Your crisis is coming. If it hasn’t happened yet or you’re not in the middle of a moment, your time will come.
And not just a crisis. In His severe mercy, God scores our lives in this fallen age with moments of crisis to varying degrees, destined for our eternal good. For millennia, God’s people have experienced times of crisis and ‘days of anguish’, sometimes too much. . And the same goes on today: our Father never promised that the fact that our problems were his would mean that we would not have our own.
- Time and again.
- The scriptures describe the faithful not as those who have never had a problem.
- But as those who cried out to God in their crises.
- The men and women we remember as role models have faced the greatest moments of crisis and anguish.
- And God heard his cry for help.
- He was not deaf at the time.
- Nor today.
- To the voices of his people.
- Whether large or small.
- Especially in times of crisis.
Our God is not only the God who speaks, however memorable, but also astonished by wonder, the God who listens. When does Santiago call us to be each of us?Ready to listen? (James 1:19), he calls us to be like our Heavenly Father. Do we have a Father who hears prayer? (Ps 65:2), which responds to the voice of our concerns (Ps 66:19) Our God not only sees everyone, but sees his people in a special way, as those with whom he has allied himself in love. to his people through the ears of a husband and father, he is not disturbed or disturbed by our requests, especially during our problems and anxieties.
The Psalms, in particular, celebrate God’s willingness to listen to and help his people in their “days of anguish” and “moments of crisis. “David testified that God had been a great refuge and protection for him on the day of my anguish (Salt 59:16 and also 9. 9; 37. 39; 41. 1). I knew where to go when the crisis erupted: “On the day of my anguish, I yell at you, why do you answer me?(Exit 86. 7). On the day of adversity, will you hide me in your ward?(Psalm 27. 5). And David knew where to lead the others:?Will the Lord answer you on the day of tribulation?(Psalm 20:1). Is the Lord also a high refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of anguish?(Salt 9. 9 ).
And not only David, but also the Psalmist Asaf said, “On the day of my anguish, will I seek the Lord?”(Salt 77,2). God Himself said, “Know me to the day of anguish; Will I deliver you and glorify you?(Salt 50,15). Far from being disturbed by our pleas for help, God is honored when we turn to Him with our burden. The chorus of Psalm 107 (repeated four times) is perhaps the most surprising: “Then, in their anguish, they cried out unto the Lord, and delivered them from their tribulations?(Vv. 6, 13, 19 and 28) This is not only the history of Israel over and over again, but also ours.
And God is at his best in our crises
This is our God from the beginning. He is the God of Abraham and Isaac and is who Jacob, in his various ups and downs, efforts and struggles, discovered that God is:?[Oh] God, who answered me on the day of my anguish?(Gen 35 , 3).
The God of Jacob is not like the false gods of neighboring nations; It is not like the gods of Jacob’s uncle’s house, Laban (Genesis 31:19; 34-35). looted Shechem (Genesis 34,29; 35,2) Gods? Don’t answer the day of anguish. They were simply made by human imagination and hands. They’re baby toys. They don’t respond, they don’t act.
Jacob’s life has been a succession of moments of crisis, and God has shown that he is faithful as a God who listens and responds, just as God saw Lea in his crisis (Genesis 29. 31) and remembered Rachel in his (Genesis 30. 22), He sees, hears, remembers, cares. He is the living God who wants us to turn to Him, to fight with Him (Genesis 32:22-28), and not just with our circumstances, in our time of crisis. He is the God of Jacob and the God of Nahum (Na 1. 7), Abdias (Ob 12:14), Jeremiah (Jer 16:19), and Ezekiel (Is 37:3).
In our finiteness and in our fallen nature, it can sometimes seem to us that God hides in times of crisis (Ps 10,1), but if we approach Him humbly, without considering the sin in our heart (Ps 66,18 ; and also 1P 3. 7), can we expect this: God heard me and answered the voice of prayer? (Ps 66. 19). However, just because God listens does not mean that He will always respond, not even typically, when we hope or want.
When we remember God as the one who responds in times of crisis, as He did with Jacob, psalms, and prophets, we do not assume that He responds as we would or when we would. Jacob spent twenty years under the tyranny of Laban, and his son Joseph spent thirteen years descending further and further down. He was sold into slavery, falsely accused, imprisoned, and forgotten before God resurrected him. Does our God work in his time? (1P 5. 6), in your?(Galatians 6. 9).
In fact, you will listen and respond, but usually in a way and at a time we do not anticipate. His ways and thoughts are larger than ours (Is 55:8-9), and he does “more than anything”. nothing less than what we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). In Christ, we do not assume that God does not see us, does not listen to us, or does not respond to us because our lives do not develop according to our plans. he does not respond, we want to receive his severe mercy as he continues to carry out his incredible work of developing history and our lives, not according to human expectations, but according to his infinitely majestic plans and goals, which we see clearly at that time. of the crisis of the Son of God himself.
And, taking Peter, Tiago, and Joo with him, did he begin to be overwhelmed by terror and anguish?(Mk 14:33). There, in this garden of crisis, had Jesus offered, with great tears and tears, prayers and prayers to those who could deliver him from death and have been heard for his mercy?(Hb 5. 7). God heard His Son in times of crisis, but He did not let the cup pass, He did not save you from death. The fact that God has listened and responded to Jesus did not mean the salvation of passage through the cross, but salvation through the cross.
Could your father, saving you from death, mean protection from death. However, their paths are always higher. He’s done a lot more than we could ask or act on. God’s rescue to his Son at the time was not a protection against death, but a grace that sustains him during death and then the resurrection. And unless Jesus returns first, we will all face death soon enough, and God’s answer to us will be the grace that sustains us during death and resurrection on the other side.
Our God is too real, too big, and too glorious to work according to human expectations and proper schedules. He loves us too much to regularly do what we want and when we want him in times of crisis. However, he still sees us. He’s always listening to us. And in Christ he will respond, not necessarily when and how we want, but with the answer we need, even if it is painful for the moment, for our ultimate good and glory.