Devotionals

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The question of why is it so hard to trust God bears some looking into. Put aside our own shortcomings and our condemnation of ourselves. Which is the one scripture that is rarely used at all amongst believers and non-believers alike? It is Deuteronomy 11:18-19 – “Take these words of mine to heart and keep them in mind. {Write them down,} tie them around your wrist, and wear them as headbands as a reminder. Teach them to your children, and talk about them when you're at home or away, when you lie down or get up” (GW). The days we live in are full of evil and we tend to take the evil within ourselves and project it out to others how we feel about ourselves at any given time. Instead of teaching ourselves first, and then our children, all the commands and promises of God, we neglect to listen to God’s teachings and then end up hurting others around us in the same way we were hurt (and possibly still are being hurt). A lot of the condemnation we feel about ourselves began in the home when we were young. The scriptures tell us, if you read the verses following the above two, that God promised that things would go well with us if we but keep His words in our hearts and minds and taught them to our children. But things are not well with us, especially in our families. We have enough of condemning ourselves without the help of others making us feel unworthy of even being alive. But because we haven’t kept these commands our families are falling apart at an alarming rate.

How can we truly trust God whom we can’t see, when we’ve learned how not to trust the parents that we can see? Like He does with all whom He has chosen, God had to give those He called a little lesson about the power of God, and then had to take them on a journey where they could see that God could be trusted with their lives. Unlike our earthly parents, God never lets us down at any turn in our walk with Him. To help us grow, God places someone in all our lives who can help us stay humble and strong -- Moses needed Aaron and the staff, Jacob needed Esau, Paul needed Barnabas, David needed Jonathan, Joseph needed his brothers, Naomi needed Ruth, Jesus needed the Holy Spirit, and I need my wife. God shows us that He can be trusted by being trustworthy, just like the comrades that each of the men and women above were given through God’s great grace and love. God knows how we are and knows that we all need someone to keep us accountable in our walk through the journey God has placed us on that will lead us to the plan He has for our lives. Trusting God is easy; believing in ourselves on our own is not.

Comment: "You once said, "Unlike our earthly parents, God never lets us down at any turn in our walk with Him. We can't be double-minded.” If God never lets you down like parents do, why didn't he prevent your abuse from the hand of your abuser?""

Author Response: If I gave you my entire testimony about God's place in my life during and after the abuse, the question you asked will always have a postive answer. When you know God well enough you find out that He didn't 'save' me from the abuse for good reason. God never wastes what He allows to happen to people. Yes, we are to learn something from the pain, but we also get to see how God uses the experience to help other people who have gone through the same thing as I did. Satan is very much involved in the life of the abuser, but God takes what Satan has done and turns it into a positive thing for those He chooses to help others though their pain and suffering. Don't forget, Paul went through a lot of experiences that God didn't stop, but for good reasons. Paul even says himself, "How could we help you if we didn't know what you were going thought if we hadn't gone through them ourselves". Even Jesus came to earth to experience our pain so that He could understand why we have a hard time obeying God. What does the law have to do with anything? Humans break laws, and it doesn't matter how many laws God makes, people will still break them because of the Fall. Yes, God could stop it, but He has His reasons for not doing so. Still, in my life, I can see why He allowed it, but I would need a few hours to explain it to you. As for unleashing my power soon: I never rely on my own power because I know how weak I am in my own strength. Again, if you knew my whole testimony, you would see that God has already unleashed His power in my life in many, many ways. Don't believe for one minute that just because I was abused means that I cower in my bedroom day after day and that I live a scared, depressed life because of it; far from it. I have already passed to the other side. I now rejoice at the life I have been given to live and look very forward to the life Jesus gives me to live in the future. My life is His and His alone. My abuser hasn't owned me since March 7, 1999, the day of my salvation. I am strong in the Lord. That day, Jesus claimed me as His own. Like Paul, I am a slave to Jesus, the only Master I will ever serve on this earth. My abuser is dead and gone, but my life continues in spite of what he did and Jesus is making very sure that the life He saved in me will be used for His great glory, and for my enjoyment no matter what the world throws at me.

Yes, God can stop me from abusing other children for I have never touched another child in that way and I never will. Only God could keep me from becoming just another abuser. No, quite the opposite; God has made me a champion in the cause of fighting for those who have been abused. That is why I am taking the Psychology program at OCU. I strive to help those hurting souls from hurting through their abusive pain any longer. They've suffered long enough and it's time to end their pain by showing them that only Jesus can ease their suffering. God has not let me down simply because He created me in the first place. Only I can let Him down if I don't pursue the purpose He has for me in being abused. If I don't use the experiences He gave me then I would be letting Him down, and I could never do that and still maintain a peaceful conscience.

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