I recently read a statement that brought up that feeling. “How come we can never seem to fully experience the steadiness of the soul that God desires us to have?” Mused the author, who went on to offer a suggestion that maybe it is because we have not allowed our spiritual roots go down deep into God and base ourselves in Him.
In the Old Testament Book of Jeremiah, it says ‘Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord whose confidence is in Him.” (Jeremiah 17:7) As I was pondering this verse and the above question, I found myself asking, how deep is my trust in God and how great is my confidence in God? These are important questions to ask if we want to know this steadiness in our souls!
It occurred to me that one thing is for sure: we will not want to know God deeper if we have doubts about whether or not He can be trusted. It is hard to find the peace we desire and remain untroubled unless we are convinced of the love and goodness of God!
As we step back and look around, sometimes God’s love and goodness may be called into question by events like a pandemic, a tsunami or a natural disaster like cyclones, bushfires and earthquakes or even when God appears to deny us the things we ask for because they are not right for us at that moment. It’s at times like these that any doubt about the love or goodness of God is always best set against the fact of the cross. A God who loves us enough to give His Son to die for us, and who arranges for those who trust Him to have an eternal home in Heaven, just has to be good!
I know I cannot always answer the arguments of those who use wide-spread catastrophes to question God’s character, but I know and am convinced that I can take God by faith and stand on His promises to us. Just as the writer of Romans stated, “For those who love Him, we are persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present or to come shall be able to separate me from the love of God.” (Romans 8:37 – 39). This is why the words of the Psalmist resonate in “Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and He will strengthen your heart; wait I say on the Lord!” (Psalm 27:14)
Through the words of the Bible, I have come to understand and appreciate that when all things are finally revealed, God will be seen to have been just and right in the way He has managed His universe. Here on this Earth we may be big enough to ask questions but sometimes I wonder are we big enough to understand the answers?!
This is why the Staff and I desire to help the students to have a deeper understanding and appreciation of the love and goodness of God. We desire to help them understand, not to rest in the immediate but in the ultimate. As they begin to understand that God will always have the last word and this last word will clarify everything and this is why we need to learn how to take God by faith and stand on His promises. It is then that they are able to know the blessing of peace deep within their soul.