Motivation Monday – What To Believe When You Are Shipwrecked
“You can feel shipwrecked and be safe all at the same time. God can and does still keep his promise to protect you while you are in the middle of a storm.”
When my two-year old grandson was visiting, he would sometimes shout to me from another room in the middle of what he was doing and say, “Hel me! Hel me!” It’s not what you think – he really meant to say “Help me! Help me!” and was having a little problem pronouncing the letter P at the end of
‘help’. His cry for help was never about anything life-threatening – just to move his cars if they got stuck, or help him put on his shoes. But His cry
sounded urgent, and he expected that I would drop everything to come to his aid.
I often wonder if that is what I sound like to God? I get into trouble more than once and yell out to the universe for someone to help me but don’t stop long enough to listen to His response or wait in silence for it. If God doesn’t show up instantly, I keep on playing at my life, performing my tasks and trying to fix things myself. I cry for help, but sometimes doubt if help is on the way.
And I can become fearful the longer I must wait.
Our cries for help are actually a form of prayer. But what we believe when we cry out to God is of utmost importance. Do we believe He actually hears our prayers and wants to answer us?
We have become blind to the ways God answers our prayers.
Sometimes His answers unfold over time.
Sometimes his answers look like anything but what we prayed for.
Sometimes his answers involve a great deal of risk and skin in the game on our part.
When Paul was in a shipwreck on his journey to Rome, an angel came to him and said, “Don’t be afraid, Paul...God in his goodness has granted safety to everyone sailing with you”. And Paul, encouraging his fellow crew members, said to them, “So take courage! For I believe God. It will be just as he said. But we will be shipwrecked on an island.” (Acts 27:23-25)
You can feel shipwrecked and be safe all at the same time. God can and does still keep his promise to protect you while you are in the middle of a storm.
We can yell ‘help me, help me’, and think that God will fix every situation in an instant.
Instead, I believe he desires to put courage into us on the journey, to allow us to be shipwrecked in order to see that nothing outside of us can ever destroy what He has put inside of us.
At the end of Acts 27, we are told that everyone, by jumping ship and swimming, eventually made it safely to shore. But their belief and their action was in alignment with God’s promise. They knew they were
shipwrecked but could trust that if they did what they knew to do, even though it was risky, they would indeed make it safely to shore. What other choice did they have?
Maybe you’ve run out of options as well. Next time you are crying for help, will you believe that God really will answer?
He may not fix in an instant what you are praying about, but in His time, He really will ensure you are safe and will guide you to new place to land.
When you pray, you must believe the message.
When you pray, you must believe the Messenger.
You must believe that there is a vision of a shore waiting for you to embark on. You must believe in the gap between what is and what will be, that Jesus can be a trusted captain on stormy seas.
We are navigating some big waves in our world, in our nation. Many of us are at risk of jumping ship, thinking we will drown. But maybe we need to let go of our safety nets, pray, and just jump and start swimming. Maybe we need to start using all the resources at our disposal that God has provided for us,
and trust that He will land us safely to shore.
Believe this:
You will not drown.
He will not abandon you.
His desire is that your belief will bring a joy that is inexpressible and unexplainable to a watching world. We are living in a world that is polarized by opposing views on just about everything right now, including politics,
religion and health during a pandemic. We must do what we know to do but also trust that God will get us safely to shore. We must believe.
“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.” I Peter 1:9
I believe in you!
Cathie