What Do You Know?

Last Saturday at our monthly Cross Culture meeting for Teens, Jamie Leach did an outstanding job preaching the second part of a two part series for teens on Nehemiah. In that message he talked about some of the situations in life that taught us to believe wrongly about God. He shared about his own family’s current experience walking through a taunting trial. His daughter who has been suffering unpredictable, and as yet, untamable seizures which have landed her in the hospital several times over the past few months. For a girl with a busy senior year in high school and lots of plans this has been a real test of faith – to which she is responding with an amazing display of grace. For a dad who has to wrestle with his own questions while leading his family, it has been a real trial of faith.

Jamie shared how God met him at a key point in a way that has continued to keep his eyes on the Savior.

As I walked out of the hospital after several unexpected hours in the emergency room, I felt questions rise up in my heart. They were directed toward God. “Lord, why are you allowing this? What’s happening? What are You doing? What is going to happen next?” I didn’t know the answer to those questions. As I brought the car around to the front of the hospital and began to follow the ambulance that was transferring my daughter to Children’s Hospital, my brain was filling with anxious thoughts. “We don’t know what is causing these seizures, we don’t know what going to happen, what if she doesn’t come out of one of the seizures? What if they don’t stop?”. There were so many things I couldn’t know. But before I fear and doubt took hold of my thoughts, a gracious question came into my mind:

“What DO I know?”.

I do know that God is sovereign and that He is good. Nothing will happen to us that He hasn’t planned through His omnipotent hand. And that plan will be for our good - He will cause all things to work together for good. God is greater than my fears – our fears, than our sin, than our limited knowledge, and He cares for us – in this I trust. Further I know that I am not alone, that He is with me and will not leave me, ever. In the face of the unknown, my immediate (and seemingly urgent) response is to search for answers, to find the cause so that I can project or anticipate the future and then control it. But what I find I really need to do first is to trust God. I must first trust in His character, His goodness, His plan. This requires grace beyond me, but as I surrender to His will, I can sense the pouring out of His grace. Truly the best first thing to do is to turn to God. To ask for His guidance and direction, to seek Him for faith and strength, and to remember what I know about Him.

In those moments God’s grace came to me, I sensed His presence, and His reassuring love and care. The unknown may cry out to me: “Fear! Fear what you do not know!” but by God’s grace my response is: “No! I will not fear. Let me tell you what I DO know!”.

What do YOU know?