Tenacious Trust

Written by Becky Toews

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“Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.”  (Job 13:15a)

I came across a billboard the other day that said, “Everything works out in the end. If it hasn’t worked out, it isn’t the end.”  It takes an element of spiritual audacity to trust God no matter what. Job provides one of the most profound examples of spiritual audacity in the Bible.

He loses everything—family, wealth, reputation, health—and he doesn’t understand why. He’s confused. His concept of God’s righteousness and fairness is tested to the last degree. He didn’t have an assurance as to how his situation would turn out, but there was no way he was going to “curse God and die” as his wife suggested. If he was going to die, he would die hoping and trusting.

‘God is a fraud’

Parashat Beha’alotecha (Numbers 8:1-12:16)

BY RABBI PAUL KIPNES

In this week’s parasha, Beha’alotecha, Moses faces the fragility of life as he watches his sister, Miriam, struggle with tzara’at, a dangerous skin disease. Overcome with anguish, Moses cries out to God. His five-word prayer, the shortest recorded in the Torah, beseeches the Holy One: El na r’fa na la (O God, please heal her). God hears, and miraculously Miriam is healed (Numbers 12:1-16). For some, this parasha provides comfort that, indeed, our prayers for healing work. And then there are people like Sarah.

Sarah walked into my office, sat in a chair and confessed, “My mother doesn’t know me anymore.” Tears began streaming down her face. I recognized that a while had passed since I had seen her around the synagogue. She continued, “My mother sits in the convalescent home, weeks now after her fall. Her hip is on the mend, but her mind continues to deteriorate. I tell her, ‘Ma, it’s me. Your daughter.’ Sometimes she looks confused. Sometimes she smiles. Then … then it is as if she’s gone. She just doesn’t remember me.”

Pressing Into God During Times of Crisis

DESIREE AYRES

 

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(© Goodwyn / StockFreeImages.com)

Editor’s Note: Ten days after a terrible explosion left her fighting for her life, Hollywood stuntwoman Desiree Ayres walked out of the Sherman Oaks Burn Center completely healed and whole. Now she co-pastors with her husband and shares her powerful testimony of miraculous healing and restoration with everyone she meets.

No matter how challenging or difficult your present circumstance may be, I can assure you of one thing: If you cry out to God in your crisis, He can and will bring you help. Not only will He help you but He can make a multitude of blessings out of every situation. Be encouraged, because as you cry out to your Creator, He can and will turn your mess into a message, your test into a testimony!

Does God Ever Refuse to Hear Prayers?

Most of us believe that when we “cry out” to God—that is, appeal to Him through prayer—He always hears those prayers. “Ask,” we read in Matthew 7:7, “and it will be given to you.” But what about Bible passages that suggest that sometimes God doesn’t listen to our prayers?

Consider Psalm 66, in which the author gives thanks that God answered his prayer, but suggests that God might not have done so in certain circumstances:

Come and hear, all you who fear God,
and I will tell what he has done for my soul.
I cried to him with my mouth,
and high praise was on my tongue.
If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.
But truly God has listened;
he has attended to the voice of my prayer.

Blessed be God,
because he has not rejected my prayer
or removed his steadfast love from me! — Psalm 66:16-20 (ESV) (empahsis mine)

When God Shows Up, Don’t Forget It

Sharon Jaynes 

 

“Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water,” (Genesis 21:19 NIV).

Yesterday we looked at Hagar and how God spoke to her in her deepest time of need. Let’s visit that one more time, because Hagar, like you and me, forgot about her encounter with God.

When Hagar encountered God the first time, she fell on her face and gave God the name El Roi, the God who Sees Me “I have now seen the One who sees me,” she cried. She had heard God. She had seen God. More importantly, God had seen Hagar. God had heard Hagar.

Hagar returned to her mistress, gave birth to a son, and placed him into Abram’s arms. But sixteen years later, God was true to His word, and Sarai gave birth to a son of her own. (God also changed Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s to Sarah). 

A God Who Hears

By Mike DeVries

Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. Isaiah 65:24

I was talking with someone recently about a family crisis he is going through when he made this comment, “I just need God to hear me. I need to know that God is listening. Is that too much to ask for?”

Perhaps you’ve found yourself in the same situation. You’ve found yourself in a place where you are crying out to God, and the whole time you’re wondering, is He even listening? Perhaps you’ve found yourself in a place along your journey where you are looking around and asking, “God, if you’re supposed to be God, then why is ____________ happening?”

If you have been there (or you are there at this moment), you’re in good company. The Scriptures are filled with people who struggled with these exact questions. We encounter people who, in the face of tremendous doubt, have cried out to God, “Where are you?”

Why Didn't Jesus Raise Lazarus Immediately?

Jack Graham

When you read the story of the death of Lazarus (John 11:1-45), you have to ask the question, “Why did Jesus delay in coming to see Lazarus?”

After all, he had gotten word two days earlier that Lazarus was deathly ill. Why did he wait for two days to go see him? Did he not care?

Yes, Jesus cared. The Bible says he loved Lazarus. Then why did Jesus delay?

There are times when we pray and God doesn’t come through the way we expect him to come through. The healing doesn’t come. The answers don’t come. We cry, we pray, the tears flow, and we wonder, does God care about me?

Yes, he does! The same one who wept at the grave of Lazarus weeps for you. His tears represent his sympathy to us as our Savior and High Priest.

God Is For Us!

Written by Jack Hayford

God is for us, loved one!

Those words are His—found in abundance in His Holy Word. They are found in verses so clear, so Self-expressive of our Father's love, so totally supportive and so fully committed to us that there is no mistaking His intent that we firmly grasp the idea. The reason? Because doubts and fears too easily and constantly beset us.

We are all tempted at times to wonder: Is God's mind tuned to my heart-cry...my need? Is His eye focused on me now...on my present situation? Will God's hand reach my way...to cover me—in time? But His Word answers these questions for us. 

When we cry out, "What shall we say to these things?" His Word thunders in response: "If God be for us, who can be against us!" (Romans 8:31).

Healing Cry

Written by Julie Cosgrove

 Are you facing a period of suffering in your life? Take this interactive online study: Finding Hope When It Hurts

“O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me.” (Psalm 30:2)

Recently I was hospitalized for a staph infection that had invaded a simple scrape on my forehead. One side of my temple ballooned into a red, angry mass and the skin around my eye swelled shut. The swelling even spread to my cheek and jaw. The nurses responded by giving me IV antibiotics. However, when the doctor entered the scene he informed me that true healing would not occur unless the wound was lanced and drained.

The moment the wound was lanced I felt excruciating pain. Surprisingly, only a couple days later I was back to normal and the wound healed nicely. Even though I had recovered quite remarkably, the doctor warned me take oral antibiotics for a week to make sure any remnants of the infection were dealt with.

When God Doesn't Make Sense

Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When therefore He heard that he was sick, He stayed then two days longer in the place where He was.  John 11:5-6

The urgent message came to Jesus.  His good friend Lazarus was very sick and needed Him ASAP.  Surely Jesus, the One who would drop everything to go heal complete strangers, would come running to Lazarus’ town of Bethany to save the day, right?  Wrong!  When Jesus heard Lazarus was deathly ill, He purposely waited two more days before making the twenty mile journey to Bethany.  By the time He finally arrived, Lazarus was stinking dead and in the tomb four days.  

Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, both said the same thing when Jesus showed up, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21, 32).  

Undoubtedly, they were wondering WHY He didn’t come in time.  Undoubtedly, they were shell-shocked at the message He sent, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it” (John 11:4).  What in the world could that possibly mean given the fact that Lazarus died the very day Jesus uttered those words?  Is this some cruel joke?