"I waited patiently for the LORD. He turned to me and heard my cry for help. He pulled me out of a horrible pit, out of the mud and clay. He set my feet on a rock and made my steps secure. He placed a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see this and worship. They will trust the LORD." Psalm 40:1-3

The Rock and the Waves

Living in Northern California near the Pacific Ocean, I am privileged to be able to visit the coast on a regular basis. Our coastline here is quite different than the coastline in Southern California, which has long smooth beaches where a person can walk for miles. Here, we have small secluded beaches, rough surf and rocky cliffs. If you sit on a beach and look out over the water, you will see it crashing and foaming about the tops of many rocks, jutting above the surface.

Recently as I sat and watched one of those rocks as it was hit endlessly by the turbulent waves, I began thinking of the above verses in Psalm 40:1-3: "...He set my feet upon a rock and made my steps secure..." Yet these rocks certainly didn't look as if they would provide secure footing!

In the past couple of years, my life has felt somewhat like I had been placed on one of those small rocks while the waves pounded all around me. At first I would flinch and try to move away from the crashing waves (leaving me worn out and storm tossed) but as time has passed, I find myself more and more at peace in the midst of the storm.

I have found that my Rock is secure and no harm will come to me as long as I stay upon it. There are times that a large wave will come and take me by surprise and cause me to lose my footing a bit, but I quickly remember the lessons that I've learned while upon this Rock and begin to rest again.

The truth is that Jesus, our Rock, is not small and jagged. Instead, I have learned that my trust in Him has been small and jagged. It seems that the more I learn to trust Him, the larger and more level the rock gets beneath my feet, even to the point that I can move around on it without slipping. Actually, the Rock was always spacious and secure-it was merely my perspective that made Him appear smaller than the waves.

He Will Complete the Work in You

For me, these past two years have been all about learning to trust! I thought I had trusted the Lord prior to this season-to the degree that I understood. But the Lord has wanted to take me to a place of unmovable trust so that I will not be swayed by the storms and the waves that this life brings. I have not arrived at the place that He longs for me to be, but I am confident that He will complete the work that He has begun in me.

"I'm convinced that God, who began this good work in you, will carry it through to completion on the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6

I am encouraged that God does not begin a work in us unless He intends to complete it. Learning to trust may not come overnight because trust takes time. All of us live in a fallen world and learning to trust has its challenges. We are raised by imperfect parents, we have imperfect relationships, we have never had a perfect day and most of us have even been wounded along the way by someone that we trusted.

So to trust God, even though we know that He is perfect in all His ways, takes time. We have natural reactions to situations, to trauma, to relationships and to life that all plays into our relationship with God. Though we long to trust Him, pushing through the fear of past experiences or natural circumstances can be difficult. We first learned to walk according to what we saw and felt, and we are now learning to walk by His Spirit, often having to ignore what we see and feel with our natural eyes and emotions.

God Does Not Promise that We Will Not Suffer

The difficulty for us is that God does not promise us that we will not suffer. In fact, He promised quite the opposite. Though we will experience some suffering in this life, we are comforted by the promise that His Spirit will always be with us, that we will never be left alone and we are loved. Not even death can separate us from that!

We are placed on this Rock in the midst of a turbulent life that is always shaking and shifting, and it is there that we learn to trust. Though our spirits know the Rock that we live upon is so much more vast and secure than the raging sea around us, still our eyes and emotions sometimes cause us to believe the opposite, giving us the feeling that God is small and we fear that the storm will wash us out to sea.

In my younger years, I often waited for God to stop the waves of circumstances so that I could live my life protected from any pain or opposition. (This will only come with the new Heaven and earth!). But as I have grown through the years, I have learned that God was patiently waiting for me to learn to trust Him in the midst of the waves of life. It is in this place where the work He has begun in us is perfected and matured until the day of Christ.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you are involved in various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But you must let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.

Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to everyone generously without a rebuke, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith, without any doubts, for the one who has doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. Such a person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all he undertakes."James 1:2-8

Trusting Him with Our Pain

Whether it is relational difficulties, financial need, loss or sickness, God is always trustworthy. Most of the trials that I face are actually the "trials of doubt and unbelief." These are self-inflicted trials due to a reaction caused by the fear that "He will not come to my aid."

Rarely does God answer or come through in the way I expect, but His ways are always good and right. If only I could not fret, not worry, nor lose my footing, but just take the posture of rest and trust! How easy life would be!

Even when we are faced with our worst fears, it is then that we move into a new realm of trust. This is when we learn to trust God with our pain. The nature of pain is that it hurts, and often hurts badly! Trusting God with our pain-even when He could have prevented the pain, but didn't-can be hard. We must remember that God does not cause bad things to happen. Troubles come because we live in a fallen world; but God is the Healer of our pain and our broken hearts.

"The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the LORD delivers him out of them all." Psalm 34:18-19

The Gain of Knowing Him

Recently I was talking with someone who had faced many painful things in his life. His pain was very deep, and although he greatly loves the Lord, he was finding it difficult to see beyond the pain and wondered if his life was defined by "losses." As I began to ponder my talk with him, I realized that in Christ, losses and gains are very different than for those who have not found their life in Christ.

Philippians 3:7-11states:

"But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."

What losses can be compared with "the gain" of knowing Him and being found in Him? This does not mean that we will not feel pain when losses come, but we can always find comfort in the true perspective that through it all, we have the great gain of knowing Him. Nothing can take this away from us...nothing and no one!

Trust Him With Your Pain

"What can we say about all of this? If God is for us, who can be against us? God didn't spare His own Son but handed Him over to death for all of us. So He will also give us everything along with Him. Who will accuse those whom God has chosen? God has approved of them. Who will condemn them?

Christ has died, and more importantly, He was brought back to life. Christ has the highest position in Heaven. Christ also intercedes for us. What will separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can trouble, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, or violent death separate us from his love?

As Scripture says: 'We are being killed all day long because of You. We are thought of as sheep to be slaughtered.'

The One who loves us gives us an overwhelming victory in all these difficulties. I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us. We can't be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces or powers in the world above or in the world below, or by anything else in creation." Romans 8:32-39

This is where we put our hope and trust during times of pain. The love of God will carry us through this life, even through the painful times. We can trust Him with our pain because not even pain can separate us from His love. He will meet us in the most painful places and comfort us with His love. I personally find His love to be most keenly felt in the midst of painful times. It is as though He wraps His love around us like a blanket and holds us near. If you are in pain right now, allow Him to wrap you in His love and comfort you. He is very near to you.

Independence or Dependency

God has been speaking to me a lot in this past season regarding the subject of "independence versus dependency." I have personally experienced as well as watched others fight for control over potentially painful circumstances currently before them. In asking the Lord for wisdom as to why we so quickly move into a "default mode" of trying to control the outcome of our lives and relationships, He was quick to answer me, "It is because you demand independence rather than embrace dependency."

In our fear that God will not be enough or will not give us the desired outcome in life's situations, we quickly leave our posture of dependency (trust/intimacy) and run to independence (control).

I have been asking the Lord to change my "default mode" so that I will quickly embrace dependency when life and relationships are unsure and invoke personal fears. We are learning to live in the fear of the Lord rather than the fear of pain. Independence merely ushers us into a place of trying to "control and manipulate" while dependency ushers us into "relationship, intimacy and truth."

"The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What shall man do to me?" Hebrews 13:6

The words that the Lord spoke through Moses to the children of Israel before they crossed the Jordan River still ring true today as we cross into the river of independence into the land of dependency:

"The LORD is the One who is going ahead of you. He will be with you. He won't abandon you or leave you. So don't be afraid or terrified." Deuteronomy 31:8

Am I Enough?

One of our dearest friends shared a question with us that the Lord had asked him, "Am I enough?" His initial answer was, "Of course, Lord." But as the days rolled by, he began to be challenged on every side and found that, though his belief is that the Lord is enough, his life was not being lived out that way. This question really challenged me, too.

Do I live as if the Lord is enough? In some ways I do, and I believe in my heart that He is...but in reality I don't live it out as a lifestyle. I often find myself restless if I'm not "doing" something or don't have something that I desire. I still get bored and restless and look for "things" to fill me. Can I really say, as Paul did:

"Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." Philippians 4:11-13

Do we trust the Lord to be enough when all else fails? God longs for a people who can enter into the relational dependency that His Son lived in while He walked on this earth. This is the place where all that we need is provided by Him. I have not arrived at this place, but by faith I will continue to allow Him to take me there until my independent will gives way to dependency.

There is a Rock that can be trusted, depended upon and stood on to face times of pain. He never changes and never withholds love. He is faithful and true and always enough! He is inviting us into the land of dependency where we can eat of the fruit of intimacy and relish the bounty of His love.

Pray this prayer with me: "Father, I want to answer the longing of Your heart by entering into true dependency with You. I want to live in the unity that You share as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Forgive me and free me from my independent ways. I want to quickly embrace dependency and trust in both times of joy and times of pain. Usher me into the place of trusting You that frees me from the winds of doubt that have left me double-minded. I want to live what I believe and I want to live in the truth that YOU ARE ENOUGH. Thank You for Your patience with me and that You will complete the work You have begun in me. I love You! Amen"

Kathi Pelton
Light Streams Ministries
Email: jkpelton@sbcglobal.net