And he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, please let this child’s life return to him.” The LORD heard Elijah’s prayer, and the life of the child returned, and he revived! (1Kings 17:21-22)
That was some prayer. Elijah was not able to say, "Let this child's life return to him, as it happened to Enoch, as it happened to Isaac, as it happened to Moses," because there was no precedence for this particular miracle. So Elijah said, "Lord, I'm trusting You for a miracle. I'm asking You to perform the impossible." He then waited. Everything, at that epochal moment of faith, rested in the Lord's hands.
You may be in the process of placing your own life before the Lord in this way. Things are critical, and only a miracle can breathe new life into your situation. Circumstances are totally out of your control. So you take it to your special place, and, standing in the shadow of your God, you lay it out before Him, prostrating yourself before Him, pleading for His intervention, trusting completely in His miraculous power, refusing to lean on your own understanding.
Dr. Raymond Edman, in his little book, In Quietness and Confidence, writes about a godly man who faced just such a trial.
This is how he met it: He was quiet for a while with his Lord, then he wrote these words for himself:
- First, He brought me here, it is by His will I am in this strait place: in that fact I will rest.
- Next, He will keep me here in His love, and give me grace to behave as His child.
- Then, He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends me to learn, and working in me the grace He means to bestow.
- Last, in His time He can bring me out again—how and when He knows.1
Can you make these four statements? If you can . . . will you?
- I am here by God's appointment.
- I am in His keeping.
- I am under His training.
- He will show me His purposes in His time.
By God's appointment, in God's keeping, under His training, for His time. What an outstanding summary of what it means to trust in the Lord with all your heart!
- V. Raymond Edman, In Quietness and Confidence (Wheaton, Ill.: Scripture Press, 1956), 63.
Taken from Great Days with the Great Lives by Charles Swindoll. Copyright © 2005 by Charles R. Swindoll. Used by permission of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. www.harpercollinschristian.com
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
Listen to today's broadcast of Insight for Living with Chuck Swindoll at OnePlace.com.
Visit the Bible-teaching ministry of Chuck Swindoll at www.insight.org.
