I went for a beautiful walk this week up the hill from where we live. After plentiful rains, the literally acres upon acres of yellow-green mustard plants glistened in the sun. Bright golden fields of Brown-eyed Susans were punctuated by the royal purple of lupine and phacelia. I looked for my favorite—mariposa lilies—on the way up to the top, but did not find them in their haunt from two years before when rains were also abundant.
Sometimes it’s pretty easy to trust in people. It is how we were taught since birth. We put our confidence in our Dad and Mom that they will feed, clothe, house, and love us. We trust in our school teachers to give us what we need to know. We even trust our employers to pay us what we’ve agreed upon.
I remember when I was ten years old and how much I wanted to be a magician. My friend and neighbor, Ricky Miller, had an uncle who was a professional magician.
With so much concern and distrust in our nation and around the world, it is time to come back to our heavenly Father’s Word and trust His abundant promises. Here is a poem about those who do.
Over the paths of time they come,
Believers who daily put trust in Him,
God rewards faithfulness to His Word,
His promises endless, with power to win.
O’er sorrow or hardship or crying or death,
God’s hand reigns triumphant as we but believe,
No working of Satan is greater than He,
Who’s given us freely the gifts we receive.
Latch on to His promises, hold forth the truth,
In love, speaking freely with boldness and light.
Trust in His riches, your mind now renewed,
To all the resources provided in Christ!
Do we stand in doubt at the grace He bestows?
Are men’s lies more steadfast than God or His power?
We’ll faithfully trust Him, and as our strength grows,
Together in victory, we shine forth each hour!
Here is a hymn that can be sung in your heart each day. We have so much to thank our heavenly Father for. We can trust in Him!
We all face hardship and failure in this life. But what really matters? Spiritually, we have Christ in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). What the world may consider failure, is actually great victory!
We have seen how Jesus Christ stretched himself out in prayer and love. He studied the Old Testament to see that God wrought deliverance when His people seemed to be failures. He knew that his heavenly Father would give him the victory, despite the worldly opinions of men.
If Jesus Christ could be considered the greatest failure of all time from a worldly viewpoint, he had many examples in the Old Testament that also looked as if they had failed. When faced with doubt and confusion about his own success, Jesus Christ had an immense wealth of scriptures to keep his heart at ease with God’s true perspective.
As a young girl, my father would take the family to the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. I loved the shows in the planetarium where we could see the “sun” go down and the “stars” come out in the domed ceiling above us. Since then—from Skagway, Alaska to Melbourne, Australia—I think I’ve viewed the entire expanse of the heavens visible to those of us on earth.
We can be strong in the Lord and the power of his might! God has given us all the resources that we need to be victorious in life. Here is a poem about Ephesians 6:10-18.