What is your reason for getting up in the morning? Where do your first thoughts turn—even before you open your eyes?
Depending on the season of life you’re in it might be anything from, I need to get the kids ready for school to, Oh, no! That project’s due today and it’s not finished yet! Or perhaps, Today’s the day we hear back from the doctor.
Life is sometimes magnificent, sometimes messy. Often it’s simply mundane. So, as Christ followers, do we face the new day with dread or delight? And how do we handle those days when life’s circumstances are truly awful?
I remember a time of crushing pain so intense I felt certain it would destroy me. Life was shrouded in an emotional, physical, and spiritual darkness that left me in agony. One morning I went for a walk on the beach. It was almost deserted—and that’s just how I felt. Deserted. My broken, sinful heart felt separated from God. I knew the choices I’d made had left me undeserving of His love. The old enemy reinforced those thoughts, and slipped in a few lies besides, subtly framing them in the first person.
I’ve gone too far this time. How can I expect God to love me now? It’s hopeless! I can’t keep living in so much pain. If only I could just stop breathing!
For hours I walked back and forth along the beach until something broke through the pain. A simple phrase: “He restoreth my soul.” Oh, how those words dropped into my bruised mind and wound themselves about my broken heart!
He restoreth my soul became my prayer.
He restoreth my soul became His promise to me.
Those words shattered the power of Satan’s lies and carried them away on the waves. The gentle light of a new day began to push back the pressing darkness in my soul. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the truth of God’s unchanging love for me replaced the lies like a healing balm over my pain.
Allow me to speak this truth over your life today, regardless of what you’re dealing with, regardless of the lies keeping you in darkness: You are not alone. You have not been forsaken. Your Father loves you and calls you His beloved child!
“The light which fell from the open portals upon the head of our Saviour will fall upon us as we pray for help. . . . The voice which spoke to Jesus says to every believing soul, This is My beloved child, in whom I am well pleased. . . .
Our Redeemer has opened the way so that the most sinful, the most needy, the most oppressed and despised, may find access to the Father. All may have a home in the mansions which Jesus has gone to prepare.”—The Desire of Ages, p. 113.
He still restores souls today—and He is my reason for getting up each morning.
May your soul find peace in His love.
With love,
Pastor Karen.
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