All Your Heart

1 Kings 17:20–22

That was some prayer. Elijah was not able to say, “Let this child’s life return to him, as it happened to Enoch, as it happened to Isaac, as it happened to Moses,” because there was no precedence for this particular miracle. So Elijah said, “Lord, I’m trusting You for a miracle. I’m asking You to perform the impossible.” He then waited. Everything, at that epochal moment of faith, rested in the Lord’s hands.

You may be in the process of placing your own life before the Lord in this way. Things are critical, and only a miracle can breathe new life into your situation. Circumstances are totally out of your control. So you take it to your special place, and, standing in the shadow of your God, you lay it out before Him, prostrating yourself before Him, pleading for His intervention, trusting completely in His miraculous power, refusing to lean on your own understanding.

Dr. Raymond Edman, in his little book, In Quietness and Confidence, writes about a godly man who faced just such a trial.

This is how he met it: He was quiet for a while with his Lord, then he wrote these words for himself:

  • First, He brought me here, it is by His will I am in this strait place: in that fact I will rest.
  • Next, He will keep me here in His love, and give me grace to behave as His child.
  • Then, He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends me to learn, and working in me the grace He means to bestow.
  • Last, in His time He can bring me out again—how and when He knows.1

Can you make these four statements? If you can . . . will you?

  1. I am here by God’s appointment.
  2. I am in His keeping.
  3. I am under His training.
  4. He will show me His purposes in His time.

By God’s appointment, in God’s keeping, under His training, for His time. What an outstanding summary of what it means to trust in the Lord with all your heart!

  1. V. Raymond Edman, In Quietness and Confidence (Wheaton, Ill.: Scripture Press, 1956), 63.
Taken from Great Days with the Great Lives by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2005 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson. www.thomasnelson.com

Posted in Encouragement & Healing and tagged .

Pastor Charles R. Swindoll has devoted his life to the accurate, practical teaching and application of God’s Word. He is the founding pastor of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas, but Chuck’s listening audience extends far beyond a local church body. As a leading programme in Christian broadcasting since 1979, Insight for Living airs around the world. Chuck’s leadership as president and now chancellor emeritus at Dallas Theological Seminary has helped prepare and equip a new generation of men and women for ministry.