"If you are reading this and you feel even in the slightest way as if you are being shut out - then take joy, my friend - a major blessing is on its way. This loneliness [hurt, pain, suffering, trial, any difficulty] is just your training ground for greatness. It is simply God's way of singling you out for whatever it is He has in store for you.
If your heart is hurting as you read these words, be encouraged. God is on His way. Dry your eyes, lift your head, and listen for the cry of a baby in Bethlehem who came to this world through a scared and lonely girl sitting on a hard cave floor.
Look around your cave. Is the floor hard? Is the lighting bad? Is your family nowhere to be found? Are your friends far away?
Mary [the mother of Jesus] has been there too-and look what God did with her life! So settle in and get comfortable. Start expecting a miracle, and before you know it you'll also forget how hard the ground is as you enjoy the presence of God."
"Has the fog rolled into your life lately? Are you looking at your circumstances and casting a glance heavenward, asking, "God, where are you?" Many times I have been convinced that I was on the right path, only to have the fog roll in and either slow me down or turn me around completely. The Bible clearly states that God is with us in the storms of life. But what about the fog? What about when we cannot even see where to step in order to move? God usually allows the fog to roll into our lives to remind us that His plan is different than our own. His purpose in allowing us to be temporarily blinded by the fog is always the same: to build faith in those He loves and to strengthen the character of those He has called. What is fog, anyway? It is simply low clouds. That's encouraging to me because God has been known to show up in clouds! Nahum 1:3 even tells us that the clouds are the dust of His feet [...the sign of His passing, the way to follow His direction, the mark of the path He is taking... and what could be better than to follow Him? Even through the fog.] At times it may seem as if nothing is worse than not knowing what's going on or what's going to happen next. We all have moments where we wish we could hit Fast Forward and see how everything turns out in the end. But we have to take things one step at a time, and sometimes in the fog we can't even see the next step we are taking. And in certain moments we may even find ourselves too tired to take the next step."
"But He is always there just the same."
~God Called a Girl by Shannon Kubiak
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And the Lord is always faithful. It is sometimes necessary, in times of thick fog, to be willing to blindly press onward to achieve the goal we know is there. To have blind faith, but not have /blind/ faith. Not to go onward hopelessly with nothing to trust and no ground, but to trust so firmly in your foundations that you can follow God without care of where you go. Two things that come to mind:
a) There was once a swimmer who wished to do the highly difficult deed of swimming the English channel. Unfortunately, on the day that he did so, the fog was exceedingly thick--so much, in fact, that he could not see the shore. He kept swimming and swimming, but eventually the doubts ran rampant. "What if I was carried by a current? What if I went the wrong direction?" Soon, he gave up--he never made it to the other shore. But the spot where he quit was only three hundred feet from shore; if he could have just seen it, or had the faith to keep pressing onward!
But let us never give up hope like that, for God has promised that there is a shore--and even if we do not see it, if we keep pressing onward we will reach it. If we rest on the firm foundation He gave us, we will reach the shore safely.
b) On a happier note, there are quite a few stories of God answering prayer and faith. First, a personal story: when Dad was out of work(for a period of almost two years), we were running out of supplies and prayed that God would get us through the month. Within a short time--completely unexpected--a truck showed up at our door. It was carrying food, and a lot of it! It was a charity organization who had (a little while before) determined that we were the neediest family they knew, and they sent a bunch of food to us--in answer to our prayers and faith. Second, there are many missionaries(Hudson Taylor(for a named person), Bible smugglers, those doing missions in poorer countries or cities) who, while in their mission fields were running out of money, were persecuted, were on the verge of starvation; all of them had faith that God would bring them through--and He did! Hudson Taylor got the exact amount of money he needed, the Bible smugglers were stopped but not caught(God blinded the guards to the Bibles they carried), and those running orphanages in foreign countries received food for them and the children.
Our God is not far away, He does not turn away from His children's suffering, and He never fails! He is the perfect parent--always teaching His children that they may grow into maturity. All of our trials, though painful, have a greater purpose--for our growth and for our increasing dependence on our amazing God!
So follow Him blindly--not as a fool without foundations, but as a child secure in His arms. Ah, for the faith of a child--let the little ones go unto our Lord and Father, and let no one and nothing turn them away! Praise the Lord!
--Josiah C.
I love your definition of blind faith, Josiah! "Not as a fool without foundations, but as a child secure in His arms." It is a faith that seems inutterably foolish (blind) to the world-but WE KNOW IN WHOM WE HAVE BELIEVED!
Cara, thanks for posting these. They were very encouraging....even if I'm not literally on a cave floor.)
~mee
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