My friend is enduring a brutal divorce. His wife has been unfaithful, and now she’s attacking his character and draining their savings as their case lumbers through the courts. Every kind gesture is thrown back in his face, either with curses or as a way to wrangle more from the divorce settlement.
And yet something strange—something supernatural—is going on within him. Even as his marriage and family are crumbling, he’s drawing closer to God. Rather than blaming God for his suffering and injustice, he’s depending on Him for everything—his children, income, and even his sanity. He’s using his agonizing crisis as an unlikely opportunity to love God more.
C. H. Spurgeon explained that desertion provides an unparalleled opportunity to declare our allegiance to God—for it hurts at the deepest level. He said, “When you trust God and a friend, there is a question whether it is God you trust or the friend. But when the friend has left you and only God is near, no question remains. If you and I are walking together and a dog follows us, who knows which is the dog’s master? But when you go off to the left and I turn to the right, all men will see which one of us owns the dog by seeing whom he follows.”
This truth is what David discovered in Psalm 55. He wished for “wings like a dove; then I would fly away and rest!” (Psalm 55:6). But knowing that he couldn’t escape from his turmoil, David chose to bundle up the whole stinking mess and hand it over to the Lord. “I will call on God,” said David, “and the Lord will rescue me” (Psalm 55:16). Spurgeon concluded, “If you can trust God alone, then you are really trusting Him! . . . Then you are a believer, and there is no mistake about it.”
NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: 1 Samuel 8:6-22
More:
Read Job 23 to learn how to respond when you feel deserted by God.
Next:
How have you deserted someone who depended on you? What can you do to begin to make things right? How does it make you feel to know that God will never desert you?
cali4ange on March 22, 2012 at 1:48 am
It’s such a great feeling that we can always go to God and cry on His shoulders, and open our emotions and dilemma to Him. We know that we are not alone. God wraps us with comfort and love, knowing we can find refuge in His love and strength.
mike wittmer on March 22, 2012 at 8:56 am
cali4ange:
That is exactly right. It’s like the old song says, “What a friend we have in Jesus!”
Kathy @ In Quiet Places on March 22, 2012 at 11:55 am
We can either shake our fist at God when these hard things happen…or, take His hand and cling to Him through it all.
jstabel on March 22, 2012 at 1:35 pm
Times when we think we need God the most,those times becomes the moments we think God is very far because the answer we seek from him does not seems forthcoming…but thats when we cannot turn from God all because he knows our steps and he will never allow us to drift away.Thank God for this devotional.
mike wittmer on March 22, 2012 at 3:18 pm
jstabel: That is ironic, isn’t it? Your comment shows that we can’t trust our feelings, for the truth about us and God might just be the opposite of what we feel.
winn collier on March 24, 2012 at 9:34 pm
Trust comes in the places where we’re stretched, at least that’s what I’m discovering.
samoore on April 8, 2012 at 7:33 pm
This is awesome, this is what is happening to me at the moment.