Finding Help In Troubled Waters

This has been a particularly difficult week, and I confess to have fallen prey to anxiety and fretting. Worry can give small problems such long shadows that they become giants of immense, irresistible proportions. But on the other hand, I fully realize that there is no enemy too strong or foe too powerful to stand against the truth of Scripture.

And thus there is a battle for dominance as my view of the impossibility of physical circumstances lays siege to what I should clearly understand from God's Word. It's the same struggle that Paul faced (Rom 7:25): "...so then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin."

The conflict is real. It's a battle in which one skilled in handling God's truth should easily put to flight 10,000 assailants of doubt, despair, and discouragement. But these are formidable foes that manifest themselves in situations that seem impossible to resolve, complications that look too tangled to unravel, wounds that appear too deep for healing.

And I generally succumb too easily by failing to look beyond what I can see into that unseen but ever-present world where such battles are won and lost (Eph 6:12). That's where we ultimately stand or fall.

I would like to think that I could do better if the clock could be turned back about 40 years. But the past cannot be changed. And though the present is engulfed by the struggles of the moment, the future is in my hands.

Even when I feel helplessly adrift on a sea of swirling afflictions, there are always some notable promontories on the horizon. They are landmarks to guide me to safe harbor. They are the truths given by God for times of doubt and distress.

First there is the surety of answered prayer (Jer 33:3). I am not without appeal. I have the ear -- and the heart -- of a King who constantly bids me call upon Him. Second, I am not alone (John 4:4), and He who is with me is greater than any foe. Third, I am not forgotten; He has promised to never leave me nor forsake me (Heb 13:5).

And in the shadows of these majestic pinnacles of truth there await legions -- even legions upon legions -- of their companions. They are the "exceeding great and precious promises" of God (2 Pet 1:4), fit and ready for any situation. May I often gaze upon this mighty host and be reminded that God is able to care for His own, no matter how troubled the waters of life may be.

Copyright 1999 James McAlister

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