Devotional.
Earlier this year I watched my sister-in-law get married in a church that's been standing since the 1100s.
Nearly a thousand years of prayers said within those walls. Generations of people who stood in the same spot and made the same vows. Two people standing before God, making promises they can only keep with His help.
But, weddings with toddlers are their own kind of adventure.
My two spent the day running around, having a whale of a time and making loads of noise.
Then lunch arrived, and most of it ended up on their outfits while I tried to do damage control before the photos...
Somewhere in the middle of that beautiful chaos, I managed to see and hear two people making a covenant. A promise to be faithful for better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.
It reminded me that God made that same promise to me.
Moses told the Israelites, "Know therefore that the Lord your God Himself is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness to a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments."
A thousand generations.
He was faithful in that church, where prayers have been lifted for nearly a thousand years. He was faithful to the people who walked those corridors before us. He has been faithful to me in seasons I wasn't sure I'd get through.
He was faithful then. He will be faithful now.
Maybe you're carrying something heavy today. Look back over the hard seasons you've already come through. He was with you in every one of them, even when it didn't feel like it.
The God who keeps covenant to a thousand generations is the same God walking into whatever comes next with you. His faithfulness does not expire. It does not depend on how you performed lately.
He was faithful then. He will be faithful now. And He will be faithful tomorrow.
Prayer.
Lord, You were faithful then, You will be faithful now, and looking back at Your track record gives me confidence for what I'm facing today.
Then was different circumstances, different challenges, different season, but the same faithful God who carried me through that is the God I'm trusting with this.
Teach me to let my history with You inform my faith today, to remember specific times You came through and let those memories strengthen my trust now.
Your faithfulness isn't selective or inconsistent, what You were then is what You are now, unchanging in character, constant in love, reliable in every season.
Help me catalog Your past faithfulness when present doubts arise, to build my case for trust on evidence of Your proven track record, not just on hope.
Remind me that every testimony of Your past faithfulness is a promise for my present situation, that the God who was faithful then hasn't changed.
Give me confidence that comes from experience, from having watched You show up before, from knowing that what You've done You'll do again because You're the same yesterday, today, forever.
Let me face today declaring He was faithful then, He will be faithful now, standing on proven ground, trusting tested truth, believing the same God shows up again.
In Jesus' name,
Amen.
