Exploring your purpose
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Whatever your anxieties and trials, spread out your case before the Lord. Your spirit will be braced for endurance. The way will be open for you to disentangle yourself from embarrassment and difficulty. The weaker and more helpless you know yourself to be, the stronger will you become in His strength. The heavier your burdens, the more blessed the rest in casting them upon your Burden Bearer. – Our Father Cares, p 57

One of the benefits that we have as Christians is that when we have issues, we know that we can take the issue straight to the top.  God is interested in our lives and what’s going on.  He was a human also, and knows what it’s like to have a ‘big deal’ no matter whether you’re three, thirteen, thirty, or thirty thirty.  We know that praying makes a difference, because praying is asking God to get involved.  He does things for us that He wouldn’t do otherwise, because we asked.

James 4:2
You do not have because you do not ask.

One of the best ways that I know of to bring something before God is to write it out.  It’s much easier for me to stay focused on the topic when I’m writing, and it also helps me be organized.

As I’m laying out the topic, I’m praying that God brings things to my mind about the topic.  I only know so many things, and I need God to open my mind to what I don’t know.  I’ve certainly had new thoughts while doing this.  Not saying it happens all the time, but God certainly responds based on His promises.

Jeremiah 33:3
Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.

And then we have one of the great Christian paradoxes, if that’s the right word.  The more we feel our need of God’s help, and the more we present that need, the more we are helped.  This reminds me of stories of persecution from communist countries, and other personal crises, that people often have their deepest experiences with God in their most trying times.  When we fully lean on God for help, He is able to draw closer to us and provide help in ways we hadn’t experienced before.

Proverbs 3:5,6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.

One of the things I haven’t been good at in life is trusting in God in those hard times.  It’s so much easier to focus on the dark cloud of the issue, which can obscure anything bright in our lives.  God wants to carry those burdens for us.  If we let Him, we can rest knowing that, while even in the present circumstances, God is working on our behalf, and bringing us to a place where He is at least making us more like Himself, if not much more than that.  Lift your eyes above the clouds and trust the One who is ever faithful.

Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.