The Journey

Sometimes our lives can feel more like pressure cookers than a journey. When the pressures of life increase, where do you go? We could turn to numerous Old or New Testament people or look through the generations of the saints where we find individuals like Frances Havergal- who wrote some of the hymns we still sing today. She had what they called then a "delicate health" and experienced great pain most of her life. Or another Frances- Fanny Crosby, who was blind. She wrote over 8,000 hymns. When I consider Daniel and his friends. Captured in the conquest and destruction of Israel, they were taken to Babylon where God blessed them because they were faithful. Their faithfulness to God resulted in a fiery furnace and a lion's den. Due to their faithfulness, we have their stories of how God met them along the way and estabished a Jewish line of descendents who stayed in Babylon and continued in way of Daniel's wisdom. The Magi were waiting for Messiah to come by looking for a star. Many journeys of faith are recorded for us in the Bible. Journeys that created untold pressure upon those who were faithful to God. One in particular stands out- Abraham. God told Abraham to go to Mt. Moriah to offer a sacrifice. Oh yeah, the sacrifice would be his son Issac. Can you imagine how heavy Abraham's heart became when every step brought him closer to his destination and the death of his son? Yet Abraham continued in the journey. Hebrews 12 fills in the gaps we have from the Old Testament story. The Bible book of Hebrews tells us that Abraham reasoned that if all the promises given to him were to come through Isaac, and if God asked him to sacrifice Isaac, then God must be able to raise the dead. Do you sense the pressure of the journey and the reasoning of his faith? Abraham became righteous because he had a tremendous faith in God. He met God in a whole new way, for he discovered that God is Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. When the pressures of our lives seem overwhelming, we can do what the Saints of old did before. We can turn to the Lord for help. Proverbs 18.10 "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe." It doesn't matter where our journeys take us, for each of us has the opportunity along the way of calling on the name of the Lord. It is in the name of the Lord that we find help and hope, safety and refuge in the time of storms. May you discover the place of safety and rest in the name of the Lord. Have a Happy New Year. Blessings, Pastor Pete