Grace - Finding Your GraceSample

“The Sun Is Rising” by SHANA SAINT

Facing a trial in our lives can make us feel like someone has waged an all-out war against us. Nothing seems to go our way. We can’t even see a light at the end of the tunnel. It can be sickness, it can be marital problems, it can be financial crisis; it truly can be anything or everything at the same time! This isn’t necessarily good news (or new news), but there IS good news for us as believers. 

We don’t have to look far to see that we aren’t the only followers of God who have encountered some extreme battles against our faith in Him. Over and over again throughout the Old Testament, the Jewish people faced exile and captivity. It must have seemed as though it would never end, but the prophet Isaiah had words of comfort for them. 

He told them that their “warfare was over” and to remember that the One who “created all the stars” gives “power to the weak and strength to the powerless.” He encouraged a people who were faced with bondage and slavery that their God hadn’t misplaced a single star, and He wasn’t about to forget them either. 

Just imagine that. Your warfare is OVER. Does it feel that way? Probably not. You probably have reminders of your battles every single day, but Isaiah wrote those words to a nation that was facing a Babylonian conquest which would end in their exile, and before it even began God was declaring through His prophet that it was already over! 

Isn’t it amazing to think that our Creator has seen our end from the beginning? He knew what we would face and feel before we were ever born, and yet still He tells us that the victory is won in Christ Jesus! It’s this truth that we hold to. This is the “confident trust in the Lord” that Hebrews 10 tells us not to throw away, that we can patiently endure the storm KNOWING God has already secured the outcome. The fight is fixed! And YOU are the winner. 

In Romans 15:13, Paul gives us this prayer he prayed for the church in Rome, and it’s a prayer I pray for you now. No matter WHAT you are facing, “I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” Remember that weeping may endure for a night, but JOY comes in the morning! Lift up your eyes and see, the sun is rising!