How to live in hostile environments and God’s promise to rescue us from them.
From the very beginning, after Adam and Eve committed the first sin of eating from the tree of knowledge for good and evil, we have been living in hostile environments. If it be from physical things of this world of fires, storms, and so one to simply being a Christian and calling Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. We how lived in these hostile environments with trust in knowing God will still provide and protect us while everything around us is trying to hurt us. One of the most hostile environments, other than Jesus’ death from betrayal, is the time Israel was a slave to Egypt for 400+ years. They faced persecution, hardships the slavery from the Egyptians and they were still prosperous and growing since God was with them in the midst of it. Jesus also lived in a hostile environment from people not believing in who he was and is to the point where he was betrayed and then killed for the statements he made and whom he claimed to be.
When we start living and proclaiming to be followers of Christ, we will face many and many persecutions from the world since the world wants us to submit to it. This can be anywhere from family, friends, strangers, to people in your workplace; wherever the world is present expect persecution. Once you start following God’s calling for your life, we are not promised that our issues will go away, if anything we are promised more issues since the world will try to get us to return to it. This is why trusting God to guide you through and protect you is especially crucial when it comes to staying secure in him and making him your rock. We may not know when the persecution ends and when he will take us and rescue us, all we know that is he will be there right with us guiding and protecting us. All we know is that we are promised that one day he will make it up to us as long as we remain faithful to what he is telling us to do. Your rescue might come in the form of a person starting something within your workplace or by you simply leaving and starting something else or you are being that person God wants to us to help those in need and removal of persecution.
We see this with Moses as he was thrown also into Israel’s persecution before he was even a couple months old. He was put in the river in order to be hidden, was rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter and then was called her own to be raised. All of this was so that God could use him in order to save Israel from their persecution from Egypt. You may be going through persecution in order to then rescue others from said persecution as well when your time has come to help God’s children out of it. Many and many times, when his children are facing persecutions and crying out to him for help, we see God not coming down himself or using fire and meteors from Heaven to save them. Instead, he sends them the most unlikely people to save them showing how God can use anyone and everyone regardless of status. We will face betrayal from those whom we thought we could trust with accusations and plotting in order to bring us lower. This is when we must remember that God is still in control and his solution might not be what we think it is.
God might have a better reason and purpose for us and as too why he is allowing people to get away with things and to make us look bad. We must not allow this to destroy our memories of what he has done for us and break the revelation God has given us about his character. Allow God to still reveal his character to you and allow you to see why he is allowing such a thing happen, it might take a while, but he will show you later on. In this we must trust his solution even though we may not grasp it immediately and ask him for the strength and guidance in it all. Going through all of this also requires us to remember and know who God is and what he is doing is for a greater purpose in our life.
God doesn’t allow thing to happen without a reason, be patient for him to reveal the answer to you and allow him to change everything. Being persecuted is scary and that fear is normal, however, we can bring it to God and ask him to give us the Spirit of strength and love. Ask him to remove the spirit of fear, overflow your heart and mind with strength, and ask for his love and forgiveness in return. Know that he is always with you and hears you cries to him for deliverance. Trust him always and know everything will be Okay, Amen!!!!