The only survivor of a shipwreck washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.  Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions.

But then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky. The worst had happened; everything was lost. He was stung with grief and anger. “God, how could you do this to me!” he cried.

Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue him. “How did you know I was here?” asked the weary man of his rescuers. “We saw your smoke signal,” they replied.

It is easy to get discouraged when things are going bad. But we shouldn’t lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of pain and suffering. Remember next time your little hut is burning to the ground–it just may be a smoke signal that summons the grace of God.

I refuse to be discouraged, To be sad, or to cry;
I refuse to be downhearted, and here’s the reason why…

I have a God who’s mighty, Who’s sovereign and supreme;
I have a God who loves me, and I am on His team.

He is all wise and powerful, Jesus is His name;
Though everything is changeable, My God remains the same.

My God knows all that’s happening; Beginning to the end,
His presence is my comfort, He is my dearest friend.

When sickness comes to weaken me, To bring my head down low,
I call upon my mighty God; Into His arms I go.

When circumstances threaten to rob me from my peace;
He draws me close unto His breast, Where all my strivings cease.

And when my heart melts within me, and weakness takes control;
He gathers me into His arms, He soothes my heart and soul.

The great “I AM” is with me, My life is in His hand,
The “Son of the Lord” is my hope, It’s in His strength I stand.

I refuse to be defeated, My eyes are on my God;
He has promised to be with me, as through this life I trod.

I’m looking past all my circumstances, To Heaven’s throne above;
My prayers have reached the heart of God, I’m resting in His love.

I give God thanks in everything, My eyes are on His face;
The battle’s His, the victory is mine; He’ll help me win the race.

There is a loneliness about this place … this place of my choosing. Surrounded by the things of life, I have suddenly come face to face with the solitariness of life. One person, one life, one place, one God, one moment in time-solitary, alone, yet not alone.

God has chosen his way of filling this place and this space in my life with the “ordinariness” of life. How long has it been since I lost the sense of the wondrous, magnificent works of God? How long has it been since I have been excited about what God is doing before ray very eyes? How long has it been since God became ordinary?

How strange that the sun should become ordinary to me, that clouds, and rain, and snow, and sunshine have become common, pedestrian fare.

How strange that God should choose to speak through naked branches having neither bud nor bloom, that God should choose to utter sounds through rivers and streams frozen in place, in icicles glittering
promises of still more winter, still more discontent.

Or that God should choose to brave speaking through the commonplace roads of my existence and has made them icy, slippery, impassable, treacherous … sending me off in unknown directions, sliding, sometimes falling, meeting new hurt-in peculiar places. How strange of God to speak through the ordinariness of life. How strange.

I do not know  why I am here. I do not know what I am to do here. More to the point, I do not know how I got to this place, which is so far from where I started out, so far from the destination to which I was determined to go. I only know that I must follow that Voice, the Voice that speaks in tones that I am familiar with, tones that I have so often failed to listen to and failed often to understand or obey.

Could it be that I am in this lonely place, this solitary space, to wait again for the Empowering Presence?… to wait again for the Call that I alone am burdened to hear? … to wait again for that purifying, energizing, frightening fire that burns within?

I need to feel it again. I need to know that God’s fire is my fire. I desperately need to know that my loneliness is not permanent and that my solitariness is filled with the awesome purposefulness of God.

This moment, this hour, this time is not mine, it belongs to God. I am now wholly alone, wholly vulnerable, wholly available. Come, Holy Spirit, with wind and fire. Let your breath blow anew in my life. Penetrate my soul and my personality with the power of your touch. Broken, humbled, frightened, unsure of today and tomorrow … only sure that you are there. Come, Holy Spirit, use me now! Let the fire burn!