Trust. So easily broken, and so desperately needed. We long for it from those to whom we are closest and we are devastated when trust is broken. The interesting thing about God is that we have always heard we can endlessly trust Him, but we commonly waiver when tested. And in some seasons of life we seem to be tested quite often. I appreciated what Daniel shared with us on Sunday - “You are loved with an everlasting love and underneath are the everlasting arms.” It’s a beautiful picture and a relieving truth. Unlike the relationships with our fellow human beings, God’s character promises that it is impossible for him to break his trust with us, to deceive us or break a promise. God is perfect. God is everlasting Love. God is unchanging. But with any relationship, it’s a two way street. For me this gives perspective into Gods love and patience; His long-suffering. I break his trust all the time - things I say I will do for him that I fall short of. I understand that he knows fully-well before the fact that I will not follow through, yet he chooses to offer his love, support, and grace nonetheless.

What struck me the most out of the passage of Isaiah 46:1-4 was the very last line “I will carry and I will save.” The structure of this sentence is what struck me. He will carry FIRST and he will save. There is a process in his caregiving that allows him to carry us through the trial and in the end we will be saved. And in that fourth verse he confirms that he will carry us twice. As Daniel said, and as I have believed for a long time, repetition in the Bible means “pay attention to this!” He does not snatch us up out of our suffering, but he will be those everlasting arms underneath us - carrying us. For me, I see the most efficient and ideal way for God to help would be to snatch me up out of the pain and everything will be alright… I don’t want to be carried through it, I want set free from it all instantly. But in those times of struggle I do learn the most. UGH!

I went to a youth camp one summer in high school and we had just finished a high ropes experience. We were almost a mile away from the campsite when the our Youth Pastor Dave passed by a massive fallen tree. He taunted our other leader Brian “I bet you couldn’t get that tree back to camp…” And of course, the challenge was met with competitive snide. “Of course we can!” So 9 of us volunteered to help Brain carry this 3 foot wide, 10 foot long tree from where it fell back to camp. This was no joke of a tree, it was an old, dead, colossal oak in the thick of the forest in Central Ohio. So 8 scrawny, prideful, and motivated teens all bore the load with Brian to prove Dave wrong. For almost a mile we moved this tree through a tiny wooded path, full of roots, uneven footings, and tricky maneuvers though the rest of the trees. We pondered defeat, we encouraged those who grew tired, we rotated from front to back to share the load. It took us an hour and a half to carry this tree from where it should have stayed for decades to rot and moved it to our campsite. The moment we heaved that monstrous log next to the fire pit we celebrated together with our limp, sore, and battered arms. It was foolish and pathetic and victorious. But through the experience we bonded much more than we ever could have on the high ropes course. We shared the pain and agony and we leaned on each other’s strengths when we felt weak. We carried each other through the pain and gained knowledge of one another that we would not have gained had we quit along the way.

God carries the heavy loads with us. He gives us situations that will stretch and struggles that will push us to our limits of faith. And he will teach us as he allows us to grow and bond with him throughout the experience. A few years ago I read through C.S. Lewis’ tiny book called A Grief Observed. He wrote this after losing his wife. It tells of his process of grief of losing the one person he loved and knew the most. He gives raw insight into his wavering faith and questions about life and death. He speaks of himself, his wife and his God. And he criticizes the words of friends and family that are meant for comfort. Specifically he mentions the words “She is in God’s hands now.” He questions those words early on and takes you through his mind as he questions the meaning behind it. And as he finds symbolism to remember her the best he describes his wife as a sword. Near the end he says this: 

“She is in God’s hands. That gains a new energy when I think of her as a sword. Perhaps the earthly life I shared with her was only part of the tempering. Now perhaps He grasps the hilt; weighs the new weapon, makes lightnings with it in the air. A right Jerusalem blade.”

His grief and trial and suffering brings new knowledge and revelation to God’s creation. His trust in his God is sound and gives perspective to things and persons lost. We have a God that can carry us into, through, and out of any situation. And then he saves. So thank you, Daniel for leaving us with the words that we must Trust our Lord. He is trustworthy and He remains God - not us. So we can look to Christ and know that he is not leaving us alone or allowing us to suffer for nothing. He is making himself more clear than we can know and binding himself to us deeper than we realize. What we must do, is Trust.

~Jeremy Warren