Lord save me!

    Blake lost his father at the age of fifteen. His father had gotten into an accident and as much as Blake believed that he would make it, he did not. Blake was devastated but he tried to be strong for his mother. He wanted her to know that she would still be protected and be okay. He started going to church and even got baptised but it was just an outward show. On the inside, he battled with doubt and grief.
    When he moved out from his home a year later, he moved into his own apartment. He completely shut God out and turned instead to drugs in an effort to find peace. He felt empty and tried to fill the void with various things. None of it worked and a few months later, he came to the painful realisation that he had let his father down. He decided to go to his father’s grave and apologise to him and pray. When he prayed he asked for peace and for help to be whole again. He felt an overwhelming peace and knew he would be okay. He felt that God was with him and had heard his prayer.          
    He finally stopped taking drugs and completely surrendered his heart to the Lord. He is amazed at how building a relationship with his heavenly Father has healed his heart. He is now faithfully spending quality time with God and when he prays, he admits he feels at peace. He acknowledges that God knows what He is doing and that what He is doing is His best for him.
     I love the honesty of Blake’s testimony. He was grieving for his father who was also his best friend. In an effort to deal with the pain, he turned to all the wrong things. But, when he finally came to his senses he turned to God and allowed Him to heal the hurt and grief. Now his life has changed for the good.
    It can be difficult to hand our pain over to God. We may think we can handle it ourselves but instead, we only make things worse. I am learning to ask God sometimes to take it, especially when I realise that I can’t and don’t want to hand it over to Him. I choose to be honest with Him because I know He already knows how I feel and that I am struggling to want to give it to Him in the first place. That’s what I love about God. Even when I can’t because I don’t want to, He will step in and help me to do what I can’t and don’t want to do.
    When Blake finally surrendered completely to God, the peace that he had been looking for, he finally found. Everything else he had tried, had failed to satisfy that need. That peace could only be found in God. Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You because he trusts in You.” As I said last week, it’s about trust, it’s about surrender. Understandably, we can become so fixed on the problem that we rob ourselves of peace and don’t even realise it. We try everything to bring peace into our lives and fail because the problem is our focus.
    In Matthew 14:22-33, when Peter got out of the boat in faith and fixed his eyes on Jesus, he was able to walk on rough waters without a problem. Unfortunately, as soon as he took his eyes off of Jesus  and refocused on the stormy waters he became afraid and started to sink. Isn’t that like so many of us? It is so easy to become distracted by the problem that we forget the One who has the answer to our problem. God will never allow us to sink and drown but we have to trust Him. We have to surrender our will, our desire for the situation and allow His perfect will to take precedence. It is a beautiful thing that Blake finally realised that God knows what He is doing and that God is doing His best for Him. We need to realise that too. 
    What I also love about the story of Peter is the fact that when Peter realised that he was sinking, he cried out to Jesus and said, “Lord save me!” Immediately, Jesus reached out and caught him. That’s what Jesus did for Blake and that’s what He will do for you and me as well. When we realise that we are sinking and we cry out to Him, He will immediately come to our rescue. That is a comfort. He will never leave us to drown in our situation. He is always right there waiting and ready to help when needed. 
    If you have not accepted Jesus Christ into your life as your personal Lord and Saviour, I encourage you to do so today. God is still our present help in our time of need. He will even help us to focus on Him when it is difficult to do so. He will never fail us, He will never leave us to drown. He will always be there ready and waiting to help us when we cry out to Him.

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