After doing all you can do to stand...STAND therefore!

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ. If you are able to read this message, then you are blessed to be in the land among the living. You have yet another opportunity to repent, turn from your ways and choose to follow after Jesus Christ. The choice is yours to make today!

Throughout the journey on the path behind the footsteps of our Savior, there are times when we stop and look around questionably because you can't seem to find the print of the footsteps you just seen. The bright sky dims and the clouds roll in. Before you know it, you've found yourself in the middle of a storm.

You begin to panic as the rain drops beat against your skin and roll down your eyebrows blinding your vision. Just when you think it can't any worse, you manage to see a path lit with just enough light to give you hope. You wipe your eyes, take a deep breath and stumble along the way following the glimpse of light that seemed to come out of nowhere.

Minutes seem like hours as time goes by and the storm continues to shower as you take step after step towards an unfamiliar place. You wipe your face again while rapidly blinking to clear your vision and refocus. When your vision clears you notice footprints next to your own. You feel a warm, strong arm cradle you and you naturally shift all your weight unto theirs. Their strength begins to carry you through the storm along the lighted path towards a place that you now know is your refuge from the storm. A place of comfort and peace. Joy and strength. Rest and healing to revive you to begin your journey again.

The strength of this person is the love of Jesus Christ. The love that was so graciously given to each and everyone of us that I have personally felt many times over during my storms and the warm sunny days. He is a Strong Tower and a Place of Refuge from the storm. He is a Bright Morning Star lighting the way through the dark. He is a Comforter and the Prince of Peace. Without Him, there are no sunny days and the storms of life would surely turn into moments of drowning.

I'm thankful, that when experiencing a storm, I am not alone. He is yet with me.

The trials and tribulations of life can be like a raging storm. Relentless, loud, terrifying and giving no clue of knowing when it will end. Just when the loud pelts of heavy rain begin to subside, the thunder crackles and the rain speed intensifies, lasting even longer then when it first started. The longer the storm, the more draining the wait becomes.

We get weak, tired and even anxious for a sign that the rain will let up. Sometimes the sign comes like a singing bird and a clear sky; and sometimes, the rain clouds keep rolling in day after day.

What do you do when the rain doesn't stop? What do you do when the trials of life keep coming in like a flood and your strength to get up and wait for the storm to pass has been drenched with doubt and fear? Gods word tells us that the battle is not ours to fight and that after doing all that we can do to stand, stand therefore.

His truth gives us confidence to stand on His word. To stand and know that when we are weak we are made strong and can stand with the confidence that the Love of Jesus Christ has already brought us out of the storm the day He died on the cross.

So stand with the confidence knowing that this storm too shall pass. Stand with the confidence knowing that He will perfect the work that He began in you. Stand therefore with confidence in the Lord knowing that the victory is yours. Stand therefore knowing that when you can't trace His footprints.....Trust Him and follow in faith!