Hypothetically speaking

"God cannot be faithful in your hypothetical."

Someone had said it to her in the middle of her sadness and now she was repeating the truth back to me.  It didn't even make sense to me at first, but she knew it would eventually and texted the words to me right in the middle of our appetizers so I wouldn't forget them later.

I haven't.  In fact, I have repeated them again and again.  As it turns out, He cannot be faithful in my hypothetical, because my hypothetical situations are not reality.  They are not a thing of substance, and I cannot possible fathom up God's sovreign care in situations that do not actually exist.  I am certain the Israelites did not picture the Red Sea pealing to each side as they approached water before them and an army behind. It is unlikely the Israelites would have supposed that God would save His people from an enraged giant with a small boy visiting the army with a lunch drop-off or that John understood how his life of locust-eating and prophesying would welcome in a world-changing Messiah.  I'm nearly certain the disciples had pictured a baby for a Savior or the cross and empty tomb as the throne and greatest conquest of their promised King.

It's just...He doesn't do what we expect.  When I summon up all the what-if's, it's nearly impossible that I can also imagine His manner of faithfulness to me in that dreamed-up situation.  Then I am only left with the situation without His care imagined in...and all that leaves is a great deal of fear.

 God doesn't expect me to be able to say, "Even if "x" happens, I KNOW that He will be enough.  I will be fine with that.  I will take it with grace and I KNOW that it will be okay."

He's given me grace for today.  For my situation.  He has not armed me with specific faith for tomorrow's challenge or someone else's particular pain.  I can, in fact, imagine up a thousand situations still that fill me with anxiety and doubt.

But everyday....every day in every situation, He has been enough.  I have known more solidly than I've known anything else in my life that, in that moment, He was enough all on His own.

I didn't summon up the ability to withstand yesterday.  There was grace.  I didn't drum up the faith to believe hard enough in Him today to make it through...His pervasive joy was just, well, pervasive enough to be as real as the sadnesss.  And so, tomorrow...He will be faithful.  There will be enough grace there too.  I 'm not sure what challenge I'll meet, and I don't have to.  I don't have to have enough faith to walk through every situation...just mine and today's.  That's all He's given me, so that's all I can have.  Faith is not something I can muster up or manufacture, but a gift given one day at a time.

So out of her own cup of sorrow, my friend poured out a bit of her healing that night over our shared appetizer plates.  Months later, I'm still sipping the truths.  It seems over and over and over again, the Lord has best reflected Himself in His people around me...and I fall in love with Him and them a little more with each reflection.