You Can Do This

  by  Lee Winder 

We have all been there.

Plans carefully laid, hopes set and our futures decided. Then the water rushes out from the bay, and your eyes rise from your preparations to see a massive tsunami on the horizon rushing towards you. Before you can even take a breath, you have been plunged under an ocean of water, totally disoriented as to which was is up.

You can do this.

Our decimated plans are an opportunity to learn to trust. When our body begins to panic, our mind reminds us that calm is the best course of action, and that we have promises to rely upon. Look for the light and swim towards it, it will bring you safety.

You can do this.

You are not the first person to be laid out, swept away, feel washed up. Many have gone before you -- some that you would never have suspected.

Noah was called to build a boat when no one had ever seen a body of water worth floating on. His faithfulness preserved the human race, and all life on earth.

Abraham left his family to go to a foreign land, where God promised him descendants like the sand on a seashore. They waited eighty years for their child, who Abraham then was asked to put on an altar and give up to prove his faith. Isaac was spared by God, and Abraham's faith began a family from which Jesus was born.

Moses was abandoned by his own people when he wrongly killed an Egyptian trying to protect them. Wandering the desert decades later, God called him back to Egypt to lead God's people out. His faith, even in its weakness lead the people of Israel back to the Promised Land.

Daniel was ripped away from his family, put into impossible situations including telling someone else their dream and being lowered into a lion's den for a night. God saw Daniel and watched over him in every circumstance.

Elisha ran for his life after a huge victory against the priests of Baal. A sentence out on his head, he asked God for death... what he got instead was rest and a renewed purpose.

David was run out by King Saul, and hunted for years. He lived in caves, pretended to be insane and much more to survive -- this after Samuel had anointed him the king of Israel. Saul eventually died in battle, not of David's hand and David ushered in one of the greatest times of prosperity in Jewish history.

Hosea was an Old Testament prophet who married a prostitute by the command of God. He spent his life preaching to a nation who ran away and prostituted themselves to other gods, all while collecting and loving his wife while she slept with other men. God was using Hosea to show His own love towards His people.

Jonah was called to preach to a nation that had completely abandoned God. Instead of following what God had asked him to do, he ran in the opposite direction... only to wind up on the shores of Nineveh anyway. His preaching turned them from judgement and he pouted on a hillside while God made a point about sovereignty and grace.

Peter was a devout follower of Jesus, passionate literally to a fault. When Jesus needed him most, Peter abandoned and denied him three times. Jesus later restored Peter and out of his preaching, the Church was born.

Saul was a passionate Sadducee, hunting down Christians and killing them for their heresy. Until one day he was struck blind and Jesus Himself appeared to Paul and gave him a new vision. Paul planted many churches, and gave us much of our New Testament.

No matter where you find yourself today -- downtrodden, frustrated, depressed, alone -- you are in good company. God never asked us to be whole, or to have everything figured out... only to trust in Him and allow Him to work in our lives.

You can do this... with the help of God.