Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope

Joni Eareckson Tada: When there's a problem, don't you wish you'd always run to God? Hi, I'm Johnny Erickson Tada. That is the ideal, isn't it? It's a goal. If there's a problem or a need arises, whether it's the terror of a tragic accident or something simple as losing your keys somewhere in the house, wouldn't it be great if your first impulse, your first response would be faith and trust in God, immediately turning to him in prayer automatically? Not something that you think you would do as a last recourse like, well, I guess there's nothing else we can do about it now but pray.

You know, why are we so prone to turn to God to trust and have faith in him only after the fact? You know, it's why the Bible tells us in Psalm 62 quote, trust in him at all times. Oh people, pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Well, I think the goal here, God's goal for us, is that we make faith in him a habit, that we not show faith in him on occasion, but at all times, that we trust in him every time a need arises. Most of us, myself included, have been walking with Christ for a while, and yes, our faith has grown, it's been refined through our trials, it's been strengthened through testing.

So yes, for us, faith has been a long hard lesson. But whether or not we have learned the lesson, you know, to have faith in God in all times, the proof of that lesson is the ease with which we apply it. If we have to constantly stop and say to ourselves, wow, this problem is pretty big. It's really really out of my hands and and gee, I'm not sure if I can trust God with this. I'll have to think about it. You know, if we have to make that conscious effort to muster faith in Christ, that shows the measure of how weak our faith is.

Percy Ainsworth once said quote, when faith has become a spontaneity of our character, when it turns to God instinctively, when it does its work with the instant response of habit, then it has become strong. Only faith that can trust at all times can trust at any time. The moment that faith in God heeds the dictation of a circumstance, it ceases to be faith and becomes calculation. Faith does more than hold a man's hand in the darkness. It leads him into the light. Faith in Christ does not make a hard experience merely bearable. It makes it luminous and instructive.

Faith takes the separate or the tangled strands of human experience and weaves them into one strong cable of help and hope. Oh friend, to have this sort of faith that Percy Ainsworth describes, to not pause when suffering encroaches and think, oh gee, can I can I trust God with this? To not be calculating like that, but for it to be a spontaneous part of our Christian character. It's why the Bible drives home time and again the idea that we are to trust God at all times, not when it's just convenient or when it makes sense or when it's easy, but that we would run to God as our refuge always and always.

A thing is not of any use to you if you cannot find it. If you reach for it and it's not there. Friend, when you trust God at all times, your faith is easily found. You can reach for it and it's there, ready to believe and yield, ready to trust and celebrate the God who gifts you with such amazing faith. It happens when we make it a practice to trust God at all times. And to close with one more word from Percy Ainsworth quote, trust in God through every hour and when that perilous hour comes, one step shall take you into the innermost safety of God, your refuge.

And that my friend is today's hope in your hardship.