He is Our Solid Ground

All too often in transition, we can feel as though our path is hidden, as though we’ve lost our footing. In Isaiah 40:27–28, we read God’s response in a time when Israel felt this keenly: “Why do you say, Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God’? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.”

This verse is an awesome truth for us in new seasons of life. We lose our bearings, our sense of identity, our comfortable places. We are staring at the unfamiliar. New seasons even unveil ways we have wandered off on our own, relying on ourselves to find life. This is our reminder that there is solid ground beneath in the presence of the Creator of the earth.

In every new place, He is there. He is the same here as He was in the last season, in the last location. His character and His ways toward us are steady and unchanging. This is where we can hang our hat, even before we put hooks on the walls of our new homes, or know which way to go in a new situation. The struggle is learning to rest in it.

I once heard a speaker at a Bible camp talk about his experience with a friend named Pete. He and Pete had jobs with a logging company, the details of which are fuzzy to me, but it involved getting logs into a stream. On occasion, for fun, they would ride the logs down the stream for a bit. One beautiful lazy day, they lingered on the logs a bit too long and realized they had come into rough waters. So rough, in fact, that they were not confident they could get to shore.

Dave, the speaker, asked his friend what he was going to do. Having been a swimmer in college, Pete decided to try for shore. Dave could see that even with Pete’s skill, it was a struggle. He thought, “What am I going to do? I can’t swim that well!” Meanwhile, the water moved faster and became increasingly turbulent.

Pete ran along shore, encouraging Dave to try to swim. Seeing the danger ahead, Dave made a break for it and began paddling as hard as he could for shore. He was getting nowhere. Pete continued to run alongside and shout but the words were lost in Dave’s frantic splashing.

Finally, Dave decided to give up. He could see the rapids ahead. He was a goner. Why fight it? So he went limp. At that moment, he could finally hear Pete’s words, “Stand up, Dave! Stand up!”

So Dave stood and walked to shore.

Whenever I recall this story, I see myself. I see how frantically I try to work to get life in order, to get to solid ground, when all the while it is right there underneath me if I would only rest in it. God, for some reason, often chooses to speak to us in what Elijah experienced in 1 Kings 19 as the “gentle whisper” (v. 12). We can’t hear it when we are scrambling on our own. We must learn to plant our feet firmly on the solid ground in transition—the solid ground of who He is.

After the year of focusing on the word content, I chose another word for the new year. The word that kept coming to mind was abide. Fueled by this need for solidness, I knew that God was calling me to anchor myself in Him before I moved any further into this new season.

Found in the English Standard Version of John 15:5, abide means, “to dwell, to remain, to stay.” Jesus calls us to abide in Him, a good word for those of us who have been uprooted and long for a solid place. The more we remain in Him and stay with His truth, the more secure we will feel.

Throughout that year, I wrestled with what it truly means to abide in Him. What does it look like, practically speaking? Sometimes, it’s as simple as remembering that He is with us.

–Taken from Making Peace with Change, written by Gina Brenna Butz. Used by permission of Our Daily Bread Publishing®, Grand Rapids MI. All rights reserved. Further distribution is prohibited without written permission from Our Daily Bread Publishing® at permissionsdept@odb.org