April 12-13

April 12 -13

"Your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well what you need and he will give it to you if you give him first place in your life and live as he wants you to. (Matthew 6:33 LB)

I had one of those nights this week - try as I might, I just could not get off to sleep when finally I went to bed. I had stayed up late that night to watch the Commonwealth Games being held on the Gold Coast, Australia. The result, my brain refused to close down.

As you know, when this occurs, the mind goes round and round and backward and forward over past events. My brain didn't let me down. Trouble was the over-stimulation seemed to draw up negative events...you know, those times when I've had a problem, discussed it with the Lord, then done my own thing- my own thing that on every occasion got me nowhere fast! You'd think by now even my semiconcious brain could concentrate on the past good events – after all, they far outweigh the bad, but at those times I had spent more time thinking about God's advice than putting it into action!

When God makes a promise, He keeps it. When He tells us He will never leave us or forsake us, that He will come back to earth for us, we can rely on it:

“Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us, “I’ll never let you down, never walk off and leave you,” we can boldly quote, God is there, ready to help; I’m fearless no matter what. Who or what can get to me?” - Hebrews 13:5

“When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am” - John 14:3.NLT

The 1989 Armenian earthquake killed thirty thousand people. Moments after the tremor stopped, a father raced to an elementary school. As he arrived to nothing but a mass of stones and rubble, he remembered a promise he’d made to his child: “No matter what happens, I’ll always be there for you.” Other parents arrived as he began pulling at the rocks. “It’s too late,” they told the man. But the father refused. For thirty six hours he dug—his hands raw, but he refused to quit.

After thirty-eight wrenching hours, he pulled back a boulder. “Arman! Arman!” and a voice answered him, “Dad, it’s me.” Then the boy added these priceless words, “I told the others not to worry. I told them if you were alive, you’d save me, and when you saved me, they’d be saved, too. Because you promised, “No matter what, I’ll always be there for you!”

“Have no fear, for I am with you; do not be looking about in trouble, for I am your God; I will give you strength, yes, I will be your helper; yes, my true right hand will be your support” - Isaiah 41:10 BBE

We must trust God with our lives. As long as we love anything more than God, that thing or person or item will become a source of anxiety.

The book of Romans says that God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for us to pay for our salvation. If God loves us enough to send His own Son to die for us, don't we think He loves us enough to give us the right advice when we ask?

The bottom line is this, if we can hope to have a good night's sleep, will we trust God enough to listen to Him - be like the Armenian father who dug at the earth until he found his son buried under the rubble? be like the son, Arman, who trusted his father to keep the promise he made? Trust Him enough to do what He tells us to do?

(Acknowledgements Rick Warren and Max Lucado).

Click on the picture to listen to "I Heard the Voice of Jesus  Say" (LIVE).