Come to Me in your time of need

Author: Jennifer Roberts

I had an encounter with God that helped shape my understanding of Him

 

Several years ago, when I only had 2 children, I had an encounter with the Lord that helped shape my understanding of Him. I was running late to lead a prayer meeting and my 2 little girls were acting their age and making it a little difficult to move fast. I was feeling the pressure of being late for a prayer meeting that I was leading and my girls were still at an age that I needed to help them get dressed. I ran upstairs to get something and my oldest daughter had dumped out an entire box of cheerios out and began to tap dance on it because she liked the sound it made. Needless to say, I didn’t see the humor in the dancing on cheerios escapade.

 

I was getting more and more impatient and started snapping at my girls. “Hurry up girls!” “No! Don’t lick that!” “Let’s go mommy needs to lead a prayer meeting!” “NOW!!!!!”

 

I was breaking down. My girls were acting their age and I was not. I finally got them in the car and all buckled up. I began to sweat just above my lip and I was getting angrier and angrier. Now begins the bickering and hair pulling portion of the car ride. I lost it! I yelled at my girls so loud that it hurt my throat. I immediately felt terrible.

 

Now the girls are crying because their mommy was acting like a whack job and I was fighting tears because I felt like a total hypocrite. Shame was stinging my heart and the last thing I felt like doing was to go lead a prayer meeting.

 

We got to the prayer meeting and I dropped the girls off at the kid’s meeting and I walked into the prayer meeting late and covered in shame. I began to talk to the Lord about how awful I was and I was thinking about who should replace me because I clearly shouldn’t be leading prayer meetings until I could get myself under control.

 

When all of the sudden I had a mind’s eye vision. In the vision I saw the Lord seated on His throne and in front of Him was sparkling white carpet. The Lord said, “come to Me in your time of need”. I was arguing with Him about my unworthiness and He kept saying, “approach the throne of grace and come to me in your time of need”. Just then I looked down and saw that I had muddy boots on and knew I would ruin the carpet. He kept calling me to come and when I protested because of how dirty my shoes were He said, “I clean the carpet”. I realized He knew what He was doing when He called me. I RAN to Him instead of from Him. It was a life-defining moment for me in discovering more of the grace of God.

 

I discovered that day that I needed to make God my ally. He already knows my struggles and He wants to help me. It’s easy for me to slip into thinking I should know better and be over all of this by now. That cycle is ruthless. We weren’t intended to do it on our own. We really do need to go to Him in our time of need. He is the safest one for us to run towards, don’t deny yourself God.

 

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One Response

  1. Oh man… I just opened my email and this story was there. The title caught me, because I am in a place of struggle right now. TOTALLY relate to this story, and I TOTALLY needed this message tonight. Thank you!

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