13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” 14 You don’t even know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be! For you are like smoke that appears for a little while, then vanishes.
15 Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
(James 4:13-15)
I often preach on the idea that, we don't know what's coming tomorrow. We can't fully plan for tomorrow, because we don't know what will happen. It's not simply a way of speaking. We really don't know.
The reality is, medical emergencies pop up all the time. We've been dealing with some of those in our church in just the past couple weeks. Car accidents happen all the time. My neighbor just got into a bad one just yesterday. Sometimes, it's something that you couldn't even imagine becoming an emergency that alters all of your plans.
The latter happened at our church just this week. The water line headed to our refrigerator burst on Tuesday, and the next thing you know, the church was full of water. Not something we expected, but the immediate thought is, well, we'll just clean up the water. Except, the water had gotten everywhere. Into multiple rooms. Into carpets. Under flooring. Under and into cabinets. We couldn't just clean it up. We had to call in experts. We had to call our insurance company. We had to change or sometimes outright cancel some of our scheduled meetings and Bible studies. We had to toss out some of our damaged and unsalvageable furniture. We're still working on it to get it all dried and cleaned (as seen in the pic below).
So now what? Something that we couldn't have conceived of happening, happened. Something that forced us into massively changed plans, happened. Something that will cost us money, time, energy, even some sadness, happened. What do we do with this? Where was God when we needed Him in this?
Isaiah 43:1b-2a says this:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name; you are Mine.
2 I will be with you
when you pass through the waters,
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not overwhelm you.
followed by Isaiah 43:5a, saying:
Do not fear, for I am with you;
and concluding with Isaiah 43:11 saying:
I, I am Yahweh,
and there is no other Savior but Me.
In other words, God isn't promising and has never promised to save us from difficulty. He has simply promised that He will be with those He has saved, to those who cry out to Him in desperation. He will give us what we need - sometimes giving us nothing and simply forcing us to acknowledge that the only thing we really need is Him. He will guide us, He will be with us, He will not forsake us. He will be faithful, as He always has been.
In the grand scheme of things, a flooded church is not some great horror - honestly, it's mostly just an inconvenience. But it is a small picture of what some of yall are dealing with right now, or what all of yall will inevitably deal with eventually. Something WILL happen that you aren't ready for and that you can't handle. When that happens, do not fear. Because if you have trusted in Jesus as your Savior, the God who has saved you from your sins is the sovereign and all-powerful Creator and also has love, grace, compassion, and mercy that will be enough to sustain you in every walk of your life.
Isn't it great to be able to trust in a great God?
I can’t help but think about the living waters Jesus offered the woman at the well. And Baptism and the scripture “Behold I make all things new.“ Rev 21:5. Perhaps God is encouraging us to get rid of the old so He can bring in the new thing He planned to do through and in us?