Assurance is rarely found in places that feel sure

​A friend once told me a story about crossing paths with a stranger who was in obvious distress. She asked the stranger, "is there anything I can do to help you?"

The stranger responded, "would you please just tell me everything is going to be OK."

The woman didn't want to tell the stranger everything was going to be OK. How could she know that? But it was clear how badly the stranger wanted to hear those words, so she said them.

Everything is going to be OK.

And for at least a moment, the stranger looked like she believed it.

For a moment, the stranger was sure enough about her circumstances to stand firm in them. Because she, like us, simply wanted to feel sure about a circumstance that was overwhelming her with uncertainty.

If you think about it, that's what we're all in pursuit of one way or another, assurance that the story we're in is going to end OK.

Steven Furtick says, "faith is the willingness to abide in a place you don't fully understand the ramifications of."

The bible defines the word abide as 'continuing to be sure or firm.'

I would say it like this: faith is being sure that no matter how unsure you are about it, the story you are in is going to work out OK.

I frequently find myself in places I don't fully understand the ramifications of. Yet, more than ever, I stand firm. I stand with the assurance offered in the book of John in the bible.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

There's a lot of truth there when I measure those words against my life. I spent large chunks of my life putting my assurances in things of this world, desperately begging the world to tell me and make me feel like everything was going to be OK.

But as I bounced from assurance to assurance, person to person, destructive habit to destructive habit, self help book to self help book, the assurances were all fleeting.

None of them allowed me to stand firm.

Through all the bouncing, though, I heard a silent and nagging calling inside me, find your assurance in me.

Abide in me....

I am in a place these days I don't fully understand the ramifications of. Only, I no longer need to know them.

I live with the assurance that as long as this branch stays connected to the vine, I will bear fruit. And for a branch that's tried aimlessly connecting to a lot of different trees in life, only to walk away fruitless, that's all the assurance I need.

It's hard to find assurance in mystery, but I've found that's the surest place to find it.

It's where I discovered the power of faith.

A faith that willingness recognizes I don't, won't, and can't have all the answers, but I can stay connected to the one who does.