Why Be Downcast Put Your Hope In God

My Utmost For His Highest

At the beginning of our life with Jesus Christ, we were sure we knew all there was to know about following Him. It was a delight to forsake everything else and to throw ourselves before Him in a fearless statement of love. But now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is far ahead of us and is beginning to seem different and unfamiliar— “Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed” (Mark 10:32). CHAMBERS

The time we first accepted Jesus as Lord … when our eyes were opened to Spiritual truth, is a time that we look back to with amazement.  We were living our life just like everyone else we knew.  Figuring things out as best we could.  Vaguely aware of the religious people, but not really understanding what the big deal was.  Then one day, it was if we came out of a sleep … we saw life differently.  We had a new understanding.  We knew what the big deal was … it was Jesus.  Not the man or the baby, but the Savior. 

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. …………Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. ………….. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. ……….. But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:9-16)

When we become a Christian God puts His Spirit in us to “seal the deal”.  The Spirit is what give us the ability to understand spiritual things.  We cannot understand the meaning of the Bible apart from the Holy Spirit …. You can show an unbeliever the Bible, read it to them, but apart from the Spirit of God revealing the truth to them, they will just not “get it”. 

Oswald Chambers is saying that after we become a Christian .. after we experience the liberty in Christ, there is the reality that we are still in the world.  We are still faced with financial problems, family problems, the lust of our eyes, the lust of our flesh, and the pride of life (1 John 2:15-16).  It was so easy, it seemed, to walk by Jesus’ side, but now, we seem to have fallen behind .. He is walking too fast, we can’t keep up.  What has happened is that we have stopped trusting in Him and started trusting in ourselves.  When that happened .. when we decided we could live our new life on our own .. we didn’t need to spend time with Jesus in the Word, we didn’t need to fellowship with other Christians, we didn’t need to pray … We could no longer see Jesus even walking ahead of us … Did He turn to the right or left and we didn’t see, is he just over the next hill?  Where did He go?  The truth is .. He is still on the same path.  It’s us who have strayed .. made the left turn … slowed our pace.

When that happens, life can seem a lot like it was before the day that we said ‘Yes” to Him.  But you will never be the same … You are still sealed with the Holy Spirit … You are like the prodigal son, (Luke 15) who went away .. but there came a day when something within him said .. “You need to return home”  He never stopped being a son .. His dad never stopped looking for the time that the son would appear on the horizon to return home and all that being at home meant. 

Do you need to return home to the Father?  Do you need to stop trusting in yourself and going your own way?  Or maybe you know someone who needs to be encouraged to do that. 

Psalm 42:1-5

 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. ² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? ³ My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” ⁴ These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. ⁵ Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)