Many times over the years, I have hidden in God. Wrapping myself in the security of His words, unleashing my emotions in the safety of His presence, and drowning my fear, unforgiveness, and unfaithfulness in the waters of His grace.
God sends His people out, though. When your heart is healed, when others need the love He has poured into you, after you repeatedly tell Him you will follow Him anywhere, eventually He calls you out to walk on stormy waters.
But storms and waves can make a girl want to hide even from the God whom she adores. Afraid to face all He is asking, ashamed of a hesitance to obey, and desperate to find a way around the mountain He has sovereignly brought, I have cowered in the safe places and waited for the skies to clear.
I am left with hard questions. Why is it that all God asks us to do, and how He asks us to live seem to draw us through hellish and difficult places?
Yesterday, Mr. Fantastic taught about the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. I learned so much from my wise husband.
This is the only parable of Jesus in which a character has a proper name. He was a poor “nobody” in life, and lived with great pain, but entered the very center of all comfort when his life ended.
Lazarus had a name, and it means “he whom God helps”.
When life seems more like hell, we either comfort ourselves, or we become Lazarus, and trust God will be our great help, our Comforter.
Grace is the opportunity to walk through the hard places while clinging to Jesus.
Mercy is the way of a soul that can wrap itself around its own inability to stand alone in the waves.
Love and salvation come to those who long for help from He who comforts the needy and afflicted.
They say that life can be hell, and when I look at the world I can see that’s true. But I pray as Jesus taught me, and fill my soul with hope that His Kingdom can come here in earth, and I let my weary heart rest in the bosom of His Kingship.
I am Lazarus. I stand in stormy waters, and I am in need of God’s mighty help.
Considering what my mighty God is capable of, I am assured that hell doesn’t stand a chance.
