“But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted. Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. “You have so little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt me?” – Matthew 14:30-31
Do you ever feel like you’re drowning?
Do you ever feel as if the waves are violently crashing over your head as you begin to sink down beneath them?
As Christians I want you to know that you have a lifeguard named Jesus Christ, and your lifeguard walks on water. Tweet
God will not allow you to be overtaken by the storms He allows in your life; no matter how hopeless it may look or how lost you may feel.
It was when Peter, Jesus’ disciple, took his eyes off of Jesus as he was walking on water that he started to sink.
However, even then in Peter’s moment of doubt, Jesus displayed His love, grace, and mercy for him by not allowing Peter to drown.
Jesus reached down, grabbed Peter’s hand, and pulled him back up above the waters. And He will do the same for you too. (See Matthew 14:22-36)
God did not save you to simply leave you all alone when the volumes of hardship are turned way up in your life.
Since we live in a fallen world, we will never be able to avoid trials and difficulties here on earth.
But God promises to give us the strength and grace we need to press forward through anything that He allows in our path.
Satan will tell you you’re hopeless.
He will lie to you in hopes of keeping you down, but God will never allow His children to be tempted or tested more than they could handle! (1 Corinthians 10:13)
God may allow you to step into that fiery furnace like He did Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, but He too will be in the midst with you (Daniel 3).
What Concerns God the Most About You
God is more concerned about our spiritual growth, than our comfort zones.
It is when we step out onto the deeper waters, and step into the hotter fires, that our faith, in being tested, has the chance to grow.
It is during the most difficult trials, and the hardest to resist temptations that God’s almighty strength is exemplified in and through your life, in some of the most amazing and powerful ways.
Trials, testing, tribulation, warfare, and the storms of life are all necessary for us to be made more into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ.
Life may look bleak and hopeless right now but it’s not because in Christ, there is ALWAYS hope.
“To everything there is a season”. (Ecc. 3:1)
Nothing you go through here on earth will last forever!
One day you will be in heaven for all eternity; forever with your creator in a place where all of your pain and sorrow will be gone, and all of your tears will be wiped away. (See Rev. 21:4)
Your creator has a plan for everything you’re going through, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.” (Jer. 29:11)
God is orchestrating all of these things going on in your life, both good and bad, together in a marvelous and meticulous way for a distinct reason, and a good reason at that!
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” – Romans 8:28
So if “trouble” has come and knocked on your door let him in gladly by embracing these “light momentary afflictions” joyfully. You will be a stronger, more mature Christian when he leaves! (See 2 Corinthians 4:17)
God is refining you, maturing you, strengthening you, and preparing you for the purpose for which He created you! Tweet
He is drawing you closer to Himself, molding you even more into His image, and showing Himself strong and mighty in these moments of your brokenness and weakness.
Key Takeaway
Some of the hardest lessons we will ever learn here on earth are the lessons we need to learn the most.
So if God has called you to walk by faith out onto deeper waters, trust Him to provide your feet the ability to stand.
If God has allowed you to step into that fiery furnace of affliction, know that He will be in there with you.
If God has allowed a huge storm to rage all around you, have faith that He will calm that storm and bring you safely to the other side of it.
Stand on the promises God has given you when the enemy starts to lie to you.
Trusting God for your deliverance may even help shorten the length of the trial you are in.
Remember that God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on a cross for all of your sins when your flesh starts to condemn you.
Never forget how much God loves you when you start to question the good plans He has for you!
You do have a lifeguard who will reach down from heaven to rescue you.
You do have a Savior named Jesus Christ who will take you by the hand, draw you out of these deep waters, and pull you back up again.
“And I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine.” – Hillsong United “Oceans”
Study Verses: Psalm 18:16, James 1:2-14, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Thank you for this very encouraging post Amanda, I think it’s very timely for anyone who is going through a rough time right now. God bless you 🙂
Dear: Reader, I a fellow servent of our Lord, was really blessed today twice after hearing our pastor Steve Mays, on 3 John 1:1-8 Which One Are You (Walter). And one of the scriptures 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 as an Prayer reguest for myself. Also in Psalm 37:7 Rest in the Lord. And I love the video Hillsong United Oceans (Where Feet May Fail). As every ocean wave is different, so as spiritually as storms and trails in my life what will happened next. As our God is always in complet control. As my faith was tested this passed friday 2014 24, January to prepare for an Left Heart catheterization and Coronary Angiogram. And believing it could be worst by the doctors findings. But on Thursday evening after devotions our God spoke and said that He would not let any thing happened to me his servent. Thanks for the Prayers again and the sweet fellowship. a loving servent.
Dear Lord, the pain of my husband’s multiple affairs and now Him seeking divorce has left me so broken, afraid, and doubting that you do love me even though I am fully aware you died in the cross for me. Lord this is more than I can handle. The rejection and abandonment is unbearable. the evil one has clentched his evil grip on my life, my witness, and my marriage and there are none who have come to the aid of my marriage to speak to my husband to draw him back. Lord, my husband has tricked me. He has confessed that his precious request to ask me to baptize him after year another affair was just to minioilate me to take him back and Lord I did becaue I beloved it was real and I know you are a forgiving Faher and have forgiven me for my sins so I ought to forgive David. Then Lord for him to say he is asking The Holy Spirit into his heart anter saying he feels no remorse for the affair has left me confused and uncertain as to what I can trust. Now Lord he is with another woman and all over social media he is professing his love for her when just two weeks prior he was tellli g me he loved me. My church Lord told me to wait to see if this was true repentance and not to contact him that it would bare fruit but Lord now he has filed divorce and I’m so broken hearted because I know you are able to move hearts Lord yet my heart is broken at my husband’s final rejection of our wedding vows. Lord, it has been 4 months now and I’m not much better. Lord please rescue me, rescue my marriage, rescue my husband from sociopathic behavior, alchole addiciton, pornography, soft pornography on Facebook, and please heal him from sins of the flesh that he would love you with all his heart. Lord, this woman image is now with knows he is married. Please convict her that she would walk away from him and that my husband too would find no desire in her m, her posts o mm Facebook, her calls and her texts. Lord, your servant is suffering greatly. Please, this is more than I can bare, Lord. Please revive my husband’s heart that he would love you and our marriage would be healed to bring you much glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Dear Lord, the pain of my husband’s multiple affairs and now Him seeking divorce has left me so broken, afraid, and doubting that you do love me even though I am fully aware you died on the cross for me. Lord this is more than I can handle. The rejection and abandonment is unbearable. the evil one has clentched his evil grip on my life, my witness, and my marriage and there are none who have come to the aid of my marriage to speak to my husband to draw him back. Lord, my husband has tricked me. He has confessed that his request to ask me to baptize him after yet another affair was just to manipulate me to take him back and Lord I did because I thought it was real and I know you are a forgiving Faher and have forgiven me for my sins so I thought i to should forgive David. Then Lord, for my husband to say he is asking The Holy Spirit into his heart after saying he feels no remorse for the affair, has left me confused and uncertain as to what I can trust. Now Lord, he is with another woman and all over social media he is professing his love for her when just two weeks prior he was telling me he loved me and was asking The Holy Spirit into his heart. My church,Lord, told me to wait to see if this was true repentance and not to contact him that if it were then it would bare fruit but Lord now he has filed for divorce and I’m so broken hearted because I know you are able to move hearts Lord and can move my husband’s heart. Lord my heart is broken at my husband’s final rejection of our wedding vows to initiate divorce against me. Lord, it has been 4 months now since he has been with this new woman and I’m not much better. Lord please rescue me, rescue my marriage, rescue my husband from sociopathic behavior, alcohol addiction, pornography, soft pornography on Facebook, and please heal him from sins of the flesh that he would love you with all his heart. And Lord, please humble him that his arrogance would be knocked out of him to see how much he needs you and needs to live you. Lord, this woman who is now with my husband knows he is married. Please convict her that she would walk away from him and that my husband too would find no desire in her looks, personality, her posts on Facebook, her calls and her texts. Lord, your servant is suffering greatly. Please, this is more than I can bare, Lord. Please revive my husband’s heart that he would love you and may our marriage be healed to bring you much glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Dear Raquel
You simply have to trust Jesus on your life, put Jesus first before anyone else, including your husband. I am a married man at 50 now. I’ve been through the same thing at my 30s. Keep asking why me? She was going to walk away with all that I had worked so hard to save up, my hope, my future, my everything. So I prayed to God to restore my marriage if He was really there. Any Christian with a clear mind would have disagreed with my statement, I was very wrong to put her first, not God. She was like my goddess. Imagine how would Jesus let that continue?
I am sure you’ve guessed it, my prayer didn’t come through, but years later, God gave me an angel, my current wife, and now with 2 beautiful children.
Raquel, we don’t pray to God to give Him a set of instructions to comply. We pray for strength, to ask God how to journey with Him at this challenging time of life. Tell Him that let His will be done, not yours, not mine. HE knows what’s best for you, even who is best for you. Believe that you are His beloved daughter, bought with precious price, His blood, His life. Do not force Him to agree to your thought, or your thinking. You know it will not happen. He is Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent. We must not confuse with our priority.
This is painful i know. I’ve been there before. You will be surprised what our God has for you. Trust in Him. Sorry if I have hurt your feeling. But you must trust our LORD knows best. You are predestined, you are called, you shall be justified, and you will be glorified.
God bless you.
Thank you! Max for responding with your personal experience and for taking the time to share it with me that I may have hope The Lord will not let me come out of this without any growth in Him. My requests to the Lord are all biblical, of His will and plans for marriage. This is definitely not a list of demands to God but rather a list of reminders to Him of how He intended marriage to be holy and pure. It’s been 11 months now since my husband has left me and the pain is still great as well as the loneliness. The judge granted him the divorce on 24 July and I’m still pressing into Jesus for this indescribable heart ache and emotional pain not to mention physical pain as well.
The Lord says He is not slow so I trust that He will not delay one second from rescuing my broken heart. I had to go through many memories this past year and many calendar celebrations without my husband and so I hold onto the scripture verse 2 Timothy 3:12
“In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” I pray daily that God would bring someone to me that I may share His love with them so there would be more people in He kingdom of heaven. the evil one hates that I’m sharing Jesus love is his prize state on NH as being the least church state in the country. My husband is just an example of the many who are lost so I’m pressing on but that does not mean my heart is not suffering deeply from my husband’s walking away from The Lord and from our wedding vows.
I’m so grateful that you have shared your personal story of a new love, life, and growth in Jesus. But while I rejoice and celebrate what God has done and your faithfulness to Him, I can’t help be feel to be that poor hungry child looking through the window of a family who is having a feast while I go on alone, cold, and hungry. Maybe my day will as as John the Baptist’s day came and he was not rescued but rather beheaded. Still, he served The Lord as his life was purposed and no matter what the end was for him, his eternity is secured for he trusted that Jesus was his messiah as well as the messiah of the world.
So bless you for reaching out to me and for your love for Jesus. I look forward to meeting you in heaven that we would join in praise of our Lord Jesus Christ, the savior of the world and there will be no more tears but I will look in smiles of joy that you, Max, had lifted up my cause to the Lord. Bless you! In Jesus’ name, amen.
This post made my heart hurt. I’m so sorry. Your faithfulness will not go unnoticed. Please let me know how things are going.
Dear Kansas, I just noticed the reply prior to yours and I responded with an update which you can read. Right now I’d like to pray for you… Oh Lord, how beautiful are the feet of those who share your love with others and I thank you for my dear sibling in Christ who has heard my brokenness and has comforted me with words that make me feel they are sitting right next to me, having a cup of tea with me this morning, and comforting me like you comfort me in my loneliness and longing for reconciliation even after the divorce has been final. Lord, right now my husband is so sick and deep in his sin that I see him not being with me in our home as a blessing of boundary you have set up that I may wake up each morning and not have to face his rejection and other acts of unfaithfulness to you as a prodigal child and to me as an unfaithful husband. So Lord, please dress us in your armor today to do your will in sharing your love with others that not one person would be lost and I pray for much of your favor and blessings to be on my Kansas friend today for the compassion they have had on me today. In Jesus’ name, amen.
The father of my child has been abusive in EVERY WAY towards my daughter and me. He has dragged me to court to legally abuse me and get unsupervised visits with our daughter. She returns from these visits with a hurting vagina and tender skin from being slapped by him, his gf, his mom, his sister, and his mom’s gf. I’ve been praying for 3 years now this will end. His aunt is a lawyer so he gets away with everything. We are now under a terrible visitation court order that forced me to subject her to abuse OR I GO TO JAIL IF I WITHOLD VISITS. The two lawyers we could hire worked for the other side. Police don’t want to do anything. CPS is hellbent on giving him visits (aunt/lawyer either gets them better jobs or threatens them, child advocacy centers don’t want to see my kid, judge believes my exes lies. Her father and family purposely don’t leave marks to not leave evidence. This situation has made me very depressed as NO ONE WILL HELP ME. I’ve lost my friends, relationship, & business over the same three years. I wake up despising being alive wishing I was dead. The pain and insanity of the state of GA refusing to help is almost too great.
Sorry but it’s not that simple. Allow me to make a few pointers.
“He will lie to you in hopes of keeping you down, but God will never allow His children to be tempted or tested more than they could handle!”
Regardless of what 1 Corinthians says, God will tempt and test his children more than they can handle. The reason is if his children persevered under more greater trials and temptation, it will bring glory to him. If his children weren’t tempted or tested more than they can handle, then the glory would be less in amount than what the Creator of the world deserves. The more and harder temptation and trials his children go under, the more glory God gets through this. Sounds a bit sadistic but that’s the truth.
“But God promises to give us the strength and grace we need to press forward through anything that He allows in our path.”
Do you know what strength means in this case? No it isn’t like popeye getting a can of spinach and was able to power through. God isn’t good like that. Strength means the ability to keep praising him irregardless of what you are going through. So if his children can press forward through anything God allows in their path WHILE blindly praising him, then that means God already gave them strength. Never mind about helping his children to get through. Again it goes back to glory. He gives his children “strength to praise him during hard times” not “strength to overcome obstacles such as a helping hand.”
“Your creator has a plan for everything you’re going through, ‘Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.’”
God only have plans for himself. Even all the plans wherein we are involved as participants or targets are for HIMSELF! Tell this to survivors of earthquakes, rapes, bombings, abuse, and terrorism. The argument that because it is a world full of sin is invalid because it is God who created a world of sin, not Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were set up to fail. Because if Adam and Eve were not to sin, would Jesus still get glory from the crucifixion. Who do you think created Satan? Who do you think created the Zika Virus, cleft lip, Down Syndrome, AIDs, or DMD? Not humans. Long ago, God already knows these things will happen (all-knowing and all-powerful). A rational person may say this planning is very odd and doesn’t put other’s wellbeing in front of it. This ties into point 2 where God allows bad things to happen and gives you “strength” so in the end….no matter what happens to you and you still believe…..it gives him……GLORY!!! Never mind about you, sadly enough.
More sad thing is, those people who tried but failed under God’s unquenchable thirst of glory are damned to hell.
Very encouraging words at a time when I really needed to hear them. I feel strong again.
Ive been struggling with one of the worst cases of OCD anyone can have. Thats all I have to say, but by his stripes we are healed. Been meditating on the word of god, and today rebuked all demonic forces and illness in my brain, in jesus name. Jesus will set me free, because of my faith, I believe today is the last day I have this fight. Thank you jesus ❤️❤️