Just a quick story I wanted to share that came up while I was reminiscing with one of my very best girlfriends of almost 20 years earlier tonight….
She once had a dream where she was standing all alone on this long road, and then a big truck came out of nowhere and was headed in her direction at full speed. There wasn’t enough time to move out of the way (or she froze, or for some other reason was “stuck”, can’t remember…), but she remembered in the moment that she could still call out to God for help, and knew that God would help her out of this otherwise impossible situation.
So she opened up her mouth and yelled “Help me Bob!”
And then she though, oh no!, how could I mess that up, all I had to do was call out to God for help but I ended up calling God by the wrong name, and now I’m going to die….
Then as the truck hit her, a miracle happened and the truck just went through her and then was on the other side, and she was still alive and well…unharmed 🙂
Yes, this was just a dream, but I remember it having a profound impact on my theology in those early years (we had both become born again Christians fairly recently as high school seniors, struggling to grow in our faith and in character out of homes that were turmoil- and conflict- filled up to that point).
What I learned that day was even as we were learning how to walk with God, He would have out backs even when we did “our part” imperfectly, sometimes messing up even the most simple tasks like getting his name right. Because as God, God knows our hearts…. (1 Samuel 16:7)
He knows what He needs, and He waits for us to ask Him for help, but even when our asking comes out horribly fumbled, it doesn’t matter, because He knows what we’re asking, what we’re needing, often even better than we know ourselves.
God has got me; God has got us 🙂
In John 6:29, Jesus tells us, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
In Mark 9:14-27, we read of a conversation Jesus has with a father asking Jesus to heal his son, who had an evil spirit that tormented the boy:
Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”
“From childhood,” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”
“‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.”
Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “ I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!
”
Our part really is just to believe — that is “our work.” And even that part of our work, we can ask God to help us — we can ask God to help us overcome any unbelief we still have and struggle with to even believe fully in Him!
Bottom line is it isn’t about us doing anything perfectly or performing correctly, even believing perfectly and having enough faith, because God has got us — He knows our hearts, and He cares for us, and at the end of the day, that is all we need to be recipients of His miraculous supernatural grace…