I Didn't Think Things Could Get Worse ... Now They Are
When her car skidded off the road down a mountainside in Montana with her kids in tow, Gari Meacham, wife of a former MLB player, realized the Devil was going to do everything in his power to take her out.
On an episode of Gutsy Faith, Meacham and her co-host, Carla Della Femina, walk through Paul’s journey in chapters 21, 22, 27, and 28 of Acts where his circumstances go from bad to worse to unbearable.
Meacham and Femina share three points to help shift from a worst-case scenario mindset of “what if” to an “even if” mindset of trusting God is bigger than the worst moments.
From starting churches, getting attacked by a mob of his own people, imprisoned, shipwrecked, and almost killed by a venomous snake, Paul earned the right to say, “I just can’t take it anymore!” But Paul persevered through his rock bottom moments in a completely opposite fashion.
In the middle of a terrifying and deathly two-week long storm enroute to Rome, Paul declares, “So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told” Acts 27:25, ESV.
Although there will be losses in life, Femina encourages, “in the middle of the mess, that’s exactly where God is.”
Meacham recalls a truth she lives by after the near-death mountainside experience when she thought her situation couldn’t get much worse, “your ‘one more thing’ may be the catalyst to somebody’s brand new beginning in Christ.”
When the devil has “unholy hunches” about the impact someone can make for God’s kingdom, then “[he] knows if he can take you out, he can take out everyone connected [to you],” Femina warns.
Although the enemy tries to silence believers’ influence in the world, they can get back up, turn Satan’s plans back on his head and leave the aroma of Christ exactly where the enemy wanted them to give up and fail.
If things are looking bleak and there’s no sign of change on the horizon, Meacham and Femina’s conversation reminds the struggling heart that just when one more hard thing is threatening to break them, God is working on something good and beautiful that far outweighs the impossible challenge of the mountain ahead.
This down to Earth episode compels all believers in a place they never thought they would be to work their way backwards, speak boldly about what God has done, and expect God to show Himself in the midst of the storm.
