God always keeps His promises. Always. But we forget because we get so tied up in all the stress and trouble of life. And when we run up on an issue or a circumstance that is too much for us, it’s very easy to think that God is throwing trouble at us that we can’t handle. And some days it feels like He’s doing it just because He can. And I know that God doesn’t do that, but when I make a habit of forgetting the promises He’s kept, it’s pretty easy to start thinking that God isn’t who He says He is.
Wheat and sky – Safe Haven Farm, Haven, KS
Today’s verse is Psalm 66:5.
Come and see what our God has done,
what awesome miracles he performs for people!
We need to make a habit of reminding ourselves of how God has kept His promises in our lives. Whether we write it down on paper or online or if we share it with people around us, we need to constantly keep God’s promises in the front of our minds. And when He keeps His promises to us, we need to mark it down and remember.
I have a friend in the hospital right now. She unexpectedly went into cardiac arrest on Sunday and wasn’t doing well at all. She is 25 years old, and I’ve known her since she was in seventh grade. So I’ve spent the vast majority of this week praying for her and asking God to heal her. And you know what? He has. Last I heard yesterday, she is still having trouble speaking but her humor and her attitude are intact, which are signs of higher brain function. There’s a good chance she’s going to pull through. And that is an answer to prayer. That is a direct response from God after I (and many many others) asked Him to touch her and heal her.
But this isn’t the first friend who’s been in the hospital who God has healed because we asked Him to.
Dozens of times–maybe more than that–God has shown Himself to be the Great Healer at our request. But the passage of time makes it easy for those memories to dim. And if we don’t actively try to remember those things, they’ll slip away. And the next time trouble comes on us, we’ll wonder where God went. And He never left us. We have just forgotten what He looks like.
I never want to forget.
I have seen miracles.
Not water turning into wine, no. But I’ve seen a small bit of food feed more people than it should have (and I’ve seen that more than once). I’ve never seen someone come back from the dead. But I’ve seen peoples’ hearts change almost overnight because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in them. I haven’t ever spoken in tongues, but I’ve witnessed how God can help people who don’t speak the same language communicate. I have seen things that cannot be explained, and I have seen them happen too many times for it to be coincidental.
I’ve seen a lot. The trick is remembering. Because if I can remember all the things I’ve seen God do, if I can remember all the experiences I’ve had that can only have come through Him, there is nothing that can scare me. There is nothing in my life that can stop me.
And the next time I run into trouble at work, projects that seem too much for me or responsibilities that are crushing me, I need to remember the instances where God got me out of scrapes in the interior of Mexico. Because if God is big enough to help me out of a jam across the border, my little troubles in my dusty little cubicle are nothing.
God has proven Himself to me in so many ways. But once all is well again and life has gone back to some semblance of normal, it’s easy to forget. And I don’t want to do that. I want to remember all the good things God has done for me so that when trouble comes again (and it will), all I will have to do is share the memory of how God got me through before. And that will not only help me, it will also help others around me.
God always keeps His promises. It may not be in the way we expect, but He always does.
Always Peachy 