Imagine walking with a friend 🚶🏿♂️🚶🏽♀️ in a forest or a wooded area . You guys are having a good time talking about all sorts of things and suddenly your friend pull out a gun or knife 🗡 and push you to the ground 😬! What would you do? What would you think ? This the end isn't it? I have been betrayed ? Or imagine you are having a major crises coming up and you have been asking a friend for help and instead of helping you prepare for the crises he starts fighting you and during the fight he wounded you in the thigh, leaving you crippled 😬. What would you think of such a person?
Can such person be called a friend ?
Or imagine you are having a serious difficulty and you have a friend who is an expert in the area you are struggling in, you call for him to come help you immediately and he delayed. Can you call such a person your friend ? See friends, to know is to trust. In the first story I left out an important clue, I didn't tell you that the friend with the gun or knife 🗡 was an expert hunter. While walking with his friend in the forest he suddenly saw an animal 🦁 creeping up on his friend, he threw his friend on the ground and killed the animal. Had the friend not really known who the person he was walking with in the forest was, panicked would have overcomed him.
But if he knows his friend intimately, then he would recognize despite the hard push that he was in danger and his friend was moving swiftly to rescue him. The second story about the crippled thigh is about Jacob. Jacob had sinned against his brother Esau and Esau was coming for revenge. Jacob prayed to God for deliverance from his brother Esau. He wrestled with the Lord all night and the Lord touched his thigh and crippled him, then Jacob recognized it was the Lord. And why did the Lord crippled him if He loved him? Why would the Lord do such a thing to his servant? Well in the morning when Esau saw Jacob crippled, he was full of compassion for his brother and did not hurt him.
The third story is about Jesus , Mary and Martha. Lazarus their brother was sick, they sent a message to Jesus saying Lord "the one you love is sick." They knew Jesus was able to heal Lazarus, they knew Jesus was the only one who could and they knew Jesus loved them. But did Jesus come right away ? No, He delayed until Lazarus died. What would you say of Jesus ? How do you think Martha and Mary felt at the time ? See friends, this is why it is so important to know God, to know people. Because it is only when you intimately know someone you will understand their motives, the reason why they do things.It can be very hard to judge people's actions from a distance. It is certainly hard to judge God's actions from a distance. If you don't have an intimate relationship with God you will not understand His actions. When trials come upon you, it will seems like God has forsaken you, you will start questioning things and Satan will seek to discourage you. Why did God let my mother, my father die ? Why did God allow me to lose my job ? Why did God allow my child to die ? Why does God allow me to be so sick ? Why didn't God help me on my test ? Why does God let people humiliate me, mistreat me ? Why didn't God help me in my time of need etc..?
When we don't know God intimately we will misjudge His actions, but when we know Him intimately we will know that God is love. When we know that God is love we will trust Him. We will trust Him because we will know that everything God does is for the good of His children. To know is to trust! When you know someone, you understand the motive behind their actions. Many of us have no peace in life because we dont know God intimately and when we don't know God we cannot trust Him. We panicked at the things He allows to come into our lives to save us. Like the guy with the hunter friend, when God push us down to save us from the lion 🦁, we get up quickly and run from God and run to the lion's mouth instead . Many of us in our trials are tempted to run from the loving, healing care of God and into the mouth of the world, the flesh and the Devil.
When we don't trust God, we misjudge His means of saving us. Friends, I'm here to tell you it is very important that you spend time with God and learn to know Him. For when you know God you will see His blessings even in the darkest of circumstances. In your sickness you will praise Him, in your financial difficulties you will glorify His name, in the loss of friends and families you will exalt His mercies and when people forsake, betray, misuse you for His righteousness sake, you will count it as a great blessing to suffer for the Lord's cause and like Job you will say " though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. " Job 13:15. To know God is to trust Him!
Lord help me to trust you!
Proverbs 27:6
Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
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