WALKING WITH JESUS MOMENT BY MOMENT

Tick…Tick…Tick…I sat in the hospital watching the clock. Just hours before that I was standing in front of a trauma doctor while he explained to Amber and I the seriousness of the car accident. Olivia was given almost a zero percent chance to survive and Emma’s status was still unknown. My heart and mind raced to even comprehend what I was hearing but what I did grab hold of was that it would literally be a minute-by-minute process.

So, my survival skills kicked in and I decided that I would count life in five minute blocks. At the end of one block I would say to myself, “the girls are still alive.” Then I would focus on the next five minutes. Literally, for the next five days I prayed and watched the clock, surviving from one five-minute block to the next. After 120 hours (five days) when we knew Emma would be ok, I shifted my focus to Olivia and extended the block to 15 minutes. For several weeks my minute-by-minute survival skills helped me through that time. As dysfunctional as that felt, I learned something, above and beyond developing a crazy habit of looking for clocks everywhere I went. I learned about God’s incredible, intimate care for each of His children in the minute.

Life becomes so fast paced at times that it zooms by, and we might go hours or days without realizing all God has done, even the little, complicated things of life. The ability to breathe, eat, and find rest are all blessings from God. The fact that you have a job, a home, friends or family are all gifts from God. So often we take those things for granted as provisions from God. In those provisions we forget God’s goodness and lean on ourselves. We actually believe we are high functioning, self-dependent beings. At least that is where I often find myself and I became painfully aware of it while sitting in an ICU waiting room.

How do you accept or receive God’s care for you daily? The minutes turned to hours and the hours to days while Olivia began her rehabilitation. We knew she would live, but would she ever walk, run or have a normal life? All those questions wove themselves amongst the hours that passed. The reality of life pushed our family’s dependence on God to whole new level. I will never forget something Olivia said while relearning to tie her shoes.

“Dad, I feel like God is teaching me that everything in my life is dependent on Him. I cannot even tie my shoes unless he helps me. I never want to forget how much I need him to help me in life.”

God tells us in Matthew 6: 24-26,

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Receiving God’s care for you daily means that you accept your dependence on Him. Making healthy disciples of Jesus requires that we live in an abiding walk with Christ. Remember we cannot give something to someone we do not have ourselves. In the midst of our family’s most painful times God was giving us what we needed. We were able to receive it, not because of what we could do, but only because we relied upon him. Sometimes in life the road becomes so difficult we just have to creep along minute by minute, literally waiting for the next breath of air. It’s in those moments of dependence we find out just how amazing our God is and the depth of his love and care for us. I pray that I never forget how much I need him.

This post originally appeared at: Walking with Jesus Moment by Moment – Relational Discipleship Network (rdn.org)