Trusting A Worthy God

“By the breath of God ice is given, and the broad waters are frozen fast. He loads the thick cloud with moisture; the clouds scatter his lightning. They turn around and around by his guidance, to accomplish all that he commands them on the face of the habitable world. Whether for correction or for his land or for love, he causes it to happen.” – Job 37:10-13

“Once we give ourselves up to God, shall we attempt to get hold of what can never belong to us--tomorrow? Our lives are His, our times in His hand, He is Lord over what will happen, never mind what may happen. When we prayed "Thy will be done," did we suppose He did not hear us? He heard indeed, and daily makes our business His and partakes of our lives. If my life is once surrendered, all is well. Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine! Today is mine. Tomorrow is none of my business. If I peer anxiously into the fog of the future, I will strain my spiritual eyes so that I will not see clearly what is required of me now.” - Elisabeth Elliot

O Lord, let my trust forever be in You. May I not try to foolishly grab the cares of my life back once they have been surrendered to You. When I read Job 37 I am once again amazed at how mighty and majestic You are for You “thunder wondrously with Your voice, and do great things that we cannot comprehend” and “by Your breath ice is given, and the broad waters are frozen fast.” Yet in spite of being Creator of the universe and controlling the waters with Your breath, which shows Your power, You are still concerned with the details of Your children’s lives. You sent Your Son to save me and loved me first, so I will trust in You. Thank You for the truth that no matter what else happens in life, my greatest need has already been met…the need for a savior. Accomplish Your will in my life. Amen

“And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord,

have not forsaken those who seek you.” – Psalm 9:10

Doing Him Good All The Days Of My Life...

I have been thinking about the verse in Proverbs 31:12 “She does him good, not harm, all the days of her life.” It’s true that this verse is speaking about the Proverbs 31 woman’s husband, but I think it can apply to our relationship with God as well. It says she does him good “all” the days of her life, not just the days after she got married. This includes past, present and future days. So, that of course led me to question if I am doing God good with the way I am living my life? Am I redeeming the time He has given me and living purposefully? Am I preparing myself for what the Lord may have for me in the future or am I selfishly just floating along waiting for what I think will be the next best thing? Ten years from now would I be able to stand before the Lord or a husband the God may have for me and say that I have lived faithfully and have done them good and not harm? These questions have sobered me and I realize that I often fail to “live”. To really “live” in the good of where God has me. I can sometimes categorize my life into sections or what I call “seasons”, but God has called me to be concerned about today and not tomorrow. Just because things may not be going the way we think they should, doesn’t mean we are to stop living our life to wait for something better. God has given us our lives to live for His glory…when will I rise to the occasion? C.S. Lewis says it this way about the interruptions of life,

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight: but it’s hard to remember it all the time.”

God is calling me to do the next thing. Why put off until tomorrow what I can do today? And why put off becoming and doing the best? I want to do good and not harm for the Lord and all those He has placed and will place in my life. I want walk out my days carefully, making the best use of my time. Doing this will mean saying no to a lot of things, but when we say no to one thing, we can say yes to something else and that may be God’s best for us.

“Many a questioning, many a fear,

Many a doubt, hath its quieting here.

Moment my moment, let down from Heaven,

Time, opportunity, guidance, are given.

Fear not tomorrows, Child of the King,

Trust them with Jesus, ‘DO THE NEXT THING.’

Do it immediately; do it with prayer;

Do it reliantly, casting all care;

Do it with reverence, tracing His Hand

Who placed it before thee with earnest command.

Stayed on Omnipotence, safe ’neath His wing,

Leave all resultings, ‘DO THE NEXT THING.’”

--author unknown

To do this means getting practical. Carolyn Mahaney suggests setting aside a time to pray about and plan a list of priorities that you believe the Lord would have you work on. Here is a sample list that she created for herself.

“List of Priorities:
• Grow in godliness.

• Love my family.

• Serve in the church.

• Fellowship with Christians.

• Evangelize non-Christians.

• Attend to my work.

• Care for my physical health.
Once you’ve listed your priorities…evaluate yourself, prayerfully going through the priorities one at a time. Under each category, assess how you are doing—what is going well and what needs to change. Then consider how you can grow in that key area in your life.” – Carolyn Mahaney

So, all of this is the latest thing the Lord has brought to my attention. I know for myself I will most likely need help in creating my list of priorities from my parent’s. They have an outside perspective that I don’t have on my life. I know I will fail in doing good many, many times from this day on, but I know the Lord is faithful to help and sustain and my prayer is to be able to say I have done the “next thing” and done it for God’s glory. I want to prepare myself for the present and the future.

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” Ephesians 5:15-16

Unanswered Prayers

"His purpose concerning us is not to make things easy for us

—but to make something of us."- J.R. Miller

"There are times when God seems to be silent to us. To our earnest supplications, he answers not a word. We are told to ask and we shall receive—to seek, and we shall find—to knock, and it shall be opened unto us. Yet there come times when we ask imploringly, and seem not to receive; when, though we seek with intense eagerness, we seem not to find; when we knock until our hands are bruised and bleeding, and there seems to be no opening of the door. Sometimes the heavens appear to be brass above us, as we ask, "Is there anywhere an ear to hear our pleadings? Is there anywhere a heart to feel sympathy with us in our need?"Nothing is so awful as this silence of God—to feel that communication with him is cut off. It is a pathetic prayer in which a psalm writer pleads: "Be not silent to me, lest I become like those who go down into the pit." Anything from God is better than that he be silent to us."-Miller

God is teaching me a lot about His character right now. Last night I heard a message that spoke of God being our "Keeper". Like a shepherd tends to his flock and would even lay down his life for his sheep, so God does with us. Anything in our life is there because He allowed it to be there. Nothing snuck in when God wasn't looking, but He has sovereignly allowed it. This led me to think about my prayers. There have been many times where I have legalistically approached prayer and when I didn't think my prayers were being answered I was tempted to think that I must have prayed the wrong way. But God doesn't work like that. Everything God does has a purpose, even silence. I am learning trust and patience in a lot of things right now and prayer is one of them. J.R. Miller wrote a wonderful article on prayer that truly helped to encourage me and give me fresh hope and faith in God's character and plan.

Miller's above words describe how I have felt many times. Times when I have felt that cry out to God as I might, there was no answer. I never became angry as a result of this, just lonely, desperate and confused. But these feelings are not informed by truth, because even though I may not perceive it, may prayers are being answered all around me. We sometimes expect the answer to prayers to come with pomp and blare, but they often come silently and ease into our lives. God's answers to our prayers are always for our good and His glory. I've included parts of Miller's article below. I don't even have the word to explain what God has spoken to my heart through Miller's words...I only know that God is confirming His love and care for me more and more everyday and I want to honor that love and care by living like I trust Him. It may be a moment by moment battle for me, but it's one I want to fight. " Lord, grant me the patience to wait on Your timing and trust in Your answers."

"We find ourselves in the midst of circumstances which appear adverse to our happiness and good. We seem about to be crushed by sorrows, by disappointments, by trials, or by antagonisms. We pray to be saved from these distressful conditions. No answer seems to come. The shadow deepens; the blows fall. We sit in the darkness, and say that God did not answer our prayers. We are unaware of the blessing that really came to us in the time of our pain. The cup of suffering was not taken away; but we were secretly strengthened, so that we were able to drink it. Thus, there is a large field of praying in which answers come—but come unrecognized. We have been blessed, although we knew it not. We did not perceive the blessing when it was given to us. We did not understand that the good things we were receiving so plentifully, were answers to our prayers. We thought God was not heeding our requests, when really he was giving us abundant answer every day!

But there are other prayers that really are not answered. God is silent to us when we ask. Yet there is a reason for his silence. It is better we should not have the things we want and plead for. For example, we ask God to lift away our burdens. But to do this would rob us of blessings which can come to us only through the bearing of the burden; and our Father loves us too well to give us present ease—at the cost of future and eternal good. There are mistaken notions current about the way God promises to help us. People think that whenever they have a little trouble to endure, a bit of hard path to go over, a load to carry, a sorrow to meet, or a trail of any kind—all they have to do is to call upon God, and he will at once deliver them, take away the burden or the sorrow which threatens, free them from trial. They think that is what God promises to do. They imagine that when anything goes a little wrong with them, all they have to do is to pray, and God will set it right. But this is not the manner of God's love. His purpose concerning us is not to make things easy for us—but to make something of us.

So when we pray to God to save us from all care, to take the struggles out of our life, to make the paths mossy, to lift away all loads—he simply will not do it. It would be most unloving in him to do so. Prayers of this kind, therefore, go unanswered. We must carry the burden ourselves. God wants us to learn life's lessons, and to do this, we must be left to work out the problems for ourselves. There are rich blessings that can be gotten only in sorrow. It would be a short-sighted love, indeed, that would heed our cries and spare us from the sorrow because we cried for this, thus depriving us of the wonderful blessings which can be gotten only in the sorrow.

There is yet another class of prayers which appear to be unanswered—but whose answer is only delayed for wise reasons. Ofttimes we are not able at the moment to receive the things we ask for. Or it may be that the things we pray for cannot be given to us until they have been prepared for us. Suppose you were to plant a young fruit-tree, and were to begin to pray for fruit from its branches; could your prayer be answered at once? It is thus with many things we ask for in our pleading—they must be grown before they can be given to us. God delays to answer, that he may give us in the end, better things than could have been given at the beginning. He seems silent to us when we plead; but it is not the silence of indifference, nor the silence of refusal—but the silence of love, which really assents to our request, and sets about preparing for us the blessings we crave. We need only patience, to wait our Father's time.

Here it is that ofttimes we fail. We cannot wait for God. We think he is indifferent to us, because he does not instantly give us what we crave. We fret and vex ourselves over the unanswering of the very prayers which God is really answering, as speedily as the blessings can be made ready for us, or as we can be made ready to receive them. We should teach ourselves to trust our Father in all that concerns our prayers—what he will give, what he shall withhold, and the time and the manner of his giving. The prayers may have been answered in ways in which we did not recognize our requests. They may be, indeed, unanswered, because to answer them would have been unkindness to us, or would have wrought hurt to others. Or the answers may have been delayed until we are made ready to receive them, or while God is preparing them for us."

Has Your Forever Been Changed?

What does “Forever” mean? It means without ending, always existing, perpetual and ceaseless. For something as important as “Forever”, it’s pretty obvious that whatever that is going to be is worth thinking over. Why the sudden pondering of this word? Well as I drove to work this morning, a song was playing and our kind God took one line from that song and pierced my heart with it. “And to know that your forever has been changed.” There is only one true place of “Forever” and that is where we'll be after we die. Will someone’s “Forever” be with God or eternally separated from Him? My “Forever” was set. I was running as fast as I could to a “Forever” away from God. But God in His rich mercy picked me up and gave me a new life. One spent with Him. My “Forever” has been changed. Now every day I live has a new direction, a new purpose, new joys, new challenges, new loves. This new “Forever” affects everything. It changes our convictions, our desires, jobs, places we live, relationships, current marriages and future ones. All is now done for the glory of the One who has saved us and with a view of where we are headed. Until God saves us we are all headed down a destructive path to “Forever”, but because God sent His Son to die for our sins we can be forgiven and have the hope of living with Him in eternity. Isn’t God good to redirect us to something better than we deserve or can imagine? I pray I will not live like I am still headed toward the world’s “Forever”, but that I will strive to live in light of eternity.

“The deepest longing of your heart is for one person and one place. Jesus is that person. Heaven is that place. A thousand counterfeits vie for your attention, trying to convince you that they are what you’re looking for. But you’ll never find true satisfaction with what the Shadowlands of this world have to offer. What you really crave can only be found in the land of substance: heaven.” – Randy Alcorn

Fearing God Is Trusting God...

Fear of the Lord has been a theme God keeps bringing up in my life as of late and the truth is...it has been severely lacking. Without fear of the Lord, any wisdom I thought I might have had is overridden because scripture is clear that the beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord. (Proverbs 9:10) Carolyn McCully puts it this way,

"Being conscious of God's approval or His displeasure is what the Bible calls "fear of the Lord." It means to be in awe of, or to respect, more than merely to be afraid. Conversely, what we now call peer pressure, people-pleasing, or co-dependency is what the Bible calls "fear of man." In a nutshell, the fear of man can either be a fear of what others think of us or will do to us, or a craving for approval and a fear of rejection."

When I was younger I struggled with fear of man, but I hadn't really thought it was an area I still needed help with, but the heart is deceitful right? In relationships, a lack of fearing God will quickly manifest itself. If I am trying to control the way a friendship should go, being concerned about someone rejecting me or craving their good opinion more then God's, then my view of man is big and my view of God is small. If I truly fear and trust God, I don't need to be worried about whether a friendship will last or if they think well of me, because God is in control of who He wants in our lives. Only God can completely satisfy. Not our parents, siblings, friends or their good opinions.

"What is it that shame-fear and rejection-fear have in common? To use a biblical image, they both indicate that people are our favorite idol. We exalt them and their perceived power above God. We worship them as ones who have God-like exposing gazes (shame-fear) or God-like ability to "fill" us with esteem, love, admiration, acceptance, respect, and other psychological desires (rejection-fear).... Like all idols, people are created things, not the Creator (Rom. 1:25), and they do not deserve our worship. They are worshipped because we perceive that they have power to give us something. We think they can bless us."- Ed Welch

Proverbs 29:25 "The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe."

When we fear and trust in anything other than God, we are in essence slapping Him in the face and telling Him that we know He loves us, but it just isn't enough. We know He supplies all our "Needs", but we have some "Wants" that we desire right now. True fear of the Lord will manifest itself in our hearts, minds and actions. It will help us say no to sin and yes to righteousness.

"The most radical treatment for the fear of man is the fear of the Lord. God must be bigger to you than people are.... Regarding other people, our problem is that we need them (for ourselves) more than we love them (for the glory of God). The task God sets for us is to need them less and love them more." - Ed Welch

Fear of man may look different in everyone's life, but the root of the matter is still the same. Most sins start with the breaking of the first commandment, not to have any other gods before the Lord. But even after having broken this commandment more times then I can count, God in His patience and mercy always directs my gaze back to Him. If we failed to fear and trust God yesterday, there is good news...we can start today! God is kind to give us promises as well. Proverbs 29:25 doesn't just give us a warning, but it gives us the promise, "but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe." That is an all encompassing safety. Our lives, hearts, minds, hopes, dreams and salvation are all safe when they are in God. When we fear God, we trust him.

Bleeding God's Sovereignty

Why is it that we often first notice the hard and imperfect things in life? The good and beautiful out number the bad by hundreds, but we sometimes forget that fact. If we could actually see the big picture, we would often find that the things we deem as unlovely God deems as perfect in accordance with His will. The following story that Elisabeth Eliot shared on her website was deeply convicting and inspiring to me. I especially love the part that speaks of living, trusting and loving God in spite of hardship and how a watching world would see that and say “How great their God must be to inspire this kind of loyalty." I hope that God and the world will see me as loyal and always trusting in Him. When I am bruised, broken and cut by the trials that are sure to come in this life, may I bleed the sovereignty of God and may others say, “How great her God must be”.

Title: There Are No Accidents
Author: Elisabeth Elliot

My friend Judy Squier of Portola Valley, California, is one of the most cheerful and radiant women I know. I met her first in a prayer meeting at the beginning of a conference. She was sitting in a wheel chair, and I noticed something funny about her legs. Later that day I saw her with no legs at all. In the evening she was walking around with crutches. Of course I had to ask her some questions. She was born with no legs; she had artificial ones which she used sometimes, but they were tiresome, she said (laughing) and she often left them behind. When I heard of a little baby boy named Brandon Scott, born without arms or legs, I asked if she would write to his parents.

She did: "The first thing I would say is that all that this entails is at least one hundred times harder on the parents than the child. A birth defect by God's grace does not rob childhood of its wonder, nor is a child burdened by high expectations. Given a supportive, creative, and loving family, I know personally that I enjoyed not a less-than-average life nor an average life, but as I've told many, my life has been not ordinary but extra-ordinary.

"I am convinced without a doubt that a loving Heavenly Father oversees the creative miracles in the inner sanctum of each mother's womb (Psalm 139), and that in His sovereignty there are no accidents.

"'What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Creator calls a butterfly.' As humanity we see only the imperfect, underside of God's tapestry of our lives. What we judge to be 'tragic--the most dreaded thing that could happen,' I expect we'll one day see as the awesome reason for the beauty and uniqueness of our life and our family. I think that's why James 1:2 is a favorite verse of mine. Phillips' translation put it this way: 'When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my brothers, don't resent them as intruders but welcome them as friends.'

"I love Joni Eareckson Tada's quote. When I saw it on the front of Moody Monthly, October 1982, I was convinced she'd penned the words for my epitaph. Now my husband David is aghast to hear me say I want it on my tombstone! Glory be!

People with disabilities are God's best visual aids to demonstrate who He really is. His power shows up best in weakness. And who by the world's standards is weaker than the mentally or physically disabled? As the world watches, these people persevere. They live, love, trust and obey Him. Eventually the world is forced to say, "How great their God must be to inspire this kind of loyalty."

"Being Christian didn't shield my family from the pain and tears that came with my birth defect. In fact, ten years ago when David and I interviewed our parents for a Keepsake Tape, I was stunned to hear my mother's true feelings. I asked her to tell the hardest thing in her life. Her response: 'the day Judy Ann was born and it still is....' And yet when we as a family look back over the years, our reflections are invariably silenced by the wonder of God's handiwork. Someday I hope to put it in a book and I know it will be to the glory of God.

"Getting married and becoming a mother were dreams I never dared to dream, but God, the doer of all miracles intended that my life be blessed with an incredible husband and three daughters. Emily is nine, Betsy will soon be seven, and Naphtalie Joy is four. I've decided that every handicapped person needs at least one child. They are fantastic helpers and so willing to let me 'borrow their legs' when I need help.

"You as a family have been chosen in a special way to display His unique Masterwork. I pray that your roots of faith will grow deep down into the faithfulness of God's Loving Plan, that you will exchange your inadequacy for the Adequacy of Jesus' resurrection power, and that you will be awed as you witness the fruits of the Spirit manifested in your family."

The Path Of Happiness...

SAFE WALKING – John MacDuff

"All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies." —Psalm 25:10

The paths of the Lord! My soul! never follow your own paths. If you do, you will be in danger often of following sight rather than faith—choosing the evil, and refusing the good. But "commit your way unto the Lord, and He shall bring it to pass." Let this be your prayer, "Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths." Oh! for Caleb's spirit, "wholly to follow the Lord my God"—to follow Him when self must be sacrificed, and hardship must be borne, and trials await me. To "walk with God"—to ask in simple faith, "What would You have me to do?"—to have no will of my own, but this, that God's will is to be my will. Here is safety—here is happiness. Fearlessly follow the Guiding Pillar. He will lead you by a right way, though it may be by a way of hardship, and crosses, and losses, and privations, to the city of God. Oh! the blessedness of thus lying passive in the hands of God, saying "Undertake for me God!"—dwelling with holy gratitude on past mercies and interpositions—these as pledges of future faithfulness and love—hearing His voice behind us, amid life's many perplexities, exclaiming, "This is the way, walk in it!" "Happy," surely, "are every people who are in such a case!" Happy, Reader! will it be for you, if you can form the resolve in a strength greater than you own: "This God shall be my God forever and ever; He shall be my Guide even unto death!"

I thought this devotional by MacDuff was a provoking and encouraging one. Day after day, month after month, year after year, God seems to be driving home the point that He truly is trustworthy and we can walk safely with Him. When our will is His we can have no fear of our desires or hopes not coming to pass, for He will accomplish His will in all things and glorify Himself. God has loved us with an everlasting love and is continually drawing us to Himself. As long as we walk on His path no harm will come to us…it is when we stray from His ways that we are in real danger. O Lord, keep me close to You and keep me walking on Your path. That is where I long to be.