Hello, and welcome to Enbolden, living a bold Christian life. I'm Chris Shutter, an ordinary Christian living with and learning about an extraordinary God. Thank you for joining me on spending 30 days of praising God. Hi friends, there's so much to glean out of Psalms 118, but today I look at Psalms 187.
The Lord is with me, he is my helper. I look in triumph on my enemies. A long time ago, I was in college, I took a speech class. Every week we were given a different topic and had to write and deliver a speech on that topic.
The time I wasn't a Christian. I did believe in God, but that's as far as it went. And in my speech class was a young man who had said he wanted to become a pastor. Each week he took the assigned topic and made his speech into more of a sermon.
It really annoyed me at the time. I felt like he was always discussing the same topic, God. And it seemed like, I don't know, like he was cheating. What I didn't expect, and of course the young man probably never would have assumed either, was that 40 years later, I would clearly remember one of his sermons, I mean, speeches.
I have since heard variations of that same theme. It goes, a man takes ill and has a steady stream of people come to help him in various ways, whom he turns away, waiting for God to intervene. And when he dies, he asks the angel in heaven why God never came. And of course the angel answers, but I send you a lot of help, but you turn them all away.
So today I praise God that even when I feel he isn't president in my trials, I can know he truly is. He is my helper. I know because in retrospect, I've been able to see more clearly when he has sent help my way. When he has placed people in my life that showed up with just the right message at just the right time.
Hebrews 13, 6 says, so we say with confidence, the Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? Even when we seem so far away from God, he sends his help like the aspiring pastor in my junior college speech class.
You know, I needed to hear what he said, and I needed to remember it. During the last few years, I've actually made it my goal to shrink that time frame gap from when I need to his help to when I recognize he is working actively in my life. In the past, it's taken me years to see how he was with me during difficult trials. But because I have embraced the truth of his promises, I now try to find God in every situation I face.
A couple of years ago, my husband and I were set to spend Thanksgiving in Colorado. We were to meet up with both our daughters and my husband's family. We hadn't all spent Thanksgiving together in many, many years. At the time, I was going through a lengthy process of diagnosing a parathyroid problem.
That's a parathyroid is in your neck. It's not your thyroid. It's something a little different. The Thursday before Thanksgiving, I underwent what I was told would be a simple office procedure to take a sample from one of my parathyroids.
The next day, I was having trouble swallowing. Two days later, my neck had swollen to almost twice its size. By Sunday afternoon, I was in the emergency room. They called in surgical specialists so I could undergo emergency surgery for a bleed in my neck caused by that simple procedure.
And Monday afternoon, the day before we were leave for Colorado, I sat in my hospital bed listening to my doctor tell me we needed to perform another surgery to remove one of my parathyroids. In other words, I wasn't going anywhere for a while. I was missing my daughters terribly. They were both living away from home for school.
And I had imagined all the hugs and kisses I wanted to do allowed in, of course, get. And now I sat in that hospital bed knowing those hugs and kisses would have to wait. In years past, I would have sat sobbing, crying out in anger to God. But my faith progression, knowing about those promises and believing in them, had brought me too far.
Instead, I praised him and thanked him for getting me to the emergency room that day, for the quick work and able hands of the nurses and doctors, for the funny surgeon that got called in to fix the bleed in my neck, for the outpouring of love my family bestowed on me. For the very first doctor who months prior was suspicious about my symptoms in an urgent care clinic visit and requested the unusual blood tests that led to my initial diagnosis. For the view from my room, for the steady stream of God's helpers. You see, he is with me and he is with you.
It may be hard to see him right now, but that kind smile when you need it, or the annoying person who leaves you with a message in your memory, the opener closed door, it's all him friends. Look for his work and his help and you will find it. Have a blessed day. I'd love to hear from you and find out more about how you are living out your bold Christian life.
You can find me on Instagram at embolden-the-o, or at my blog at embolden.net.