My body has been mean to me lately. I’ve been doing this thing for the last lots of months where I wake up early. No matter what time I go to bed, I’m up between 4 and 5 am. Once in a blue moon, I’m able to roll over and go back to sleep. But usually…..I’m wide awake.
I don’t really want to take anything to help me sleep. I tried melatonin, and that just gave me weird dreams. So….I usually just try to redeem the time and make it count.
Although my body can’t get back to sleep, my mind is still a bit sluggish. So, since it’s warm’ish outside, I make a cup of tea, head out to the porch, sit on the top step, look up at the stars and give my soul time to catch up to my body. “Porch time” I call it.
Some days I’ll scroll through the Psalms on my phone. Some days I’ll listen to the symphony of crickets who never seem to sleep and listen closely to see if He’s saying anything.
Some days, I pour my heart out to the Lord….all of my fears and anxieties and doubts and worries (let’s face it – we all have them…even pastors) and He always soothes them away.
This morning was one of those days. One of the pour-out-my-heart days. My son is getting ready to leave for 11 months for France, and I had quite a bit to bombard Him with as soon as I hit the stoop.
As I looked up into the inky black sky studded with millions of twinkling lights, I was reminded of Abraham. Of Genesis 15 where God took him outside and showed Him the countless stars overhead and incalculable grains of sand underfoot to remind Him of the promise and His faithfulness to fulfill it. To remind him that no matter how big it looked, God was bigger still and would do what He said.
And this verse echoed in my soul.
He keeps every promise forever!
(Psalm 146:6)
He. Keeps. Every. Promise. Forever.
Every promise.
Every single one.
I needed that today. And I felt like I wasn’t the only one. Some days we all need that reminder.
I wrote the verse in my journal and that was going to be that, but I was compelled to share it here too, as though someone was in the thick of the storm where nothing looks like what He promised and you’re desperately holding on but getting tired and you’re wondering if that storm will ever pass.
Take hope. It will pass because He keeps every promise forever.
He’s the same God today that kept His Word to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob thousands of years ago. To Joshua and the children of Israel when He brought them into the Promised Land.
He’s the same One who worked miracles through Elijah and Elisha. Who fed Elijah with ravens and multiplied the widow’s oil and the flour to get them through the famine. He’s the same One that that gave children to the barren and healed the leper.
He’s the One who protected Daniel in the lion’s den and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. He didn’t deliver them from trouble but He walked with them through it and brought them safely out on the other side.
Take courage, my friends. The trial you’re facing is temporary. He will walk you through it to victory.
He’s the same God who kept every one of the hundreds of promises about the Messiah when He sent His Son Jesus. And Jesus is everything that was promised. Savior. Healer. Peace. Provider. Protector. Comforter. Deliverer.
No matter what you’re facing today, no matter what trial you’re in, He’s the same God that came through over and over and over again for the disciples and apostles in the gospels and the book of Acts and down through the centuries since.
And He will come through for you too. He’s still a supernatural God and He still does supernatural things.
He keeps every promise forever.
(Psalm 146:6)
Write that on a notecard and keep it before you. Think about it. Mull it over. Meditate on it all day long. Let it be the last thing you say when you lay your head on the pillow and the first thing you think when you roll out of bed.
Let it build faith in your heart and bring peace to your soul because it is true.
If He spoke it, He will perform it. He is faithful who promised, and He’ll prove Himself faithful to you.
