Before I share this devotion I want to apologize for a spell check error. In God Sustains You and Me the sentence should have read the “virus settled in my eyes”. I am deeply embarrassed 😔

Jerry Bridges shares the following:

For most of us, life is filled with frustrations, anxieties, and disappointments that tempt us to fret, fume, and worry. One author has aptly ca poured the flavor of this in a devotional book for high school students entitled, If God Loves Me, Why Can’t I Get My Locker Open? We may smile a little at that, but the fact is, in this is plane of adversity on which many of us live each day. And it is in the crucible of even this minor level of adversity that we are tempted to wonder, “Can I Trust God?”

Even when life seems to be going our way and our daily path seems pleasant and smooth, we do not know what the future holds. Someone has described life as like having a thick curtain hung across one’s path, a curtain that recedes before as we advance, but only step by step. None of us can tell what is beyond that curtain, none of us can tell what events a single day or hour may bring into our lives. Sometimes the receding curtain reveals events much as we had expected them; often it reveals events most unexpected and frequently most undesired, fill in as with anxiety, frustration, heartache, and grief.

God’s people are not immune from such pain. In fact it often seems as if there’s is more severe, more frequent, more unexplainable, and more deeply felt than that of the unbeliever. The problem of pain is as old as the history of man and just as universal. Even creation itself, Paul tells us, has been subjected to frustration and groans as in the pain of childbirth.(Romans 8:20-22)

So the question naturally arises, “Where is God in all of this?” Can you really trust God when adversity strikes and feels your life with pain? Does he indeed come to the rescue of those who seek him? Can you trust God?

This is the deep question of the hour. I remember when our grandson was born and I was standing outside the NICU at Niswongers. Having been there on more than one occasion with parents who had given birth to a child with severe medical issues, some which were healed and others who didn’t survive. In my heart, I was crying out to God. The question I asked was, “God what will you do? Will you touch my grandson and do I get to see him go home, grow up and be healthy? Do I prepare myself for a funeral? God what will you answer?” The words God gave was this, “Trust me”. Lititle did I know that through the whole journey that those words were going to be my strength. As the days went by and we began to see improvements, his breathing over the course of the a couple years showed signs of improvement, my hope grew. I remember the day when his mom texted that he had been off the ventilator for a half hour and breathed well and the goal was to get to one hour. How happy we were. Then the episode happened. We got the call that he was being airlifted to the RMH NICU. I heard the voice of God again, “Trust me.” Three short days later we gathered around him as God received him home. Those words, Trust me rang in my mind. In the midst of my sorrow and pain I heard those words, Trust me. This week would have been his fifth birthday. And still I hear, Trust me. As we struggle in our changed world, as the future is uncertain, as trials and tragedies occur, and as pain, suffering and unanswered questions grip our hearts, hear His voice, Trust me. I don’t know the future, what we will face or experience but I know this, I choose to trust Him. Will you?

Dr. John Thompson