This week I found out that my second oldest son fell while taking a shower. He is 20 years old and suffering from a very rare brain disease that with time will get worse unless the Lord steps in and heals him.
One morning I was thinking about this and feeling very discouraged and afraid. What are we going to do? How are we going to take of him if he gets worse? I was praying during the night and still felt uneasy. So I got up, it was early in the morning and still dark. I walked down our hallway in the darkness, and lifted up my hands to God and prayed.
Then I thought to myself, here I am in a hallway of darkness, but it is good to pray to God, because God is the light. And I started to feel at peace. I felt courage come into my heart and I was able to spend the rest of the day at peace.
How did the people of the Bible deal with these when they were in the dark?
David was a man in the Bible who had a lot of troubles. He was anointed to be king but the current King was so jealous of David that he wanted to kill him. So David had to live like a fugitive for 12 years. Sometimes David found himself hiding by himself alone in a cave. And he did what I did, he cried out to God.
So when you are in trouble, or when you are in the darkness, when you are feeling down, cry out to God and He will life you up.
Here’s what David wrote in Psalm 142, a song about him hiding in the cave:
A psalm of David, regarding his experience in the cave. A prayer.
1 I cry out to the Lord;
I plead for the Lord’s mercy.
2 I pour out my complaints before him
and tell him all my troubles.
3 When I am overwhelmed,
you alone know the way I should turn.
Wherever I go,
my enemies have set traps for me.
4 I look for someone to come and help me,
but no one gives me a passing thought!
No one will help me;
no one cares a bit what happens to me.
5 Then I pray to you, O Lord.
I say, “You are my place of refuge.
You are all I really want in life.
6 Hear my cry,
for I am very low.
Rescue me from my persecutors,
for they are too strong for me.
7 Bring me out of prison
so I can thank you.
The godly will crowd around me,
for you are good to me.”
Are you feeling alone because your family doesn’t want to follow Christ but you do? Are you confused and afraid of what to do because you believe in Christ but you know that you will be rejected by your clan and family if you speak about Jesus? Do you feel like you are in the dark?
Then do like David did and cry out to God. Ask Him to come into your life and help you with the things and troubles that are before you. I guarantee that God will come to your aid, because the Bible says:
“God is an ever-present help in time of trouble”
“God is our refuge and our strength”
“God is the light who comes into our darkness”
“God is our friend and God cares for us”
“God will never leave us or forsake us”
The Glory of God is that He Himself is our helper. We have a personal relationship with God our Father and He loves to hear us cry out to Him and He loves helping us and blessing us.
But, just like the prodigal son who came home to the Father after living on his own for so many years, we have to come back to our Father God and ask Him to help us. We have to stop trying to solve our problems our way, and starting following God’s way. We have to stop acting out fear, and starting acting out of faith. We need to exercise our faith and the way to do that is to pray and pour out our hearts to God with whatever is plaguing us, and God will help us.
Our problems are like a diseases, and we need God to heal us from our fears and worries.
The first disciples of Jesus gave us everything to follow Jesus. They gave up their position in the clan, they gave up their old religion, they gave us their old way of life, they gave up everything to follow Christ.
Here is what one of the earliest followers of Jesus said to Jesus, and what Jesus told him in return:
“We’ve given up everything to follow you. What will we get?”
28 Jesus replied, “I assure you that when the world is made new and the Son of Man[j] sits upon his glorious throne, you who have been my followers will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are the greatest now will be least important then, and those who seem least important now will be the greatest then.
….If you tell others you are a Christian and you get persecuted and rejected, don’t worry, in fact be happy and rejoice. Because God says you will receive many more brother and sisters, and many more fathers and mothers to replace the ones who have rejected you. God is not saying that you will not be rejected. You will be rejected by some people if you are a Christian. But what God is saying is that I will make you so much more happier because you have made a stand for my Son Jesus, that you will forget about being sad because you will be so happy by the new brother and sisters, and mothers and fathers I bring into your life.
And if you lose a place to live, don’t worry about that either. God says that if you lose property for the sake of the name of Jesus, you will gain much more in this life and also receive eternal life.
God knows how to take care of you and bless you and make you happy. He wants to fill you with joy and peace in the middle of all your suffering. So don’t be sad, or worried, or afraid to tell anyone you are a Christian. God will give way much more joy and peace than you have ever had because you were willing to be persecuted for Jesus.