I grew up in rural Missouri, playing in the woods behind my house. I spent hours in the woods and creeks behind my home, hiking, exploring, playing, shooting, and occasionally building. My friends and I built forts, but we also, from time to time, endeavored to construct a dam. The hope was to turn a section of a trickling creek into a large pool big enough for us to swim and jump into.

Well, there is a reason that I went to Bible college and not engineering school.   Despite my best efforts, my lack of construction skills meant that I could never build anything more substantial than a leaky dam, resulting in a large and very shallow puddle.   A puddle certainly not big enough to dive into or swim in.

My attempted dam-building mirrors our attempts to find satisfaction in self-made lives. Just as my makeshift dam could never hold the water I hoped for, so too do our efforts to find fulfillment outside of God, building a life how we want to, prove to be inadequate.

Thankfully, though, the story doesn’t end in Jeremiah.  We know that the New Testament is concealed within the Old, and the Old Testament is revealed in the New. In Jeremiah, God laments that his people are making leaky cisterns.  That they are trying to construct their own lives and always coming up thirsty.  But fast forward to the New Testament, and Jesus introduces Himself as the “living water” in John 4:10. In His conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus promises a source of water that will never leak, that will never run dry.

You see, just as I could not create a lasting pool of water with my limited abilities, we cannot attain true spiritual and life fulfillment through our own efforts. Jesus, as the living water, offers us what we could never achieve on our own: a source of life and satisfaction that never runs dry. In Him, the deep thirst of our souls finds its answer, far surpassing the temporary puddles of joy we attempt to collect through earthly pursuits.

The question for us today is why are we so unwilling to abandon our futile efforts at dam-building rather than turn to the one true source of living water, where we find eternal life and true life fulfillment?

Many kids, when getting a call like that, would immediately jump in the car and race to visit. That’s certainly what I wanted to do, but I was a thousand miles away (my mom lives near St. Louis). All I could do was pray. So, I prayed, but if I am being honest, I was praying some rather raw prayers.

My mom is 70, which is young but not super young. She recently went through a round of battling cancer – with all the corresponding radiation and chemo – just last year. And now…..now this? I was praying for God not to let this be too much for her. To give her strength and peace.

But I was also asking, “God, where are you? Why this? Why now? This seems unfair. Did you somehow forget that my mom leads a Bible study and literally teaches people about you? Did you forget that in her downtime, she volunteers to clean her church, your house, each week? To me, at least, my mom is basically a saint, and this is what you let happen to her? Cancer and now a stroke?” Again, the prayers were pretty raw.

I’m not the first person to pray this way. Even some people in the Bible expressed similar thoughts. Psalm 13:1-2, Psalm 22:1-2, and Psalm 42:9-11 are a few examples.

Facing challenges is not just reserved just for me, my mom, and a few random people in the Bible. No, it’s for everyone, including people of faith. Odds are, you have had a hardship in your life. Maybe you are facing a difficulty right now. If you’re not, just wait a breath or two, and you likely will be soon.

The reality is: we all encounter challenges, struggles, and situations that leave us feeling unsure and afraid. Maybe, like me, it’s the health of a family member. Maybe it is your own health. Perhaps it is finances, work, or lack of work. It could be a kid or a spouse. Maybe you’re heartbroken, or your mind isn’t what it used to be. Possibly you really messed up and are facing the consequences of your own actions. Maybe something happened to you that is completely out of your control. Each of our lives are different, but life, for us all, comes with its fair share of tests and challenges.

In whatever we are going through, it is essential to remember we can trust in God’s faithfulness.

“Trust in God’s faithfulness.” That’s easy for me to write about; it’s fairly easy for most of us to say we will do; but sometimes, it’s a tough thing to live out. It’s difficult to trust God when it feels like life is trying to run us over.

Scripture, however, reminds us that we can trust Him even in the fiercest of storms. One passage that I go to in difficult moments is Psalm 46. Psalm 46 shows us that even in the wildest of storms, God’s faithfulness remains unshakable, unwavering, and everlasting.

God’s Presence

Psalm 46 shares that God is ever-present – Verse 1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” We can feel like we are alone, but He is there. We sometimes feel like we are holding the ship together ourselves, but in reality, He is there on the deck, helping us keep on course even when we are getting blown all around. I couldn’t physically be there for my mom at the hospital this past week, but she was not alone. God was there with her. You see, storms do come in life, but God’s faithful presence remains constant through them all.

God’s Presence + God’s Strength

Psalm 46 also tells us that God’s presence brings His strength – Verses 2 and 3 continue by saying, “Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way, and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam.” “Therefore,” because God is an ever-present help (verse 1), we don’t have to be afraid. Why don’t we have to be afraid, even when the earth “gives way” and its “waters roar”? Because God isn’t just present, he isn’t just there on the sidelines cheering us on; no, he is with us in the fight. He is there with us, bringing all His strength to help us fight the battle. And because God is on our team, the battle is stacked in our favor. Having God on our team is like putting last year’s Major League home run leader, Aaron Judge, on my son Lucas’ little league team. That wouldn’t be fair. Each game would be a complete blowout. That is what it is like having God with us in the storm. We have the heaviest hitter there batting for us.

(Note: For those of you I just offended by my referring to a New York Yankee, I apologize. Feel free to pick your own favorite non-Yankee major league baseball player for the illustration. I simply chose him as he had the most home runs last year. For the record, I am a Redsox fan. Go, Sox!)

God’s Presence + God’s Strength = God’s Protection

And because God is strong, He can protect us. I’ve never had a bodyguard. But, if I ever needed to hire one, I would hire the biggest, strongest, most muscular, martial arts-trained bodyguard I could afford. God is the strongest bodyguard ever, and he is with us. Psalm 46, verses 7 and 11 both read, “The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” He is our fortress. A fortress is secure. Even if a large army comes against it, it is not easily destroyed. It is a shelter from the greatest of threats, and it shields us from every danger outside. God is with us, God is strong, and therefore, like a fortress, he can protect us no matter what comes our way.

My mom’s story ended well. After an overnight stay in the hospital and a barrage of tests, a full stroke was ruled out. There is still the chance that she had a small TIA (mini-stroke), and she’ll require more tests and follow-up, likely a change of medication, but presently there are no permanent effects of her episode. Speech, face, and mobility are all fine. God was with her in her storm.

Not all stories end like my mom’s. Sometimes the diagnosis isn’t good, and the effects are permanent. But, even when the storm lingers, even when it lasts a lifetime, God is still faithful. The apostle Paul spoke of an ailment he faced all his life (2 Corinthians 12:7-9), never to be cured despite praying repeatedly that he would be. Yet Paul knew that God was still present with him, that he was strong enough to sustain him, and that he would protect him. So, despite all the challenges Paul faced, and he faced quite a few, Paul could rest knowing that Christ’s “grace was sufficient” and that He would sustain him through all storms that would come his way.

Today, maybe you are facing a storm. Maybe your world is shaking. Whatever you are going through, you are not alone. God is with you; he is present. And with his presence, he brings his strength. That strength is a fortress for you to stay safely in so you can weather any storm that may come your way. My hope and prayer for us all is that although the storms may rage and the entire world may be shaken, that we will always hold on to the unshakeable faithfulness of God.

I suppose on one hand I get their point.  However you get to heaven, everyone that makes it will enjoy the same eternal reward.  Some make it in after a lifetime of faithful service.  Others are like the thief crucified next to Jesus, who made a death bed-last minute decision to believe.  He believed, and Jesus told him he would be with him in heaven that very day. On one hand, if you make it to heaven, you make it to heaven.

That said, again, something with this person’s statement didn’t seem quite right.  I think it had to do with the fact that they had been following Christ a long time, yet their words made it seem like they were content to scrape by in their relationship with God and “just” make it into heaven by the skin of their teeth.

I am not sure God is all that impressed with this kind of attitude or approach to a relationship with him.  I believe he is unsatisfied with this kind of mediocre, half-hearted, lukewarmness.  This approach to a spiritual life certainly sits in contrast to the attitudes of others throughout history.  Consider this old Puritan prayer:

Guide me to heaven with my loins girt,
my lamp burning,
my ear open to thy calls,
my heart full of love,
my soul free.

No straggling through the gates there.  This person is marching through the gates with full vigor. Just think about what this poem is saying

Guide me to heaven with my loins girt.

I’ll be honest, I had to look up exactly what someone’s loins are.  Your loins are a main part of your body to the left and right of your spine.  They are below your rib cage and above your pelvis.  Your loins are a part of what makes up your core. 

In fact, when the poet here said loins, he meant core, but he wasn’t talking about the actual muscles that make up your midsection.  No, he was talking about those inner parts of our being, our essence, our spirit, our thoughts and emotions, values and goals, hopes and dreams.  He was talking about who we are in our core on the inside.  Not the tangible core, but the intangible.

Not only did I have to look up what the poet meant by loins, but I also had to look up what he meant by “girt” as well.  Girt comes from gird, which means encircled, or secured.

Take this two words together, your loins and girt, means your core secured. Your core, your life, secured and completely encircled by God.  Not a life that is not loosely hanging on to God by a thread, like a button that is about to fall off your shirt.  Rather a life that has him securely around it, encompassing all that it is.

Too often, many make God a part of their life. He is a section, piece, fraction, share, or small slice of who they are.  He doesn’t encircle everything about them, rather he is precariously attached, like a bumper dangling from the front of a car that has been in a wreck and about to fall off at any moment.

When our loins are girt, it means that God is our first priority.  He is our world, not just a part of our world.  Having our loins girt is similar to what Paul says in Ephesians, where he shares, “Put on the full armor of God” (Ephesians 6:11, NIV). It’s having God encircle all that we are.

Guide me to heaven with my lamp burning.

I love to hike.  One of my life goals is to hike all sixty-seven 4,000 foot mountains in New England.  Often when I go hiking, I’ll sneak up to New Hampshire the night before and camp out.  I’ll wake up well before dawn, take down my tent, and get an early start in hopes of getting to the summit of the first mountain by sunrise.  If I make it, the view at the top is majestic.  The challenge though, in making it to the top before dawn, is that it means I am hiking in the early morning dark. 

Honestly, hiking in the dark isn’t much fun.  In fact, it can outright dangerous.  The only thing that makes it doable for me is that I have a headlamp.  300 lumens of bright light strapped directly to my forehead.  Wherever I go, wherever I look, there is a bright white light guiding the way.  I see every root that would try to trip me and every hazard that would try to sneak up on me.  Honestly, when hiking at night, a light means the difference between arriving safely or not.

When the poet says he wants to make it to heaven with is lamp burning, he is saying he wants to make it with his life full of light.  He doesn’t just want to stumble into heaven like a lost hiker stumbling out of the woods, half turned around, and not sure of where he is at.  No, he wants to walk up to those gates with a lighthouse attached to his forehead guiding the way.  He wants to be confident as he walks through this dark world.  He wants to be able to avoid the roots, snares and other obstacles, that would easily trip someone up whose lamp is out, or who was foolish enough to try the journey without a light at all.

How do we have a bright light to guide us?  How does our life stay full of light?  The best way is to simply and passionately pursue Christ.  The Psalmist said it best in Psalm 18:28 when he said, “For You light my lamp; The LORD my God illumines my darkness.”

Guide me to heaven with my ear open to thy calls.

A majority of people sleep with their cell phone right next to them.

The average 18 to 24-year-old sends 2,022 texts per month, 67 texts on a daily basis, and receives another 1,831.

There are over 200 billion emails sent every single year.

Every 60 seconds on Facebook: 510,000 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded.

That’s a lot of calls, texts, emails and social media posts to keep up with.  One call, however, matters more than any other.  Regrettably, it is the one that so many of us always seem to miss.  Sometimes we let the other calls, and busyness of life, drown out the ring of the one call that matters the most.

John 10:27, shares Jesus’ words, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” 

Jesus speaks, the question is do we listen.Â

The poet always wants his ear to be open to God’s call, and not let anything else drown it out.

Guide me to heaven with my heart full of love.

My wife loves The Wizard of Oz.  Actually, I apologize, I just mistyped.  My wife LOOOVES! The Wizard of Oz. In the original, the Tin Woodman was once a real man with real love for a beautiful woman he hoped to marry.  The witch hated their love, so she cast a spell on him so that one by one his limbs had to be replaced with artificial tin limbs. The tin limbs allowed him to work like a machine. So with a heart of love for his maiden and arms that never tired, he seemed destined to win over the witch’s spell.

The witch, however, made Tin Man’s axe slip and cut himself in half, and though a tinner was able to fasten him back together again, he no longer had a heart and lost all love for the girl, and did not care whether he married her or not.

You probably know the rest of the story.  Caught in a rainstorm, the Tin Man began to rust, remaining in that spot until Dorothy came all the way from Kansas to rescue him and begin his journey to Oz.

In the book, the Tin Man tells Dorothy, “During the year I stood there I had time to think that the greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart. While I was in love I was the happiest man on earth; but no one can love who has not a heart.

I think there are a lot of people who have lost their heart.  Like the Tin Man, they are walking around without a heart and are unable to love.  Maybe they were hurt by someone.  Maybe life threw them a curve ball.  Maybe they feel betrayed by God.  Whatever the reason they are disappointed or disillusioned and have simply lost all heart and ability to love.

An empty bitter heart makes it difficult to make it to heaven, so the poet ask God to “Guide him to heaven with a heart full of love.”Â  He wants God to root out all the bitterness, anger, un-forgiveness, and replace it with His love.

Proverbs 4:23 warns against a hurting heart when it shares, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

Guide me to heaven with my soul free. 

There’s a story that has been told from Civil War days before America’s slaves were freed, about a northerner who went to a slave auction and purchased a young slave girl. As they walked away from the auction, the man turned to the girl and told her, “You’re free.”

With amazement, she responded, “You mean, I’m free to do whatever I want?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And to say whatever I want to say??

“Yes, anything.?

“And to be whatever I want to be?”

“Yep”

“And even go wherever I want to go?”

“Yes,” he answered with a smile. “You’re free to go wherever you’d like.”

She looked at him intently and replied, “Then I will go with you.”

God has set us free – free from sin, bondage, chains, and our past. In fact, Galatians 5:1 boldly proclaims, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

For those who follow Christ, we’ve been set free.  The question is what will we do with that freedom.  Will we, like the girl above, follow our rescuer? The poet declares that the freedom we have experienced should guide us to heaven and into a deeper relationship with Christ than ever before.

Guide me to heaven with my loins girt,
my lamp burning,
 my ear open to thy calls,
my heart full of love,
my soul free.

I donâ€t believe that God wants us to weakly limp through heaven’s gates.  I believe he wants us to burst through.  I donâ€t believe God is okay with the whole attitude of “just” making it to heaven.  I believe he wants us to passionately pursue a relationship with him.  No halfheartedness.  No 50/50.  No compromising.  No skimming.  No “just”making into heaven.

What do you believe though?  Are you okay with “just” making it into heaven? Are you okay with “just” getting by in your relationship with God? Or, are you like the poet that wants to make it in with his loins girt, lamp burning, ear open to his calls, heart full of love and soul freely following him?

(Note: This was only one stanza of the full prayer.  For the entire prayer, and other amazing Puritan prayers, see From Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions. Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1975.)