“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.”
— Psalm 56:3 ESV
My human was sitting on the porch this morning with his Bible in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
I was sitting beside him.
Not because I was worried about anything.
I’m a dog.
We generally don’t worry about tomorrow. We worry about whether somebody is going to share breakfast.
But I could tell my human’s mind wasn’t on his coffee.
He was staring out across the yard at the sunrise, and every now and then he would sigh.
I’ve learned that humans can be sitting in a perfectly quiet place and still have a whole thunderstorm going on inside their heads.
Sometimes life gets lonely.
You can be surrounded by people and still feel alone. You can wonder about work, money, relationships, the future, and all those things in between.
And when you’re alone, your mind has a funny way of filling the silence.
One “what if?” becomes another.
Before long, fear starts preaching a sermon of its own.
So I watched my human turn another page in his Bible.
And I listened.
He was reminded that faith doesn’t mean we never feel afraid. It means we know where to turn when we do.
David didn’t say, “I will never be afraid.”
He said, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.”
That’s different.
Faith isn’t pretending everything is okay.
Faith is knowing that even when everything doesn’t look okay, God is still God.
And for those of us who belong to Jesus, loneliness doesn’t mean we’ve been abandoned.
Jesus came into this broken world, lived among us, died for our sins, and rose again so that those who trust in Him could be reconciled to God.
That means the deepest answer to our loneliness isn’t simply trying to think more positive thoughts.
It’s remembering who is with us.
Jesus is Lord.
Jesus is Savior.
Jesus is the Son of God.
And He promised His followers, “I am with you always.”
Always is a pretty big word.
It means He is with us on the good days.
He is with us on the hard days.
He is with us when the phone rings and when it doesn’t.
He is with us when work is going well and when we’re wondering what comes next.
He is with us when the house is full and when the porch feels awfully quiet.
So maybe the lesson for me this morning wasn’t just that my human needed a dog sitting beside him.
Maybe it was that sometimes we need to stop listening to the voices in our head long enough to listen to the voice of God.
When fear starts talking, open the Bible.
When your mind starts racing, pray.
When you feel alone, remember Jesus.
And when you don’t know what tomorrow holds, trust the One who already holds tomorrow.
I’m still learning that.
Of course, I’m a dog.
I usually learn best with a treat nearby.
But my human?
He’s learning that being alone isn’t the same thing as being abandoned.
And neither of us is ever truly alone when we belong to Jesus.
Keep the Faith… Carpe Diem
