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We don’t know what’s best for us.  That may seem trite, but it depends on your viewpoint.  If your viewpoint is outside of any relationship with God, then it is trite indeed.  If your viewpoint is one of looking out from a relationship with God, then it is an absolute truth.

I have wondered about people who face circumstances that are daunting with courage that is beyond all understanding and I still do.  How do you handle the news that something is dreadfully wrong inside you?  How do you cope with a sense of loss when you find yourself facing severe economic hardship?  How do you manage when you learn that one you love is gone?

In the past year, I’ve had to face some of these tests head on – I could not have done so without God.  I’m not brave or smart enough to handle these things on my own.  Here’s the thing – I prayed to God for deliverance, but I prayed even harder for strength: the strength to accept his will for me.  And that prayer was answered.  I look back in wonder at how he gave me a peace that really did surpass any mortal understanding.  Since then, I’ve had my moments of doubt – just as Moses had his.  But God’s love truly is steadfast and so I join in David’s psalm of praise:

1 I love you, O Lord, my strength.
2 The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, so I shall be saved from my enemies.
4 The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of perdition assailed me;
5 the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me.
6 In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.  Psalms 18:1-6 (NRSV)

I will join David some day.  I will join him when my days run out.  And I will join him when all the days of this universe run out.  Until then, I will trust in the Lord as my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my shield, stronghold and horn of my salvation . . . my God.