“Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open.”- Corrie ten Boom
“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life — whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing?”- Matthew 6:25 (NLT)
Charles Swindoll concludes Chapter 2 of What If . . . God Has Other Plans? as he talks about the third and fourth principles to help us prepare for our own what-if experiences.
3. Some people will give you bad advice. People offer shortsighted counsel when they look at life horizontally. While they mean well and want you to feel relief, at times their words are erroneous. As a result, they only add to your confusion and struggle.
However, God’s Word helps you filter out words and thoughts you have no business taking in. In addition, Pastor Swindoll counsels, ask the Lord to give you a spirit of discernment. Hence, you’ll easily determine whether or not the advice you hear is from the Lord.
4. What really matters is how you respond. Even in the midst of adversity, it’s possible to sense God’s hand in your situation. Simply put, God remains in charge. Consequently, you choose to worship – a horizontal response to a vertical crisis. And, Pastor Swindoll adds, that’s what it means to respond in faith to life situations that seem out of control.
In conclusion, like Job, Corrie ten Boom knew the brutality of sudden loss. Despite the horrors she witnessed and the devastating loss of her father and sister Betsie, Corrie endured her tragedy with a vertical perspective. As her sister Betsie once said, “There is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still.”
Today’s question: When God pries your fingers open, what Bible verses draw you closer to Him and ease the pain? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “The skipper on deck = Christ”
