WE RECALL THOSE precious moments when God has graciously drawn near to us in unusual ways; how He has lifted us up out of the mire; where we were unable to lift up our heads, He raised them up and made us feel a sure standing on the eternal solid Rock; where we doubted the love of God, He has filled our hearts with a knowledge of how precious we are to Him; in those times we have questioned as to whether we are really God’s elect or if our conversion was merely of the flesh, the Spirit has witnessed to the inner depths of our being that we are regenerate and adopted into the family of God.

Then there are other times when God has made it explicitly plain, down to the tiniest and most personal details, that He is with us, that all things are well and that despite our acute consciousness and sorrow for our failings and foolish mistakes, He is working all those aspects together according to the perfect counsel of His will. Where we see waste, we see but more of His grace; where we see but ashes, He is calling forth beauty.

All doubts, all fears and all heaviness dissipate as we perceive His voice. Assurance gives us the joy of our salvation and there is nothing that compares to the knowledge that we are God’s and He is ours. We feel we can face anything with a conscious knowledge that is God is for us.

These are the mountain tops and there we see so clearly and so brightly, but then comes the descent, down into the valley, to the common place ways of life, where situations abruptly question what you have just seen and known and where people are negatively conditioned to their surroundings where God is not perceived, but instead, fear, worry and doubt are the prevalent clouds. Is our assurance as real then or do the clouds dictate to us by what is seen to the naked eye? It is here we don’t always feel God so near to us and the temptation comes along this line to disbelieve what God had relayed to our hearts.

God wants our faith to be real in the actualities, amidst the sordid stuff of life. Can we walk on the waves there or do we go down? Do we know the peace of God while all around is chaos?

God will continue to discipline us in these areas – because of His great love for us – until we see Him through the adversities and so learn to tread those waves in the power of His grace. It is in such circumstances where God is reconciling us to the fact (where it is made real to us) that in and every situation we are more than conquerors through Christ Who has gloriously triumphed over the world, death and every foe.