A LEARNED RELIANCE

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us again. On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

2 Corinthians 1:8-11

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

We all find ourselves in places where we need to depend on someone else in a time of need. Live life long enough and you’ll find this to be true.

There’s only one problem with this.

It’s very hard to find someone you can always depend on to be there for you.

And so we often find ourselves in a quandary. We can’t always depend on ourselves and when we do need outside help, it’s hard to find.

So why does this happen? Why is life designed this way?

The answer is easy.

God wants us to depend on Him but unfortunately, this isn’t automatic for us. In fact, it seems like we want to use every other option first before we turn to God when it should be the other way around. Because of this, we find ourselves having to learn through experience to rely on Him.

As we turn to our scriptures today, we see the Apostle Paul testifying about his learned reliance on God after facing a multitude of threats and challenges during his missionary journeys. Look again at his words here:

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us again. On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.  2 Corinthians 1:8-11

Writing to the his “brothers and sisters” in the church of Corinth, we find Paul making sure the Corinthian Christians are informed about the troubles he and his entourage of missionaries experience in the “province of Asia”. There, they were “under great pressure” which was so great and unbearable that Paul said they “despaired of life itself” and felt as if they had “received the sentence of death”. That’s how severe things were.

But note that after careful consideration of the circumstances he had gone through, no doubt through the study of the scriptures and prayer, Paul came to understand that all that happened was for a reason, so that there would be a reliance on God and not himself. Through persevering in the midst of adversity, Paul learned to trust the Lord who had a history of delivering His faithful ones. The same God who had delivered the Israelite people from the clutches of the treacherous Pharaoh, bringing His people safely out of Egypt, was the same God who delivered Paul and his partners in ministry through deadly peril and He is the same God that continues to deliver us today from our hardships and calamities.

Seeing God’s hand working to bring deliverance while learning to rely on Him led Paul to ever more place his hope in the Lord who granted favor to answer the prayers of many who were lifting Paul up. He was buoyed up in faith, trusting that the God who delivered him before would deliver him time and time again.

This is what learned reliance looks like and it’s a place we all need to try and get to for in the end translation, there is no one more dependable for us than the Lord God Almighty. He and He alone has the power to help us through whatever life brings our way and for that, we should be eternally grateful.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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