A devastating trouble has taken you by surprise. And it comes at a time that makes the apparently impossible challenge it presents even greater. For some time now, in a series of events that truly has made your head spin, the people or things you would normally go to for help, in one way or another, have been stripped away. How puzzling, even frightening, it all is.

You know your only hope is for God to intervene. And with a gnawing pain somewhere deep inside of you, you imagine asking the question that you feel will break you in two: What if He doesn’t? Then, seemingly in direct response to the fact that pondering that question would simply be too hard to bear, a glimmer of light quiets your heart. The memories of past deliverances, helps appearing seemingly out of nowhere that defy explanation outside of God’s intervention, push it aside. I DO have hope. God will help me again. And right on time.

Your sense of peace remains, but just barely within touching distance it seems, as threats of despair continue . . . and the hours, the days, the weeks go on. Your focus is on your relationship to God and is not easily distracted, the scriptures now so dear to you that your Bible is never out of reach. If there is sin at the root of your trial you are well aware of it and humble yourself in true repentance. If your trial remains a mystery you lean hard on your solid conviction . . . His ways are beyond our ways and His thoughts beyond our thoughts.

In your fiery trial you know as you humble yourself under the mighty hand of God that He has promised to exalt you at the proper time. And with the knowledge that you’ve been invited to do so, your consuming desire day by day is to cast all your anxiety on Him. Nothing else will do. It’s a time for trust, the kind of trust that is willing to endure, to obey, maybe at a level you haven’t experienced. It’s a time to think more seriously, to pray with persistence, and to set or reset your priorities onto things eternal.

You are on high alert for you know the adversary the devil wants to destroy your faith. But your direction is clear: resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you (I Peter 5:9,10).

So here you are . . . with a desperate problem before you, the loss of friends and resources, and a powerful enemy who wants to keep you in paralyzing fear.  But that welcome light of faith continues, your call to prayer remains intact and, just as David ordered his prayer in the morning and then eagerly watched, you watch . . .

In the day of my trouble I shall call upon You, for You will answer me (Psalm 86:7).