Reaching out - again

UPDATE: I posted this a month ago and after thinking more about it and reading some very thought-provoking books, I want to make a seemingly small, but really important edit. See the second to last paragraph for the edit.

As believers I think so many of us act and talk as though when difficulty strikes all we need to do (or all someone else needs to do) is "reach out" to God and He will respond. We'll then be carried through the difficulty. We say things like, "just turn to God", "just pray", "read His Word", "have faith". I can tell you that to a person going through the most difficult thing they've ever faced, you might as well say "just move that mountain over there." How do you even begin to do those things? When you are at your lowest, how do you force yourself to turn to God? How do you pray to or read the Word of the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe who just allowed this tragedy in you life? How do you do anything, really?

But I think the glory is that we couldn't be more wrong when we start with the premise that WE must take the first step, or any step, that WE must be the one to reach out to God. He carries us and takes care of us despite our failures. Even when we can't reach out, can't trust, can't pray, can't read, He is bigger and can overcome my failures. He is bigger than me and my circumstances. When I woke up yesterday morning I was thinking about all of this and then I read Oswald Chambers for the day, and then today, a wonderful friend emailed me an encouragement along the same lines. God truly knows how to weave things together. Chambers says: "The reason some of us are such poor examples of Christianity is that we have failed to recognize that Christ is Almighty. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment or surrender to Jesus Christ. . . . We struggle to reach the bottom of our well, trying to get water for ourselves."

There's the trap, we think we must reach out to God to get to Him. It's impossible, we're the ones at the bottom of the well, we can't do it. To me that's where others' stories of faithfulness came in. If I couldn't read His Word, I could read the story of another person's loss and victory in that. If I couldn't pray, I could rest in the prayers of family and friends.

So, how do we "get to God" in these tough times (that we ALL face)? I think if you are a believer, the answer is "you're already there." God reaches out to all of His Children. I'm here to tell you that it might take two or three months to see it, to feel it, but it was always there.

Psalm 34:18
"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in Spirt."

Grace and peace.