31: they remind me of what I know

I was driving to a friend's house last weekend and turned on a Focus on the Family podcast. It was Ann Kiemel, sharing her story of wanting children ever since she was little, not expecting that once she was married she would have miscarriage after miscarriage, telling her listeners that she let sorrow take her by the hand and teach her many things, sharing how God provided an adopted son when she was 37 and then another adopted son five months after miscarriaging twins, and encouraging her listeners to keep dreaming. I cried with her and was inspired.

Sometimes we can KNOW God is faithful. But the glorious thing about surrounding yourself with the testimonies of other believers is that you can hear someone who has been through hell tell you on the other side that, yes, indeed, God is faithful. It's not just a fact or a theological belief or a promise. It's empirical reality--but it helps to hear that again and again from people who have experienced it.

Sometimes we can KNOW God is faithful. But then in my church community group a widow of five years shares her own experience. How when her husband died the last thing she wanted to hear were the normal God-is-in-control sayings. She knew her God, but she was in full-on grieving. Now, five years later, she tells us, from experience, that Christ transcends everything, including human emotions. So we can squirm and scream and that's okay, because God is not going to let go of our hand.

Sometimes we can KNOW God is faithful. But then I open up a book I borrowed from my friend. And it's Elisabeth Elliot in the preface to These Strange Ashes, saying that she underwent three lessons in God's sovereignty her first year as a jungle missionary. On this side of it all, she doesn't know why God lets bad things happen to "good" people (See, even Elisabeth Elliot hasn't solved this question!). But she can declare her trust in God and that He is worthy of her trust.

"The horses and chariots that the servant had first seen were real enough. [Elisha's servant] had good reason to fear, if that was all there was. They had no place to turn, it seemed. But for every visible reason for terror, there was an invisible and immensely more powerful reason for trust." --Elisabeth Elliot, preface to These Strange Ashes

 

I need community, not because I don't know the truth enough to get by on my own and not because I haven't experienced God's faithfulness many times in my own life. I need community because in the middle of life or trials I can lose heart and forget what I KNOW. The testimonies of others inspire me to believe again. To believe Him.

"'You are My witnesses,' says the LORD,

And My servant whom I have chosen,

That you may know and believe Me,

And understand that I am He.'"

(Isaiah 43:10)