He's Got You Covered

Well, things are looking up and Brent is home from the hopital--where they keep you up all night in their attempt to heal you--and I am exhausted from all the scariness of last week. Today, I just layed on the futon in the porch for the better part of the afternoon and finished the book , Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris. In the chapter called Taking A Stand, they speak of Martin Luther:

"It wasn't Martin Luther's first stand when he nailed Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. He had learned to trust God with his life long before he was summoned before the Holy Roman Emperor and given the choice to either recant or be branded a heretic and thrown outside the protection of the law. There, before the most powerful men of his day, he said,

"Here I stand. I can do no other. So help me God."

"The God Luther prayed to had been faithful many times before. And whether Luther would lose his life or keep it, he knew that his God would be faithful again."

Oh what faith Luther had! I want to be able to stand in this glittery world, with all of its charms, where I am not popular, but peculiar, and say "Here I stand. I can do no other. So help me God." I want to trust my Father so fully that my soul relaxes in His presence. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 132:2,

But I have stilled and quieted my soul;

like a weaned child with its mother,

like a weaned child is my soul within me.

A weaned child is old enough to understand that she can trust her mother. She doesn't need to clamor and fuss when she is hungry or uncomfortable. She only needs to wait, and hold her mother's hand. She has spent so much time in her mother's presence that she knows that her mother will always protect her and do what is best for her. Her mother would never hurt her. A weaned child knows this about her mother and so her childish, trusting soul can relax in the presence of her authority. She doesn't have to worry--only trust.

I want to relax in God's authority. I want to be able to take a stand when I know that I should for the simple reason that it is right in God's eyes. I don't want to care about man's judgements of me. I want to be so dependent on my Father, so trusting of Him, that I can do no other than stand for Him. As Troy said in the service on Saturday night, "Relax, be quiet, and trust in God. If you are walking with Him, He's got you covered."

He's got you covered. Do you believe that? Do I believe that? Does my life reflect that I am a weaned child? Am I willing to take a stand in this deceptive world?

I am.

I can do no other.

So help me God.

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it."

Mark 8:34-35