Pleasant Stone Devotional Meditation: May 3

"Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am ..." ~ Isaiah 58:9a

Along with you, I [Eugenia Price, the author] love to sing "Standing on the Promises of God." And we can stand on His promises. But perhaps there is an even deeper truth we should see here. There is an even more comforting, more faith-building, more hopeful facet to this "blue stone" verse concerning those times of pain and grief and confusion when we call for God in our helplessness. These "blue stone" verses will, if we open ourselves to them, build the very fiber of our faith for us.

And so, early in this particular sharing, we must get this perfectly straight: God is greater than His promises! Please do not misunderstand. I am in no way lessening the value of His promises. But there are times when we are too ill to remember words. Times of grief and shock are so intense that words which constitute promises will not arrange themselves into a sentence whose meaning we can grasp. There are times when we are in too much physical pain even to remember that "God is love."

Sleepless nights following one another in a frantic parade can drive an arrangement of words from our memories, but always, under any circumstance we can remember a person. Perhaps not even the person's name. But always the "something" that makes one particular person distinguishable from another comes to mind. The sense of that person's life can be yours even when every promise is forgotten. God's promises are completely dependable. But if you forget the promises, He is always there.

"Thou shalt call, and the Lord shall answer .. Here I am. I will never leave the nor forsake thee."