Where Does My Help Come From?

Look, on one hand all that happens in this story is completely up to the Author. Yet, as a simple character, I make choices just like everyone else does.

So, in one instance I struggle with how weak my support is, but also run frustrated before God, because if He wanted it to be different...it would be.

This is what comprises a real walk with God...wrestling.

I know a woman who's husband was accused of a crime. He has been in jail for almost a year without being tried. He has been beat up, harassed, and treated rather poorly without conviction of a crime.

She has an issue before God. Whether the man is guilty or not isn't relevant. David got away with adultery and murder. God, being in control, has the man in an aweful situation...why?

God has His reasons. If the man is guilty, he is being forced into a situation where trusting in God's mercy is the only option. If the man is innocent, he is still forced into a situation where trusting God is the only option.

In this case, I think it is clear what God wants and why he is in jail.

Sure, God could easily fix it! "Oh, look, new evidence shows he is innocent.", or "The investigation broke some serious rules, we must dismiss the charges."

I have seen God do things like this before. He is God. He can write this story however He wants...and He does.

Each of us struggle with what we want as opposed to what God does with us. It doesn't matter what you think will happen, God's will WILL be done.

For me, He has written my story to humble me. I went through a 25 year period in my career where I got laid off 15 times. At the height, I managed a territory for a major corporation that covered almost half the planet. At the end, I changed light bulbs and unclogged toilets for a small mental health/addiction agency.

In ministry, I was painfully, and publicly removed as a youth pastor, rejected by my team as a church planter, and in a second attempt, just abandoned by those who commited to helping.

For the second church plant, I was scrutinized brutally by respected leaders and peers. While, like Job's friends, they could not find sin or error, they still abandoned me as if I were someone God wanted nothing to do with.

Yes, they were wrong. Frankly, I know He is pissed about it.

Still, for me, I know this whole story was written by Him!

Sure I, like Him, can get angry at those who should know better. Those who should have offered support. Yet, I know God could have easily done it different.

He still could!

He could pull a Job scenario with a massive storm in front of my "friends". It definately would make a difference!

He could, and He still might, but what if He doesn't? Do I still trust Him when it doesn't go the way I want?

I do.

I have, and I will continue to do so.

"How can you possibly know that!"

It's easy, because the faith, and trust I started with, was given to me by God Himself. He also is the one who made it grow, in the face of constant failure, and abandonment.

I am the workmanship of God...not what I do.

Still, as I said, within this story, I find it frustrating, and hurtful, the lack of support, or even interest I get from those who have positioned themselves as friends.

Godly friendship should not be so one sided.

If I accept your rabid fandom of the Pittsburgh Steelers, you should accept my poking into the scary things about God.

If I will talk for hours with you about your favorite TV show, but you can't stand hearing me share what God is showing me, there is a problem.

If I have listened to you complain about God not moving in your life, yet you walk away when I just get started in kind...

Yes, these "friend" events have been a constant for many years.

I know who is to blame, and I trust Him just the same.

Jesus Christ is the Author of every story, including mine. He loves me.

I know, even in the face of abandonment, hatred, and humiliation. I know because He keeps revealing more and more of Himself. Hidden secrets, scripture calls them. It is rather intimate.

We only get really intimate in the closest of relationships.

I do like it.

I'd be a fool not to.

This is the struggle that we all must face if we walk with God. Do I trust Him...even when all of life seems against me?

David did.

Paul did.

Peter did.

I do.

Judas did not.

The thing to understand in this struggle, the truth of it all, is that we really only need HIS support. We can know we have it, by how intimate we become with Him.

In this, we can KNOW that nothing else matters.

Just trust Him.

He is the only support we need.