Heart Tracks - The "Real" Reality

"I have set the Lord always before me: because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." Psalm 16:8...."Where do we put the impossibility? On the 'thing,' or on God?" T. Austin-Sparks

In response to Psalm 16:8, I have placed in my prayer journal the statement, "In every life situation, may I put you before me in all of them." If I will do that, than I will also discover that He is before every situation. Every need. Every crisis. Every storm. Every impossibility. If I will do that, it is not them that I will see, but Him. From such a position I'm able to put the burden of the situation, the need, the crisis, the impossibility, on Him, and not on "them." The key phrase here is "if I will do that." That's a very big "if." For me, and for you as well, because in those places and situations, all we see is the hopelessness of it all. Only the heart that lives in day to day intimacy with Him will be able to see Him in all places. Even the most hopeless ones.

I'm not sure the stop-watch exists that is able to time how quickly you and I go into "panic mode" over these things. We're more prone to believe in the power of the storm to drown us than we are in His ability, readiness, and willingness to deliver us. I love the passage in Luke 8 and the healing of Jairus's daughter. Jairus had sought Jesus in order that He might heal his near - death daughter. Jesus agreed to come to her, but while still on the way, a messenger came to tell Him not to bother, the little girl had died. Jesus then said to Jarius, "Don't be afraid, just trust Me, and she will be all right." Upon arriving at the home there was a crowd of mourners weeping over the loss. Jesus said to them, "Stop the weeping! She isn't dead; she is only asleep." The next verse says that "they laughed at Him because they knew she was dead." Jesus then bid her to rise up from her bed, and she did. Two questions for us here; first, who would we most likely be standing with in all of this? Jesus and the father, or the laughing crowd? Second, what is the reality that we really know. The crowd knew she was dead. Jesus said that she wasn't. Which was the true reality? I continue to find that in the "realities" of life, no matter how impossible they may seem or be, He is the greatest reality of all. Havner's words on this are; "Still the world laughs at Him as He moves in our 'impossible' situations, our sorrows and broken hopes. 'What good does it do to trust in Jesus? What can He do for you?' But every day those who trust Him know that He still works His wonders if we only believe."

In Acts 27, Paul and everyone else on board is in the midst of a storm that will result in shipwreck, a seeming disaster. Yet Paul had been told by the Lord that both he and all the passengers and crew would be saved. In the midst of the storm and the oncoming wreck, he said, "I believe it will be just as He told me." Everyone had given up hope of being saved. Everyone but Paul. He believed what God had said. May you and I, when everything screams at us to give up any and all hope of being saved, have faith to believe that "it shall happen just as He told us." When all hope may seem lost, may this be the prayer that we live in. May He be our real reality everywhere we are. Against the laughing, unbelieving crowd stands Jesus....and a father who chooses to believe Him. Where are you and I standing right now?

Blessings,
Pastor O