Has God Forgotten You?

I was thinking about this past "winter," if you can even call it winter. It got kind of cold a couple of times, and even snowed the first week in January. After that, we were on a roller coaster of temperature changes for the rest of the season, going from below freezing to near 90 in the same week sometimes. Crazy.

In a normal cycle of seasons, there is spring, summer, fall, and then winter.  Then the cycle begins all over again. At times, everything seems dead in winter. Judging by the outward appearance in nature, if there are no leaves on the trees, no grass, no flowers, and the birds have mostly gone away, it's winter. There is no sign of life, and it would appear that all is lost.

It's kind of like what we go through sometimes in our Christian walk. 

I've had seasons like that, where my prayers seemed to bounce off the ceiling. I would pray and not feel like God even heard me. The situation didn't change. I would cry, pray, cry some more, read the Bible, and pray some more.  Still no change. Still complete silence from God.

Even David went by his feelings and said in the Psalms many times, God, have you forgotten me?

"O Lord, why do you stand so far away?

Why do you hide when I am in trouble?" Psalm 10:1 NLT

Of course God hasn't forgotten us. We can't live by our feelings; they lie. Repeat after me: Feelings cannot be trusted. The older I get and the more I grow in my relationship with Christ the more I am sure, completely positive, that these are the times when He is at work, when all seems to be lost; when we are tempted to give up. We just can't perceive it.

Just like in winter.

In winter, the trees have no leaves and no signs of life. Even though the outward appearance seems to suggest that there is no life there, we know better. We know that in the spring, life will return to all the plant life.

God is at work, and even though it appears He hasn't heard us, the answer is coming. Just like Spring. Hang in there. All is not lost; you have HOPE.

Speaking of hope....

We are in Holy Week. In this season of Easter, let us pause and reflect on what Jesus did for us when He died on the cross to save us. When they hurriedly laid Him in the tomb as the sun was going down and Passover was about to begin, it appeared to the disciples that all was lost. He was dead. The Messiah, their promised Savior, had died.

But all was not lost. On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead! He is still ALIVE TODAY! He did what He came to do; He died for our sins, and defeated death, Hell, and the grave. 

Because of what he did for us, we can live with Him forever. We have HOPE. 

So, take heart, friend. God has not forgotten you.

God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.   Roman 5:8 NLT