History with God
What is God’s track record in your life?
Verse of the Day
For you have been my hope, Sovereign Lord , my confidence since my youth.
Today’s Devotional
There is power in having a history with God. Even if that history just started yesterday. Because He is God and He never changes, the best way to strengthen our hope is to focus on who God is and what he has done for us.
There is part of me that feels like it is selfish to praise God for everything that He has done for ME. But then I think about it. As a parent, I love it when my daughters recognize the things I have done for them. Not because I need their praise, or because I need them to like me. I enjoy it when they realize where the good things in their lives are coming from. It gives them an accurate perception of reality. Many of the “perks” they have in this world come from Mom and Dad. When kids don’t recognize that, they tend to get entitled and have a bad attitude.
Let’s translate that same line of thought to our relationship with God. When I don’t recognize all the times He has shown up in my life, I am probably going to lean towards entitlement (or fear, stress, and worry). It will be much easier to have a bad attitude about the world and my place in it. When I think that all of my worldly skills, abilities, and possessions came from my own efforts and hard work, my hope will end up being in myself and not in God. That’s prime time for reminding myself that pride goes before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18)
My hope for today is dependent on my accurate perception of reality. I can get this accurate perception during my times of solitude before God. He has provided for me in ways I don’t even know about. However, the ones I do know about need to be recorded so that I can go back and see God’s track record. (Hence the journaling. I feel like a broken record.) My husband had this exact experience recently when he looked back over some heavy issues from the last few years. During those times, he felt very discouraged and uncertain of the path God wanted him to take. Now that some of those have been resolved, it is easy to look back and see how God’s guidance directed our decision making. THAT’S the kind of history with God that can build your hope today.
There’s one caveat. If we choose to look back, I think we must also choose to acknowledge and praise. I hear people all the time say things like, “Well, that just happened to turn out for the best.” That kind of thinking, speech, and behavior is not only delusional, it’s not very good for hope building. Personally, I do not believe in coincidences. I don’t think things “just happen” a certain way. God has shown Himself to me to be involved in both the big picture that I cannot see and the minutiae that I can see.
Here’s where I’ve noticed some friction. It’s easy to look back and see how God has worked in my life in the past. It is also really easy to be in a tricky spot today and think, “What if He doesn’t show up this time?” It’s also pretty easy to not force myself to remember God’s track record in my life when I am so focused on the problems at hand. At this point, I have a choice. Do I remind myself of God’s faithfulness, or do I remind myself continually how big today’s problems are? Hope for today comes from looking at God’s faithfulness yesterday.
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
How has God shown up for you in the past?
What kind of history do you have with God?
What have you not given Him credit for in your life? How can you change that today?
How does remembering God’s faithfulness increase today’s hope?