Promises

God always keeps His promises.

When we say that God is faithful, that's what we mean:  God always keeps His promises.

He will never leave me nor forsake me.  (Hebrews 13:5, Joshua 1:5)
God is always with me.  (Matthew 28:20, Deuteronomy 31:8, Joshua 1:9)

God is here.  God is near.  God is with me.

The earth, O Lord, is full of Your steadfast love; teach me Your statutes!
~Psalm 119:64

The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.  Sometimes this is hard to believe, when we look at all that is wrong, all around us.

But it's true.  The steadfast love of the Lord fills the earth, and He will not leave.  He has never abandoned us, no matter how wickedly we have acted, no matter how destructive our rebellion has been.

This year it's been hard to believe that spring will come.

The day after Easter, April 2, our landscape looked like this:

We went on a trip to Minnesota over April 4-8, and they'd received over a foot of snow.  Temperatures were arctic, in the teens.

We arrived home on the evening of April 8, to a few more inches of new snow here, in central Illinois.  Every other spring since we moved here, spring has been firmly established by mid-March.   But not this year.  This year has been something else.

This weekend, Minnesota is bracing for another deep snowfall.  Some sources predict 12-24 inches.  On April 15.

Waiting for spring after a long, hard, bitter cold winter.  Waiting.  You get tired of hoping.  You grow skeptical of any thaw.  "It's only temporary," you think.  "It will snow again.  The warm weather is not really here yet."  Yet, deep inside you know that spring will eventually come.  Spring has always come.  Seasons roll around just as the day and night do.  Some days have more clear, bright light than others, and nights vary with cloud cover and the phases of the moon.  Yet, day and night always follow one another, as do summer and winter.  Spring will come, and summer will follow.

In the seasons of our lives, the same is true.  God is with us.  God is for us (Psalm 118:6, Romans 8:31).  God will bring us through each season.  God is good and faithful.

Here is another promise:

For the Lord God is a sun and a shield;

the Lord bestows favor and honor.

No good thing does He withhold 

from those who walk uprightly.

~Psalm 84:11

I used to read that and snort, thinking that I was a stumbler, a loser, a person who did not walk uprightly.  It sounded great, but it couldn't possibly apply to me.  Finally God got through to me that this is the human condition.  Our uprightness, our righteousness, comes to us only through Christ.  I am counted righteous because Jesus died for me while I was yet a sinner (Romans 5:8), making peace for me with God.  By His unfathomable grace, He did for me what I could never do for myself, and now He counts me as righteous, indwells me with His beautiful Spirit, and lavishes all His great and gracious promises on me (2 Peter 1:3-4).

The upshot is this: God will not withhold anything good from me.  God knows what is best for each one of us.  Matthew 6:8 tells us that our heavenly Father knows what we need before we ask Him.

God knows what we need.  God does not withhold any good thing from those who are His in Christ Jesus.  God will never leave us nor forsake us.  He is with us, on our side, and He is omnipotent, sovereign, invincible.

"Oh you of little faith," said Jesus, "why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:31)

It will be okay.  He makes all things beautiful in His time (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Children do not always recognize or appreciate what is good for them.  They stiffen and oppose, spitting out the greens we spoon into their baby mouths, crying when we put them down for naps, pushing away the washcloth, throwing their full body weight into a wrestle against eye-drops when they have pink-eye or the nurse with the vaccine needle when they are getting ready to go to kindergarten.  Likewise, we often chafe at the good things our Father has for us.  We don't understand, and we don't trust.

Dear Lord Jesus, 

Please help us remember that You are good and faithful.  

Please help us trust in Your strength, wisdom and power.  

Please fill our hearts with gratitude for all You have done for us.  

Thank you that You promise to give us all the good things You know we need.  

We trust You, Jesus.  

Help us trust You more.

Thank you that You love us and listen to our prayers.  

Amen.

(These flowers, ironically, are called Snow Glories)