Crumbling Mountains

I was listening to a young man teach about God's faithfulness.  And he said many good, true things. 
"God keeps His promises.  God provides.  God is always with us."
Particularly poignant was the correlation drawn between Moses' question to God and Jesus' answer to Peter.  Two men were doubting and overwhelmed.  Moses, afraid of what the people were going to think of him, asked by what authority he should lead.  "Who shall I say sent me?"  The twelve year old girl next to me blurted out, "I AM!" and I looked over at her confidently nodding face.  The recorded words of God are, "I AM that I AM.  Tell them I AM has sent you."  Moses, faced with a bush that was burning but not consumed still needed more convincing before he stood before the Israelites and told them to follow him.
And the disciples, trapped in a boat on the lake in the middle of a storm they did not foresee were panicked as they recoiled from the dim, approaching figure. 
"Take heart.  It is I," was the reply to them from the Son of God who intimately walked, talked and dined with them.

It was teaching intended to strengthen and encourage.  But even as I assented, I struggled with these words from someone so young.  He recounted God's provision through tuition expenses and medical bills and early days of married life -- just enough at just the right time.  Rightly, he reviewed God's daily mercies as an act of praise.  And he urged his listeners to notice and record these times in each of our lives.  Because our stories prove God's faithfulness.

But what if they don't?
What if there isn't enough money to pay the bills to keep the house or car or electricity?  What if healing doesn't occur, or is incomplete?  What if it doesn't all work out in just the right way at just the right time?

I have been devastated by these questions.  They represent a chasm I can still fall into at almost any moment.  The only comfort for my doubt and fear and grief and pain and loss and emptiness and loneliness is to bow before God -- the great I AM. 
Regardless of the outcome, God is still God.  He is "...infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth."  I might lose everything, but His faithfulness continues -- through generations.  Whether I see it or not.

Recounting times of blessing is work that strengthens me, because I am an Israelite who needs an awful lot of convincing before I follow God's call out of slavery.  In my frailty I am prone to respond to Christ's presence in a storm as if there were an evil spirit approaching.  His words are, "Take heart.  It is I."  It was good to be reminded.
And sometimes He causes the winds to cease; He is able.

But He might not.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.