Hey friends, sometimes we expect today’s miracle to look like yesterday‘s relief. When we’re in the wilderness and everything seems desolate, it’s tempting to do just what the children of Israel did and complain, wonder where God is, and wonder if there’s ever another side. I just want to speak hope into you today! Isaiah 43:19 says “behold I am doing a new work in you” and encourages us to see what God is doing. Even in our wilderness - if we are honest - there are times when we can get a peek at the opportunities that are there, not just the loneliness. It’s just that sometimes those opportunities get shrouded by the hurt or don’t look like what we expected. 1 Peter 5:10 reminds us that God himself will restore us after a season of suffering.
God has not abandoned you, friend! He is right there with us leading us through the wilderness into a season of blessing and promised land. There is a testing of heart that has to happen. And like my friend and mentor, Scott Rhyno of Waterline Church in Fishers, Indiana, shared with me: “Hope is like manna.” We only get what we get for the day. We can’t store manna up, we can’t hoard it for the future. This encourages us to depend every single day on our Father who provides. It brings verses to life like “his mercies are new every morning”, “wait expectantly”, “seek him with your whole heart”, and more!
God gave so many miracles to the children of Israel as He brought them through the wilderness season of their history; however, each miracle was specific to the day in which they found themselves. And when we hold to yesterday’s miracles as today’s relief, we are putting blinders on the opportunities that God is bringing fresh. We are limiting God down to our own perspective.
Friend, we understand that God’s perspective is so much higher than ours. We know this with our brains. Our logic can understand this. But when we are in the wilderness, the desert is all we see. We can’t see over the next mountain that is yet to be claimed. We can’t see through the storms and the thirst to understand the oasis of God‘s healing that is coming. We have to remember that God‘s perspective, His view - well, it’s farther out than Google earth! He can see eternity! And yet, he has an intimate, detailed view of right where you are. Who you are!
I encourage you not to get so overwhelmed in what feels like the waste land, that you begin to make idols of worship to the things that are bringing you the relief and distraction you so very much crave. The children of Israel used what they had to make an idol. They worshiped that idol, and it cost them. What they didn’t realize is that God was real-time at work creating a plan that would save them and their children for generations! He was with his very own hand making something good. He made you and he said it was good. And sometimes when we’re drowning, we don’t realize the help that is already there around us. The life preserver moments of grace that are available. This is God's grace within our story calling us to himself, redeeming the ashes. This is where we Find Hope Waiting.
Amber Jones
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