Isolation. Where are your feet?

As we are about to enter into the third week of virus isolation and governmental directives, time, as it is prone to do, starts to make us nervous. How much longer can this go on? How am I going to be able to recover from this? How are my loved ones going to be able to recover from this?

I wrote an article last week about not wasting this virus..using this opportunity to turn our eyes and place our trust in the Lord..to not waste this time that He has given us, but look to Him and learn from Him. I wanted to write a second article as I hear my Christian brothers and sisters start to express worry and fear.

These days are certainly days of uncertainty. The virus brings many to what they feel is the edge: Families who already had struggles..marriages that already were a little shaky..Child/parent relationships that were already progressively getting harder..the bills that were already just barely being paid. The hours and hours now spent under the same roof brings to the surface the troubles that busy lives seem to avoid. That snide comment that would have rolled off your back, really stings now. Pair that with financial worries because your family really does live paycheck to paycheck, and you have the perfect storm in many Christian households. The fields are ripe for the lies of the Devil during this time. His goal: pull you away from the truth that God is near. That God is providing still..today. Satan's lies pull you away from trusting that He will provide tomorrow. Satan wants you to believe that the ground that you stand upon is so very small that any wrong move could cause it all to come crashing down.

“If He says one more thing, I’m done. If the kids fight one more time, I don't care...just let them watch whatever they want..at least they will be quiet. If she complains about one more thing, I’m walking out. If I am off one more day then we never will be able to pay that bill...we might just lose the car, the house. What if we can’t get enough food to eat?”

All of these are places that we think we’ve been backed into a corner...standing on the very edge of a cliff that this time, we might just fall off.

It is in these moments of desperation that the inner voice says, “I need something outside of me to help. I don’t have the ability to fix this.” We see this played out over and over in the Psalms. Men who are worried and afraid when they see no way out of the calamity, who place before the Lord their fears and worries, end their prayer with a declaration of who God is and praise Him for His unceasing care. In Psalm 13 David asks God how long He will be forgotten..how long He will hide His face from him...His sorrow and trouble cause him to feel as if he will die but, in the last two verses of that chapter, he reminds himself of who God is and His character.

“But I have trusted in Your loving-kindness;

My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation,

I will sing to the Lord,

Because He has dealt bountifully with me.” Psalm 13:5-6

Over and over we see writers of the Psalms talking about their pain but they remind themselves of the goodness of God. God calls us to have hope. But not just a hope for hope's sake. There has to be a direction...something outside of us that is more steady and sure than what my eyes see at the moment. That’s what the Psalmists are doing. They see their world and they look outside of themselves to find hope in God who controls all and works all things according to His purposes.

Blessed be the Lord, For He has made marvelous His loving-kindness to me in a besieged city. As for me, I said in my alarm, “I am cut off from before Your eyes”; Nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried to You. O love the Lord, all you His godly ones! The Lord preserves the faithful and fully recompenses the proud doer. Be strong and let your heart take courage, All you who hope in the Lord.

There is one particular thing that I see over and over in the Psalms that has been so comforting to me this past year in my life. The truth that God has set my feet in a large place.

I will rejoice and be glad in Your loving-kindness, because You have seen my affliction; You have known the troubles of my soul, And You have not given me over into the hand of the enemy;

You have set my feet in a large place. Ps. 31:7-8

And You have not given me over into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in a large place. Ps.31:8

“They confronted me in the day of my calamity,

But the Lord was my stay.He brought me forth also into a broad place;

He rescued me, because He delighted in me. Psalm 18:18-19

A large place: A place of security, a place of safety. As a child I was always afraid of heights. If we went somewhere high I always wanted my feet to stay back from the edge..plenty of space all around me so that I couldn’t fall off the edge if I tripped or fell. This picture of a large place brings comfort to my soul that oftentimes feels as if I’m being led along an edge that might just give way. The virus these days is bringing many to what they feel is the edge

All of those places that we think we’ve been backed into a corner, standing on the very edge of a cliff that this time, we believe, we might just fall off. But the Psalmist reminds himself when those thoughts come. I am not about to fall. In fact, God has placed my feet in a large place. Why tell us that He puts our feet in a large place? Because He wants us to know that He is in control. The world around might feel as if it's falling apart but our God is not. His love for you isn’t displayed in taking you out of the storms but in showing you that you are safe in the storms.

Peter, as he jumps out of the boat and walks on the water towards Jesus, becomes terrified when the wind begins to blow and His eyes start to focus on his surroundings. He sees the impossibility of what he was doing. He begins to feel that he's suddenly in a place that will most certainly destroy him and in that instant, He desperately cries out to Jesus to save him. Christ takes his hand and tells him to have faith. You see, the water to Peter became his destruction but Christ reminded him that they both were safe in the place where He was. They both were in the storm but the water was as if it were a field, so steady were their feet. That is the way with our burdens and struggles. Even in the days of this virus, it seems as if we are in a sea that will drown us but God wants us to remember that this virus, these trials, aren’t a sea that we are drowning in. They are the things we are called to take courage in..look to His face...trust that His feet are as sure as that day upon the rolling waters and what seems like a rolling ocean really is solid ground that is wide and sure because of the promises that He will always care for his children. Yes, we may suffer. Yes, we may feel the financial effects of this crisis for years. Yes, there may be things brought to light relationally that are painful and hard to deal with but we have a God who said He will provide for us. The gift of faith that God has given to His children is the ability to trust even when our best plans fail. Faith sees that the days of calamity are just another opportunity to look to Him for the strength to endure. These are the lessons that millions of believers throughout the centuries have had to take hold of...we are not alone. Take courage my brothers and sisters, you are not alone and you are not going to drown.

Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. 1 Peter 5:8-10

This is the message of hope and perseverance in times of trouble. But this message isn’t for everyone. This life of finding hope in the fact that God has placed you in a solid study place so you can weather the storms, only brings comfort to those who love the Lord and are striving to be conformed to His image. You’ll notice that I said, “He will place you in a solid place to weather the storms?” Yes..the storms are still there and, for most of us, we want the storms taken away. It isn’t enough to know that God walks with us through the valleys, we want the valleys taken away. If your life is spent in doing everything but looking at the word, everything but meditating on the things of the Lord and striving to put away the sins that are an affront to Your Savior, then no comfort can be found in knowing that God is there to give hope. Your eyes have been fixed on doing all that you can to please and magnify the person you are..fixed on doing whatever it takes to secure comfort and ease to your everyday life. No thought is ever given to being transformed into the image of Christ and finding that your value lies in being holy like He is holy doesn’t sound very appealing. When troubles and trials come, placed in our lives by our Savior so that we might become more like Him, we run. We become frustrated and the scriptures give no lasting relief because the storms still rage on.

In these days of upheaval, God is showing us that this place of dependence and clinging to the Lord should be our daily place before the Lord. These days should cause our eyes to look to Him with the same intensity as Peter did when He was sinking. That should be our daily gaze...realizing that without His steady care and truth I will not only fall from the cliff but will oftentimes find myself running towards it.

For many of us, when difficult situations arise, our hearts return to the Lord. Hearts that had become distracted by the things of this world, are reminded, by the Holy Spirit, to return to the truth. The Word of God is what God intended to BE our lives...each and everyday..not just in the hard times. God even warns us about the heart that only cries out in the pain..in days of calamity and then forgets once peace is restored.

Wisdom shouts in the street, She lifts her voice in the square; At the head of the noisy streets she cries out; At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings: “How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing and fools hate knowledge? “Turn to my reproof, Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you. “Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention; And you neglected all my counsel and did not want my reproof;

I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes, When your dread comes like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, When distress and anguish come upon you, “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently but they will not find me, Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. “They would not accept my counsel, They spurned all my reproof. “So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way and be satiated with their own devices. “For the waywardness of the naive will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. “But he who listens to me shall live securely and will be at ease from the dread of evil.” Proverbs 1:20-33

Don’t take for granted the time you have here on earth. The wisdom that shouts in the streets is the Word sitting on your nightstand or in the bookshelf of your home. It’s shouting to you to look, to obey. To come out from the busy world that keeps your eyes distracted and be conformed to the image of Christ.

It will be so easy, after these days are over, to forget your need for the Lord. Don’t let the good days distract you. The difficult days may be long but the good days, they are a blink and before you know it, a life has come and gone and the gift of years will have been wasted in pursuits that have no eternal value or reward. Or worse, years that kept you looking at everything but Christ and you woefully hear the words, ‘I never knew you.” Take advantage of these days to examine your heart and then keep examining your heart every day. These are the marks of a true believer. And then take comfort in whatever trial or situation that you find yourself in, because you know that He sets the feet of those He loves and those that love Him in a large place, a place where we need not fear, take comfort that you are being conformed into the image of Christ. This kind of life, this mind that is set on Christ is the mind at rest, at peace. Then when the days are hard and the sorrows many, you can agree with the words of the prophet Isaiah , “You keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you.”

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust. The foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.” The path of the righteous is level, you make level the way of the righteous. In the path of your judgments,O Lord, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul. My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness, in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the Lord. O Lord, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed. Let the fire for your adversaries consume them. O Lord, you will ordain peace for us, for you have indeed done for us all our works. Isaiah 26:3-12

What a gracious God we serve that allows us to remember to seek Him in difficult times. He pricks the hearts of His children to return and what a victory is ours if we can echo Job’s words, “It is still my consolation and I rejoice in unsparing pain, that I have not denied the words of the Holy one.” Job 6:10

When we fear that our way is too precarious..too slippery, when we don’t want to take another step in a life that is proving to be hard, ask yourself, “Who do I want to look like? A better and happier version of me? Or Christ who suffered as a man so that He might redeem men to Himself? Do we want to be transformed into His image?” If so then take heart, brothers and sisters, He has put your feet in a large place. He is that large place. Look to Him. Today and every day after that.