The OT says of the LORD that His mercies are new every morning and that His compassion never fails. The NT says that, as His own, we can come boldly to His throne of grace and find mercy whenever we need His help.

Sometimes life is hard from our perspective. Down here, I mean. Yesterday in our Sunday school class, we talked about how hard times are temporal. And in being temporal, they are also brief in comparison to eternity. But disappointment and grief rush into our lives, sometimes with no warning, and the enemy pounces on us with fear and anxiety. The what ifs and whys haunt us … especially at night, when the sun isn’t shining and it’s still and dark. If we think too long, without pausing to invite Him into the moment, we often allow our souls to give way to despair. And if we give in to that despair, we begin to become hopeless.

At the moment of our helplessness, God is here. He wants us to acknowledge His goodness, and mercy, and grace. He desires for us to learn to lean into Him and rest. When we do, we realize that it is truly in that moment we are demonstrating Christlikeness. “During His earthly life, Christ offered both requests and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the One who was able to save Him from death and He was heard because of His devotion.”
Helplessness does not have to morph into hopelessness. It can, in fact, morph into happiness. God’s kind of happiness. Blessed – or happy – are the ones that mourn, because they will be comforted.

I have been thinking about this so much lately … Letting go of earthly treasures, whether it is people or possessions or plans, and holding on tightly to my Abba is the way to maintain consistent peace. I realize more and more that laying up treasure down here is only setting me up for grief or worry that it will be taken away. There are no what ifs from Heaven’s perspective. And faith is the essence of having that perspective – what is not yet seen, but what is hoped for. The faith that knows that there is something and Someone beyond this earthly life, greater than all my pain and sorrow and suffering. As Francesca Battistelli sings:

Sometimes where I stand on this narrow road is in a raging storm or a valley low.
But oh, when I fix my eyes on all that You are, then every doubt I feel deep in my heart grows strangely dim.
All my worries fade and fall to the ground.
‘Cause when I seek Your face and don’t look around, any place I’m in grows strangely dim.
I don’t know what tomorrow may hold, but I know that You’re holding it all.
So no matter what may come, I’m gonna fix my eyes on You…