He holds me
Cleaning out the garage meant I had to deal with my boxes of old journals. For most of my life and ministry I wrote everything by hand: Bible study, sermon prep, sermon manuscripts, prayers, thoughts, notes from books, and whatever else came into my head. I have boxes and boxes of these to deal with.
It's like a roller coaster ride through my life. The journal I started the week we shut down for Covid in 2020. A journal from the month after Sara and I got married and started at a church in Fort Cobb. The prayers I wrote after the church voted to fire me and it failed. Years of thoughts and study. But one that really caught my attention is the one with the black page you see below.
This was on my desk the night that our church offices and education building caught fire in Tishomingo. I saved it, because I save everything, but it's strange to see it now. I had no idea what was going to happen when I left it on that desk one day. I don't even remember what I was writing about. I couldn't have been prepared to face what I was awoken early the next morning with a call about the fire. Just like I wasn't prepared to face Covid, or getting married, or anything else that has happened to me over the years in these journals. These pages show how much I need to rely on God in prayer.
The good news is God was preparing me to face these things the whole time. I didn't know what I would face when I left my church that day, but He knew. The old saying goes "I don't know what the future holds but I know who holds the future.“ These pages show I barely felt equipped to handle the present, let alone the future. But the Christian knows they can face what the future holds, not because of their preparation, or even who holds the future. Those in Christ can face the future because Christ holds them. God didn't just hold my future in his hands, he holds me. And His presence in my life is all I need to face whatever the world brings.