fully, we must trust God fully.

Like deists who espouse that God created the world and then withdrew from further involvement, we can find ourselves perceiving God like an absentee father, a distant landlord. Sure, He invites us to live in His house, but we doubt His ability or His willingness to be involved in every facet of our everyday lives. And that ultimately means we doubt His sovereignty.

In reality, God is the active, all-knowing, all-powerful, and infallible Captain of the universe . . . and the Captain of our individual lives, when we invite His leadership.

The word
captain
comes from the Latin
caput
, meaning “head.”
²
In Roman times a ship captain was known as
Magister Navis
, referring to his maximum authority aboard his vessel. Traditionally a distinctive laurel wreath adorned his head; hence the gold laurel insignia found even today on the hats of many seafaring captains.

As in centuries past, a captain has ultimate responsibility and authority for his vessel. All those aboard are subject to his command. He alone is sovereign.
³

So it is with those who look to the heavenly Father to captain their lives. He is faithful to guide us, protect us, and provide for our every need.

There is an amazing promise describing God as our “need-meeter” in the book of Philippians: “My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (4:19). Did you catch that key word?
All
your needs . . . physical, emotional, spiritual. His resources are abundant; they never run out.

God is sovereign over your life, able to faithfully meet every need, and He wants you to live out your days with the peace and joy that come from embracing that truth. Don’t be fearful . . . be faithful because our God, who abounds with love for us, can be fully trusted.

Some who reject God’s sovereign provision wrongly believe, “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
⁴
My hope is in myself. My confidence is in my ability to take charge of my life and make it what I want it to be. My future is in my hands.”

However, those who trust in God’s sovereign provision rightly believe, “My hope is in my unchanging relationship with Jesus, my Lord and Savior, not on anything that can be taken away from me, including my own abilities and resources. He is the One who meets all of my needs . . . my Captain. In Him I have found the hope I need to embrace this present life and to anticipate my future life in heaven.”

The Bible affirms, “The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him” (Lam. 3:25).

J. D. is an American in his late fifties, but he shares a connection with the young Korean orphans mentioned earlier. All his life he has struggled with trust issues—trusting God, trusting other people. When J. D. was just five years old, his stepmother locked him alone in a room where her deceased mother lay in a coffin. She refused to let him out despite his desperate screams.

J. D. called
Hope In The Night
because more than forty-five years later he began having troubling nightmares about the incident.

J. D.’s relationship with both his parents was abusive. Provoked by the stepmother, his father would often beat him, utilizing any “weapon” at his disposal. J. D. was once hit on the back of his head with a pipe, sending him to the hospital and ultimately to the streets. He simply couldn’t take any more, and J. D.’s parents couldn’t have cared less where he laid his head at night.

J. D. nonetheless saw his stepmother and father occasionally, and he discovered something that brought a trickle of love his direction. If J. D. brought them something, he could usually count on a smile and a few kind words. But soon it would be over, and dysfunction would again dominate.

Over time a clear and tragic message was communicated to J. D. that has tarnished his relationships ever since: Love is gained
condition
ally
. You must give to hope to get.

I asked J. D. if his abusive childhood had affected his relationship with God.

To be honest, yes, ma’am . . . I have had difficulty trusting anyone.

The reason I asked is, children typically ascribe to God the characteristics of their authority figures. Since your father and stepmother were not trustworthy, it follows that you would think that God is untrustworthy.

But it’s very important to grasp, God is absolutely trustworthy. Just start telling yourself this truth over and over and over, thanking God every single day that He is trustworthy.

The problem I’m having is there are times when I have nightmares about what happened to me when I was a kid. When she locked me in that room, I was scared and screaming ’til I lost my voice. I wake up in a cold sweat . . . like I’ve been in a shower.

Sometimes unresolved issues find expression through nightmares. I want us to cover certain things you can do every time you have a memory of that scene.

Okay.

What J. D. needed was hope—hope that he could heal from the pain and horror of this traumatic incident. I knew he would find that hope in God’s Word. I suggested we revisit the scene but cast it in a very different light. My prayer was that peace would soon replace panic.

I asked J. D. to picture himself as a little boy standing in that frightening room but to also envision Jesus standing next to him, compassionately whispering gentle assurances. “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isa. 41:10).

J. D. needed to understand this was God’s message to him
that very
day
, to be appropriated back to his terrifying incident when a comforter wasn’t present.

I then asked J. D. to picture something else. I wanted him to view himself as a helpless little lamb at the tender age of five, being held in the strong arms of Jesus. And Jesus would again, as He firmly embraced J. D., provide those gentle reassurances of Isaiah 41:10.

When terror would begin to sweep over J. D.’s heart, mind, and spirit, I wanted him to grab hold of that truth. I encouraged him to literally claim Isaiah 41:10 and to say, “Thank You, Lord Jesus, that You hold me and tell me, ‘Do not fear, for I am with you.’”

J. D. desperately needed biblical truth—to give him biblical hope that would result in an anchored life. Along the journey he would discover that his heavenly Father is absolutely trustworthy and able to redeem the most revolting situations and bring the kind of healing that can come only from above.

You too can claim the Word of God for your healing. You too can trust His sovereign reign both in and over your life.

The Bible contains many, many stories involving trust in the sovereignty of God amidst the most troubling circumstances. One such story tested a man and an entire nation, and God powerfully proved Himself as the One who alone reigns.

Imagine you were born into slavery, a despised foreigner in a strange land, doomed to a life of backbreaking labor. You have no chance of escape, nowhere to go if you could, and no hope that life will ever be different for you or your descendants.

Then one day a man walks out of the wilderness and tells you God has heard your cries of hopelessness and despair. He delivers this message:

I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. (Ex. 6:6–7)

That sounds pretty good; maybe
too
good. You’d like to believe it, but this guy Moses, the God-ordained emancipator, was raised in the royal courts of Egypt and was adopted by the pharaoh’s daughter. Why would he get involved with sweaty, suffering Hebrew slaves? Could he really be trusted? Could
God
be trusted if Moses was indeed His choice?

What you don’t realize is that Moses, actually a fellow Hebrew, has spent the last forty years in the wilderness being prepared by God for your great day of deliverance. When Moses first approaches Pharaoh about letting the Hebrew people go, he is met with contempt and scoffing remarks, culminating in Pharaoh’s cruelly increasing the slaves’ workload.

The slave nation, millions strong, turns against Moses with disdain and disappointment. And so do you. Did God pick the wrong man for the job, and if so, does that mean God can’t be fully trusted? But all doubt begins to dissipate when the Egyptian-cherished Nile River turns into blood.

Through Moses, God begins to intervene in mighty ways, manifesting His awesome sovereignty before the Hebrews and Egyptians alike. You watch in awe as one horrific plague after another afflicts the Egyptians: Water turns to blood; livestock perish; dreadful boils blanket their skin; frogs, gnats, flies, hail, locusts, even darkness cover the now impaired empire.

Finally a mysterious angel of death kills every firstborn child, young and old, rich and poor, as well as the firstborn of all the livestock. But through it all, you and your people are protected and spared.

At last Pharaoh relents and agrees to let you and your people go with Moses into the desert. Rather than hold you back, the Egyptians hastily push you forward, fearing for their very lives if you stay in their country another minute!

Additionally God impresses them to give you whatever you want on your way out, and the former slave nation plunders an empire.
Power . . . protection . . . provision . . .
Now can you trust in the absolute sovereignty of God?

The triumphant procession streams into the wilderness. Everyone is talking about Moses’ victory over Pharaoh and the bright future awaiting them. Then the joyfulness gets a jolt when a thunderous rumbling is heard at the rear of the crowd. The sound of pounding hoofbeats and the grinding wheels of chariots grows ever louder, and your greatest fear is realized:
The enemy is not yet defeated
.

The Egyptian army is in hot pursuit, and you and your people face another horrendous hurdle, for stretching before you is a large body of water, the Red Sea. One word flashes across your mind—
trapped
—and again the sovereignty of God is called into question. Panic breaks out. Everyone looks to Moses in bewilderment and outrage. What is going on? Full of desperation and cynicism they inquire:

Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? (Ex. 14:11 esv)

God has just delivered the Hebrew people out of one seemingly hopeless situation, but now they doubt that He can deliver them out of a second one. What about you—do you remember God’s words delivered through Moses? “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God” (Ex. 6:7). Does that sound like God’s plan involves a burial plot?

Moses responds to the Israelites in complete trust and full of hope, modeling absolute assurance in the promises of God: “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still” (Ex. 14:13–14).

Again the miraculous occurs. Moses stretches out his hand over the Red Sea, and a strong wind divides the waters, creating a wall on both the right and the left.

The Israelites cross
on dry land
, but God throws the Egyptian army into confusion, and now it’s their turn to fear when a realization reverberates throughout their shaken spirits—“Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt” (Ex. 14:25).

It turns out to be too late for a getaway. God instructs Moses to once again stretch his hand out over the sea, and the walls of water come crashing over the Egyptian army, drowning every last soldier.
Delivered once again, in the most daunting of circumstances.