Thanks for stopping by! This is Day 23 of my 2015 “31 Days Reflecting on God” series. Find the rest over here.
Your promise is well tried,
and your servant loves it. Psalm 119:40The word of the Lord proves true. Psalm 18:30
I like the old standard methods of doing things. I confess I’m boring that way. I like knowing something is going to work “because it’s always worked.” I think I find comfort in knowing God is faithful because I know his ways are well-proven.
However, God isn’t a method. He’s a living, spiritual being. He never changes in his character. Never wavers in who he is. But he isn’t confined to working the same way with every person or through every century.
Just when I think I know how he will act or respond in a certain situation, he chooses something different. We can’t predict life. It throws us curveballs and we’re left speechless on the floor. And we can’t predict God, as much as we’d like to.
Suppose two siblings lose a parent they loved of an unexpected heart attack. Grief will rock both of them, but in totally different ways, because they are completely different people. God will respond to them in different ways as well. With both he will be true to his well-proven, faithful character. He will be good, and merciful, and present, and caring. But he will meet each person where they are.
Sometimes we need to be careful drawing from our own experience to comfort other people in their trials, because we expect them to respond like we did, and we project our experience with God onto their lives.
But our true comfort shouldn’t come in trying to predict what he’s doing or how he’s going to work things out, but instead in who he is. God’s promises are well-proven. His character is dependable. We can find solace in God himself – not merely in the solutions he provides.
See, he promises things like peace, joy and strength. Peace isn’t the absence of trouble but the calm we have in the middle of the storm. Joy isn’t feeling happy because everything is okay but the ability to give thanks in hard times. And we only need extra strength if we are weak and struggling. These promises don’t guarantee happy solutions but they tell us that God will be with us no matter what.
He has proven himself over and over again to those he loves. So no matter if we love or hate change, if we are conventional or not, or if life is steady or throws us for a loop, we can always come back to God and know that just as he has always kept every promise he’s made, he will be true to his word for us today.