Want to know how much you really rely on God? Here’s an easy way to find out: Where do you turn when something goes really wrong or when you’re facing something that you’d rather avoid?

Let’s say you’ve got a situation:

1. A truly horrible boss who’s about to send you on a boondoggle to Canada for a meeting you could do virtually. Meanwhile, your real work is piling up on a project that already is overdue.
2. An unemployed spouse who finally has a job offer… in another state. You’re more than grateful he has a real job prospect, but your support system – your lifeline – is where you currently live.
3. Young adult children who are making unbelievably bad choices and simply are not open to advice, but they are happy to accept cash.

Could be your situation is much less dramatic:

Hey, it’s Sunday night and you are less than thrilled to be facing another Monday morning trek to a tiny cubicle where you work for a complete jerk.

Where do you go with all that angst?

• Shopping?
•  Phone a friend?
•  Make an appointment with your therapist?
•  Get a massage?
•  Go out and get drunk?
•  Get laid?
•  Go into a shell and quit communicating with the people closest to you?
•  Have just a little bit of some substance – legal or not – to get you over the hump?

Or do you get on your knees or take a long drive or take a walk in the woods — or however you choose to get alone with God – and pour out your heart to Him?

When we have burdens, troubles, things that turn our world inside out, Jesus says: “Come to me…”

Our tendency is to go everywhere else and — when all other roads become dead-ends, as they invariably do – we come to Him as a last resort.

God wants to be our initial point of contact, the very first place we bring our stuff and unload. He wants us to turn to Him and to tell Him what we are facing and to ask for some help, some guidance. No matter how terrible things may seem, God’s plan for us is that we never throw up our hands and give up. We are to keep the faith and entrust our cares to Him: “Man ought always pray and not to faint.”

Coming to Christ in prayer is our safety valve in a pressure-cooker world. It won’t make all our problems go away, but it will give us the peace and the grace to endure. And some things, beloved, just have to be endured.

“Indeed we count them blessed who endure.” James 5:11 (NKJV)

So next time you’ve got a situation, who are you gonna call? Where are you gonna go? The songwriter said, “Where Could I Go But To The Lord.”