"Tis So Sweet to Trust

‘Tis So Sweet to Trust

We sang this hymn last week in church.  It

reminded me of some truths that I don’t ever want to forget.

You see, I’ve had my moments in life when all I had was my trust in the God of my understanding.  My recent surgery was one.  What an ordeal – pain, my body is marred in two places with some serious scars, and the recovery is so slow.  It is a daily walk of trust in the healing hand of my God.

Another time, in 1998, I was given a sum of money at a moment when I needed it the most.  Given … not loaned.  That was a serious trust moment when God proved faithful. 

There is another face of trust that is also at play here.  Can God be trusted to forgive and forget the worst in a person?  Can He be trusted to take a wasted life, a misdirected life and bring restoration and order to it?

Yes He can. 

There are two verses on which I hang my trust today. 

Philippians 4:19 tells us this: “My God shall supply all your need according to His abundance in Heaven by Christ Jesus.”

Whatever the need: medical, financial, relationships, wisdom, and any other face your need may wear, God can be trusted to supply that need.

The other verse is this:

I John 1:9:  If we confess our sins and wrongdoing, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive those sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

The trust kicks in when we are bold enough to ask.  Even in the asking that is where trust begins.  We trust the one of whom we ask. 

“Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus

Just to take Him at His Word

Just to rest upon His promise

Just to know ‘thus says the Lord’.

Jesus, Jesus, How I trust Him

How I’ve proved Him o’re and o’re

Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus

Of for grace to trust Him more.”

  

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Arms Wide Open

Arms Wide Open

It’s a cold and sterile room in which I lie.  Two nurses are busying themselves at my expense in preparing me for surgery.  One is shaving my upper body.  The other darts in and our while she finishes her job.

And then I’m left with the second nurse – Grace.  Carolyn is nearby too, though I can’t see her.  My blood pressure was high – 170/106 or so.  Grace wanted to sooth me. 

“Mr. Biggs, your blood pressure is a little high.  What are you worried about?  We’re going to take real good care of you.”  And she was off like a dash and back in a flash. 

She had inserted a port into one of my veins and began a medicine drip to help with the blood pressure. 

She kept reassuring me … “you are in good hands.  We’re going to take good care of you.”

At some point, she asked me what I did and I mentioned writing and singing.  She latched onto the ‘singing’ idea and said.

“Why don’t you sing me a song?”  Got the picture?  I’m moments away from surgery and my nurse wants me to sing to her?

She sang some simple praise and worship song I knew from twenty years ago and then asked again for me to sing something. 

The only song that stuck was the first song I ever remember singing as a small boy in my Dad’s church in Lewisburg, Tennessee.  And so, I sang.  My voice halted and faltered but I sang-lying there on a bed in Swedish Hospital.

The chimes of time ring out the news

Another day is through.

Someone slipped and fell,

Was that someone you?

You may have longed for added strength

Your courage to renew

Do not be disheartened,

For I bring good news to you.

It was not my finest moment as a soloist.  I was scared, I was nervous, and my voice was cracking and broken and I was softly sobbing as I sang.

I continued:

It is no secret what God can do,

What He’s done for others

He’ll do for you

With arms wide open

He’ll welcome you 
(a lyric change)

It is no secret what God can do

Grace said some appropriate words.  “Lovely, I like that. Thank you. You have a nice voice.”

And God was there. 

I changed the lyric to “He’ll welcome you” on purpose.  The original lyric said, “He’ll pardon you.”

I was already pardoned.  Now I wanted a welcome.  You see, my cardiologist said I had about a 70% chance.  In case the 30% kicked in I wanted to see those wide-open arms of my God. 

I’ve experienced them on numerous occasions in my life.  When confessing sin, when in need of an answered prayer and a thousand other times in my years of living.

And the great news – those arms are open right now for you my dear reader.  Whatever you face, those arms are opened wide to receive you, help you, comfort you and touch you in a most intimate way.

Climb up onto the great lap of God and let Him embrace you today.

P Michael Biggs

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I've Got Scars-Can God Use Me?

I’ve Got Scars – Can God Use Me?

I’ve got an eight-inch scar on my chest from heart bypass surgery in December.  It’s ugly, and my body is now marred.  Can God still use me?

My left arm has an ugly scar from the wrist to

the bend in my arm from where they had to take a vein for my bypass.  It looks like I was in a knife fight and my knife lost.  Can God still use me?

Scars!  We’ve all got them.  Some are more visible than others, but they are there nevertheless.  And we bare them, proudly, or ashamedly. 

Some are the scars of bad choices, bad marriages, lost money in gambling or bad investment schemes.  Maybe that golden career moved was made of putty, and it crumbled before our eyes. 

And here we stand … scars and all, before the God of the universe.  And what does He see?

Hang on … here comes the good part.

He sees His child, the one He loves with an everlasting love.  He sees one of worth and beauty, regardless of the scars, or how ugly or how long, or how long we’ve born the scars.  He sees us as a person of worth and value because that is His nature.

His nature?

He doesn’t separate the scarred from the whole and beautiful.

He doesn’t like the unscarred more than we who are scarred. 

He wraps up our wounds, our aches, our pains, our brokenness and still tells us “You Are Mine.”

Isaiah 43 is the foundation for this thought. 

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I call you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through troubling waters, and nearly drown, or get cut and scarred, when you are hurt, or sick, or diseased, fear not.  I am with you.

These things shall not overcome you, for I am the Lord your God

This speaks to me on several levels. 

~God is aware of us.  He is with us.

~He offers us a measure of help and grace in the middle of our difficulties.

I take great comfort in these thoughts today. 

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