Walking the path

(4-minute read)

One Monday morning, I got on an elevator, and a man was standing with his face down in his hands, saying, “Will this week EVER be over.” I was afraid to laugh, but I couldn’t help but smile. Thinking about it later reminded me of a minister friend who told me he was depressed every Monday. He told me that he had read an article in a ministerial magazine that said most ministers feel the same way on Monday.

Earlier this week, there was a particular thing, which was somewhat difficult, that I felt the Lord wanted me to do. A few hours after finishing the project, I faced a temptation I had not experienced in a very long time. I felt like I was under a spiritual attack. Although I didn’t succumb to the temptation, I did give in to panic. I began to pray for help, and in the middle of my prayer, without thinking about it in advance, I found myself praying that the Lord would give me something to do. Almost instantly, something came up that needed to be dealt with immediately, and the temptation/attack was over.

As soon as I calmed down, I realized my mistake. It’s far more common with ministers, but it happens to most of us. Three things are always involved, whether you’re doing something for the Lord or because of the Lord. They are faith, hope, and love. The one needed that I failed to use was hope.

The operation and effects of hope are different from faith. God gives us faith in a particular thing he wants to do; we then use that faith to trust the Lord to perform what he said.

We generate hope. We use it when we make a request to the Lord. One of the most common requests is that the Lord be with us and help us in the unknown day before us. We put our hope in the Lord for what lies ahead. This causes the presence of the Holy Spirit to come and be with us, which is commonly felt. The presence feels different depending on what the Lord is doing. When we get used to God’s presence, we feel empty when the feeling is not there. The Saints of old, first thing in the morning, put their hope in the Lord for the day. They did this every morning, including when they were planning nothing. When we sense the presence of the Lord, we know we are not alone in fighting our weaknesses and doubts.

Many people call both of these things faith. It doesn’t matter except when we are trying to teach someone the differences in operation, what to expect, and finding references in scripture.

When I was new in the things of the Lord, Dr. Donald E. Warren, a cardiologist, spoke on the ten things he prayed that God answered. The second item on his list was to each day feel the presence of the Lord. Afterward, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I began praying and asking the Lord to show me his presence. Eventually, the feeling of total peace surrounded me. I didn’t want it to go, but after a short time, it faded. The following morning just before I was going to leave for work, I took our dog, Rex, for a walk. After a few minutes, I let him off his leash so he could do what he needed. I was thinking about the presence I’d felt the previous day and wondered if it was real or a delusion that my brain had manufactured. I didn’t want some fantasy. God was either real, or he wasn’t.

Rex was an extremely well-behaved dog, but suddenly he saw another dog in the distance and ran toward it. My calling him seemed to make no difference. I thought about that presence I had felt the previous day and wanted to call upon the Lord to stop the dog. What if God didn’t answer? It was as if I was risking my salvation at that moment, but I raised my hand and pointed at the dog, and as I spoke the first word out loud, the presence surrounded me. “Lord, please put a sandspur in the foot of that dog.” Sandspurs grow wild in Tampa, Florida, and are extremely painful when you step on them, and they stick to the bottom of your feet. The dog was about two blocks away and immediately stopped. I ran to him, and he had three sandspurs in each of two of his paws and four sandspurs in the other two paws. Rex was half Saint Bernard and half boxer. It was all I could do to pick him up and carry him home.

Although I had to clean up again and put on a fresh suit, I couldn’t help but smile the rest of the morning. God is real, and of all the millions of people, he saw me that day and cared. God is there for all of us. All we must do is ask, and we don’t have to face the day alone.

Photo by Rossographer