It was a dark, moonless night. I was with two of my close friends in a boat near Catalina Island off the coast of California, ready to go free diving for lobster.
We were beginning to slow the boat down, discussing where we wanted to stop…and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in the intensive care unit at a Los Angeles hospital.
It had been 10 days since the accident, and I had no idea what had happened.
Evidently, we ran into an outcropping of rocks that we couldn’t see because it was so dark. Everyone onboard was injured. My injuries were the most life-threatening. I had bleeding on my brain, and a couple of arteries were leaking pretty profusely.
My throat was crushed and opened up wide, as was my chin.
I spent the next month in the hospital; and once I was released, I continued to be fed through a tube in my stomach, as I couldn’t eat or drink anything while my throat healed from the injuries.
While my accident was unique, I know that going through a traumatic experience like that isn’t.
Perhaps you or a loved one are dealing with an unexpected situation that is a severe trial for you…a life-threatening injury like mine, a sudden break in a close relationship, the death of a loved one, the loss of your job.
When faced with such a difficult circumstance, a lot of people are filled with questions. Others are filled with anger, shaking their fists at God and wondering, God, how could You let this happen?!
But I want to share what God taught me on my journey back to health—He keeps His promises.
Joshua, near the end of his life, gathered all the elders of Israel around him, and he said these words, as recorded in Joshua 23:14,
“Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.” (NIV)
Here in the 59th year of my life, I can say the same thing. Not one of God’s good promises has failed. I am alive today because of the promises of God and because of the faithfulness of the One who promised.
God’s promises are supernatural in that they connect us with His nature.
In 2 Peter 1:3–4, this is what God tells us:
His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
The promise is the pipeline that connects us to God’s nature, and it’s those promises that you can lean on when you hit hard times.
You can bet your life on it.
