Imagine this story with me:

You’re a successful business person, with a young family, five children in fact! You have invested well and you have confidence in your investments. You are so blessed and fortunate! God is so good!

And then something happens…

You are heavily invested in real estate, but all of a sudden there is a huge fire and most of that investment burns to the ground, you loose a fortune! At the same time your young son dies. Where is God? What is happening?

You try to scrape up the mess, and thinking to help your family over this time you plan a vacation. It’s been difficult on everyone, you are drowning in grief and your family needs a break. You send them on ahead in a ship as you try to clean up more of this huge financial mess.

And then you get a message.

The ship has sunk.

Your children have died.

Your Spouse alone was saved.

You’ve lost everything.

Where on earth is God?

Devastated you follow in another ship to join your spouse. (This is the 1800’s, you can’t take a plane.)

In the middle of your voyage the captain calls you out on deck and tells you that he thinks they are currently passing where the ship that held your daughters had gone down. You are passing over their watery grave.

What would be your reaction in that moment?

Would you break?

Not many of us have ever been in such a position. Not many of us have lost almost everything that mattered to us. Most of us don’t know the horror of loosing one child, much less five. Sure, most of us have suffered loss, but to this extent? Still, many of us have asked the question, “Where are you God?”

Some of you might be familiar with the story I just told. You may have guessed where I was going with this from just the tital of this post! But for most the story is probably a new one.

Yes, the story is true, it’s about a Horatio G. Spafford, a successful attorney from Chicago in the 1870’s. He was heavily invested in real estate and lost a fortune in the great Chicago fire of 1871, his young four-year-old son died around the same time, and then in 1873 his four daughters were lost to shipwreck. His wife cabled him a message when she reached shore, “Saved Alone.”

Do you want to know what his reaction was? In that moment as he sailed over the place his daughters died? Do you want to know why his story is so amazing and enduring to me? Why it inspires me?

His reaction, my dear reader, was this: “It is well; the will of God be done.”

Would that be your reaction?

Would that be MY reaction?

Instead of questioning God, instead of railing in defiance, would you, when you have lost almost everything, or even everything, turn around and say, “It’s fine, it’s ok, God’s in control and whatever HIS will is, it’s ok by me.”

Would you really be ok with that?

I want you to think of everything and everyone that is precious to you right now. Now imagine God asked you to let go of all of it. Would you still love Him? If He took you away from your family, would you still love Him? If He asked you to forsake your good reputation, would you still love Him? If He asked you to give away all your money, would you still love Him? Would you still trust Him if He took away your spouse? Your child?

In Church a couple weeks ago our pastor talked about the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22. You know the one? The one where God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac?  It blew me away when my pastor pointed out that God was literally asking if Abraham was willing to do what God Himself WOULD do for us, to sacrifice his one and only son, whom he loved.

The thing is, one of the many reasons we can trust God even when He asks us to give up everything is because He already gave up everything for us!

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death- even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:5-8

The most any person can give is their very selves, it’s the most precious thing we CAN give, and it’s the gift God offers to us, His very self. For us He gives everything.

And yes, there may be a point that He asks us to give everything to, not because He is cruel, but because He is desperately trying to show the world His greatness through our lives so that no one may perish.

Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9b

We are God’s message to a lost world, it is through our lives that He reveals Himself to others. We are a story, a painting, and we have no idea how far our story might reach.

Horatio G. Spafford knew his children were safe in God’s arms. But beyond that he knew that he could trust God. Because of his faith his story became a testimony that touched many lives. Especially after he wrote a poem based on his words that he spoke on that ship, a poem that became the hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul.”

Let’s read this hymn together, and hear it’s message, past its old English language, and hear it’s heart. I think you will be inspired too.

It Is Well With My Soul

By Horatio G. Spafford

~

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

~

Refrain:

It is well, with my soul,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

~

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

Let this blest assurance control,

That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,

And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

~

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

~

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:

If Jordan above me shall roll,

No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life

Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

~

But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,

The sky, not the grave, is our goal;

Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!

Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!

~

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,

The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;

The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,

Even so, it is well with my soul.

~Joy Aletheia Stevens

Photo Credit: December Storm 007 by Oliver Clarke by (CC BY 2.0)    

Photo Credit: Woman and sunset by Luis Alejandro Bernal Romero (CC BY-SA 2.0)