Thought for the day

A friend emailed me and said she hoped that things were "calming down" for me. I responded by writing "Never calm, but always serene." She then emailed me back with a typically "modern" response - "I need some of your meds then."

This was my response.

You already have them - holy spirit. Just keep telling yourself that everything is in God's hands, and He will not allow you to suffer more than you can endure (which you've already proven is a great deal.) Then sit back and relax and watch God work in your life.

I once attended a Christian mountain climbing camp in New Mexico. When I first started climbing, I climbed in my own strength and grew proud of what I could do. I felt manly and athletic, and I was filled with pride at my accomplishments.

On the last day of climbing, we attacked a vertical cliff with a negative overhang. I watched two men, whose physicality I greatly admired and whose climbing techniques I had emulated, fall while trying to climb that cliff (they had ropes, of course), and I knew immediately that I could not climb that cliff in my own strength.

As I tied on the rope to begin my climb, I voiced a silent prayer to God. I said, "God, I can't climb this cliff without you. So I'm asking you to guide my hands and my feet and take me to the top."

The next day we were hiking back to base camp when the leader of my group pulled me aside and asked, "How long have you been climbing?"

I said, "I've never climbed before in my life. Why?"

He responded, "I've seen experienced mountain climbers fall on climbs like that. Yet you went right to the top as if you knew exactly how to climb that cliff. Only someone with world class experience could do that on the first try."

That's when I knew that, if I would just place my trust in God and allow him to guide my hands and feet, I could climb every mountain in my life, no matter how intimidating it might be, without worry or fear.

I'm human, so I sometimes forget to include God on the mundane hills of every day life, but I've never climbed a mountain in my life since then without first asking God to guide me and trusting that where I placed my hands and my feet was exactly where God wanted them to be.

If you ask God for bread, will he give you a stone? He is your shepherd. You shall not want. He makes you to lie down in green pastures. He restores your soul. Even when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God will be with you, guiding you, placing every step right where it needs to be, leading you to the safety of cool waters.

God is love - everlasting, all powerful, magnificent love. He loves YOU. If you rest in His arms, he will never leave nor forsake you nor allow you to fall.

The most amazing thing in the world to me is God's love. He knew before I was born that I would be prideful, lazy, procrastinating, quick to anger, thoughtless, emotional, unloving and selfish. Yet He chose ME anyway, and he accepts ME with loving arms, just as the father did his prodigal son, without reservation, without condemnation, without an apology and without bitterness. All I have to do is seek Him, nothing more.

Can you believe that? Can you fathom the grace? Can you comprehend the mercy? Can you feel the humility? Can you bring yourself to curl up in His arms and let Him lead you through life?

Because if you can, you will never again have sleepless nights. You will never again worry about the future. You will never again wonder what to do next. And you will never again face a mountain that you cannot climb.