Looking back over the past two weeks of study, the message
of Faith and Trust has been a recurrent theme.
I can’t even begin to imagine how Mary and Joseph must have felt…..lonely,
abandoned, scared, happy, excited……they knew they were part of something much
bigger than anyone else understood. They
had faith and they trusted God.
I know from personal experience that life can sometimes feel
so heavy, stressful, and scary. Let’s
face it, even as Christians; there are days when we all face the future with
great fears rather than great faith. Psalm
50:15 states “Trust me in your times of trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will
give me the glory.”
According to scripture, we are not instructed to “work
harder in times of trouble” or “go to counseling in times of trouble” or “feel
sorry for ourselves in times of trouble” or “post of Facebook in times of
trouble” or a thousand other things that we, as humans, tend to do when life
gets stressful. Please understand, none
of the before mentioned things are necessarily wrong and some can actually
help, but none of them are the primary places to which we should turn in our
times of trouble.
God keeps it simple. “Trust me in your times of trouble.”
He will rescue us and when he does, we will
give him glory because he did it.
When Mary and Joseph embarked on their journey as parents to
Jesus, I am sure they thought things would be easier. After all, they were chosen by God! But as we have learned……nothing was easy for
them, if anything, life was very difficult at times.
We can learn from their example. When Mary was visited by the angel foretelling
of her immaculate conception, she simply stated “I am a servant of the Lord”, “Let
what you say be true to me” (Luke 1:38). And when Joseph learned of
Mary’s pregnancy, he too had a difficult decision to make, leave or stay with
her and raise the child. After being
visited by the angel, Joseph listened to and obeyed God and “did what the angel of the Lord had
commanded and took Mary home as his wife” (Matthew 2:24); despite what it
would mean to his reputation.
And when Mary was in her last weeks of pregnancy, the decree
for every person to take part in the census, led Mary and Joseph on a 70 mile
journey from their home to Bethlehem. When
it was time for Jesus to be born, the only place they could find was a
stable. How horrified and scared they
must have been…..but they did not waiver on their faith. Mary and Joseph trusted God in their times of trouble
and gave him praise.
I feel the messages we have been given the past couple of
weeks are directly speaking to me. I
have grown spiritually and I see more clearly what I need to do in order to draw
closer to, and deepen my faith and trust in God.
I look forward to seeing you Sunday night as we study week 5
of the Christmas Experience.
Blessings!
