Trusting God

I had an experience last night with my car that gave me an opportunity to trust God. And God gave me grace to do that as well as provided much mercy, as our situation could've been much worse. But had it been worse, had we been in an accident or a much scarier situation, would I still have trusted God? If He hadn't spared us from injury or harm, would I still have had faith in his sovereignty, in that very moment?

Ian and I are reading "Stand," which is a book about endurance. One of the chapters is by Jerry Bridges and he talks about God's sovereignty in suffering. He said that we have two things that God will never take away, even when our life has totally fallen apart and we feel that we have nothing left- God will never take away the Gospel and He will never take away His promises. I don't exactly know what it means that he won't take away his promises because I don't always understand them. My flesh puts his promises on my own terms, like promises to deliver (I think that should've happened by now.) But to know that he will never take away the Gospel is a sweet reminder to us.

Thank you, for praying.

Larissa

Standing

Ian has been standing for brief periods (less than a minute) lately. He obviously requires lots of help. He now has a specially fitted shoe to help, too. One more step...
Thank you for your prayers.
Steve

Doing it on his Own

Today was Ian's second day of trying a mobilized wheelchair in therapy. He did awesome. He certainly knew how to drive the chair and was able to follow all of his therapist's commands. It was amazing to see him taking control of his environment and a really encouraging reminder of how incredibly smart he is. He doesn't need to be told how to do things twice- once is enough.

He will have the mobile chair on trial for a month at therapy to practice, and then maybe we can bring it home. I'm requesting a side cart to be put on it....

thank you for praying

larissa

"To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen."

Jude 24-25

The Lord's joy is my strength

I've been wrestling with the phrase, "the joy of the Lord is my strength." I looked it up, and it comes from Nehemiah 8:9-11. The 10th verse makes it very clear: "do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength." Honestly, I've wondered how joy could be the prescription for grief and for the sense of weakness that comes with grieving.

I've realized recently that the joy that is our strength isn't a joy that we necessarily experience all the time. Our strength comes from the unchanging truth that God is constantly rejoicing because of his perfect knowledge of all things, his perfect control over all circumstances, and his ultimate victory over all his enemies. The Israelites grieved after hearing God's law, probably because they realized they hadn't and couldn't keep his law. But, the leaders told them not to grieve and pointed them to the One who was full of joy at his own victory over their sin. In the same way, the Lord is constantly rejoicing in his own perfect knowledge of our circumstances and in his own victorious control over them.

I don't have His vantage point, but when I recognize that He is always rejoicing I understand that He must see and know something I don't know. I can find strength in that. God knows and controls the outcome of Ian's situation, and somehow it's good, though I don't understand how. When I look up to Him through my sadness wondering how things went so wrong for Ian and Larissa and I recognize that He is compassionately and confidently rejoicing despite Ian's circumstances, I can draw strength from that.

The Lord's joy is my strength.

Thank you for continuing to pray for Ian and for sharing in our struggle.

Steve