²Guide older men into lives of temperance, dignity, and wisdom, into healthy faith, love, and endurance.

Danie is struggling:

This last month has been a dark period in my life. It’s a daily struggle just to get through the day with storms raging inside me. I feel so alone, I feel completely swamped. I don’t know what lies ahead. 

I wake up in the morning feeling depressed – I woke up, why am I still here? Why hasn’t everything come to an end?

There’s nothing unique about my situation. It happens to so many other people every day all over the world and even worse things happen to others. But when you are informed at 47 that your services are no longer required and you stare down that dark tunnel of unemployment, it feels as if your whole world has collapsed. 

How am I going to take care of my family, how will I keep a roof over their heads, give them clothes to wear, food in their tummies, safe against the cold? In an instant, like a dam wall that breaks, the questions come rushing over you and you literally feel as if you’re drowning in complete helplessness.

But it’s not just the storms of life that are raging around him. Things between him and God are not so good either:

My relationship with God is a daily struggle, a fight, like a father and his know-it-all teenage son. A teenage son who is rebelling against everything his father tells him, a Father who knows what is the right thing to do. A teenage son who wants to follow his own mind and does what he wants to.

At one time or another we all go through similar seasons in our lives. Seasons when it feels as if everything is against us. One crisis after the other. It even feels as if God has turned his back on us.

I learn a lot from the way Danie is dealing with the crisis in his life:

I find solace in the knowledge that the Lord has a plan for my life, and had one long before even my grandparents lived. He knew I would be sitting here one day, lost, confused. 

I find comfort in the knowledge that God has not finished writing my book, not by a long shot. This part of my life is just one chapter that will be followed by another.

Even though it feels to Danie as if God is silent for now, he still holds onto his faith in his Creator. He believes that God will come through for him one time or another. Even though things aren’t making sense now, he knows this chapter will be finished some time. He believes that a new, better chapter is just around the corner, because his God remains in control.

It doesn’t matter how strong the winds are blowing around us, God will not abandon us. It doesn’t matter how big the storms are, God will always hold onto us.

Thanks for the lesson, Danie. Our faith in God must indeed be solid and unshakable.

Scripture
Titus 2:1-5

Reflection
How strong is your faith?
Will it withstand the storms?
What do you need to do differently?

Prayer
Father, I must confess my faith is a little shaky sometimes. Please help me to hold onto you more firmly, especially when things are hard. Amen.