There Is A Place By Me

Sometimes life is challenging. Maybe not beyond bearable, but just challenging. As a newly married couple we want to be in the center of God's will but that's much easier said than done. And sometimes we feel like we are doing God's will but it's not always black~and~white.

In times of struggling and reasoning together we have one Rock, one real source of Absolute Strength: Christ.

This morning as Nicholas was at work I sat down at our tiny little table to partake of my english muffin and Nick's left-over coffee. With open Bible and journal I sought God's face. The words that God gave to David in Psalm 11 and to Joshua as he became the leader of Israel spoke comfort and encouragement to me! God is very interested in blessing the one who seeks God's face... and most often His will is not made known to us by a loud voice from heaven. Rather, it is in doing the things He's already commanded us. The every day obedience of seeking His face reveals His day-to-day will in our lives.

When I was finished, I opened up a little book by Amy Carmichael which just captured what I had been praying about and reading in my Bible. It is called "There Is A Place By Me":

His Thoughts Said, "Before me continually is the grief of wounds, confusion, suspense, distress."
His Father Said, "Behold, there is a place by Me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock."
Then, as a frightened child on a storm-swept mountain-side would gratefully take his father's hand, and stand on a rock in a place by him, fearing no evil - so it was with the son. For he knew that though the earth be removed and the waters be carried into the midst of the sea, that rock by his Father would never be moved. And he remembered words about things that can be shaken and things that will remain. And though no small tempest lay on him, he said to the multitude of thought whose voices sought to disturb him, "Sirs, be of good cheer; for I believe God that it shall be even as it was to me. For as His majesty is, so also is His mercy."

Our Sunday school teacher recently said that faith doesn't grow when life is easy - or words to that affect. I've remembered that truth as Nicholas and I have talked about living in faith. It's never easy to live in faith. We have to continually look to Christ's face and stand with Him upon the rock or we will fall into the abyss of failure.

So each child of God has a choice to make: either try to live on your own and experience mild satisfaction in your own strength or stand in the place by Christ where life is rarely easy, but long-term success is guaranteed.