He Leads Me

by William S. Plumer

"The Lord is my Shepherd; there is nothing I lack. He lets me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters." Psalm 23:1-2

He leads me. I certainly need someone to lead me. I am so poor, so blind, so weak, so foolish that, if left to myself, I would fatally err. Lord, never leave me nor forsake me, lest I be undone. My Shepherd leads me gently and wisely. He makes no mistakes. He knows the way I ought to go. He knows how much sweet and how much bitter, are best for me. He understands me fully. Oh, how He mingles mercy with judgment! True, He leads me often in a mysterious way. I see not the end from the beginning. I cannot see afar off. His footsteps are in the sea; clouds and thick darkness surround Him. He gives account of none of His matters. His judgments are a great deep. But He never does wrong. He leads me in the paths of righteousness. He leads me always--in prosperity and in adversity; in joy and in sorrow. If He left me even for an hour I would be undone. When I sleep, You, Lord, keep vigil over me. When I awake, I am still with You. On the land and on the sea, I am kept by Your mighty power. He leads me--and I will follow Him. I will put my hand in His--and go wherever His prudence shall direct.


"Teach me your way, O Lord; lead me in a straight path." Psalm 27:11
"From the ends of the earth I call to You, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." Psalm 61:2

I thought this piece by Plumer was so encouraging. It really blessed me this morning and helped to give me fresh perspective on God's goodness and leading. It is true that I may not be able to see the beginning from the end concerning a lot of things, but He is Always faithfully guiding me. How comforting! It's up to me to trust.

What should move God to love us?

by Thomas Brooks

The free favor and love of God, the good will and pleasure of God--is the true ground and cause of God's bestowing of Himself as a portion upon His people. There was no cause,nor loveliness, nor desirableness in them--which could move God to bestow Himself upon them. God, for the glory of His own free grace and love, has bestowed Himself as a portion upon those who have deserved to have theirportion among devils and damned spirits--in those torments which are endless, ceaseless, and remediless. But what should move God to love us, who were so unworthy, so filthy, so empty, so beggarly? The question may be resolved in these words--He loves us because He loves us. The root of all divine love to us, lies only in the bosom of God.

Certain Paths

"You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy."-Psalm 16:11)

This morning as took my usual tour around my morning websites I visit, I pulled up the Boundless site as is my custom. The article today was titled "The Emmaus Road Adventure" by Elisabeth Adams and the tag line underneath it read, "If you're a detective-story fan, you may also have noticed that sometimes the smallest of facts becomes the most important of clues."

For whatever reason it didn't sound very interesting to me, but somehow I still felt compelled to open the article even though I didn't want to and had no idea what it was about. I'm glad I did. You see, discerning the will of God has always seemed like one of the most difficult challenging things for me. I know I make things way more intense and complicated than I should and over the years God has been helping me grow. Once again in His kindness, He provides yet another means of instructing me how to walk out daily life and decisions concerning His will through the very article on Boundless that I almost passed by. Here are some excerpts from the article, but it is definitely worth reading the entire thing!

"I used to think that guidance would come like a lightning bolt: one day (or even moment) I wouldn't know God's will for me, and the next, I would. Well, yes and no. The Hebrew word translated "acknowledge" in the above verse actually includes seeing, recognizing, making myself known to and intimately knowing my God. His guidance is often much slower than I'd wish, but it is certain.

Have you ever read a detective novel? As the story progresses, clue piles upon clue, until the last puzzle piece is finally fitted into place, and the conclusion is unmistakable. That's the adventure of seeking God's will.

But what does it look like in everyday life? It often means praying, and then using my God-given common sense: I set my sails towards His wind, and assume He is blowing me in the right direction. For weightier decisions, taking a day of fasting can be a great help. The point isn't to make myself miserable, but to acknowledge that only one of us in this relationship is omniscient – and it isn't me. It also gives me time to ask God questions and to quiet my heart for His reply.

Often I won't receive an answer right away, but if I stay tuned in during the next hours, days and weeks, I begin picking up clues. In the pages of the Bible. In the middle of a church service. Through the advice of a mentor or friend. By unfolding circumstances. With an inexplicable, but unshakable peace in my heart. Sometimes, though much less often than I'd like, through His voice. (I imagine that's because He would rather I had another chance to practice trusting Him)."

-Read full article at http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001938.cfm

View Of Faithfulness

It's the beginning of another year and my thoughts inevitably go to the previous one. Sadly, my mind first recounts all the dark spots. All of my sin, the trials, frustrations and the list could go on. I say sadly, because even though there were deep and dark times that pain and grieve me, my thoughts SHOULD automatically go to the truth of God's faithfulness. Like the words of a favorite song say, season by season I should be amazed and in awe of the mystery of God's perfect ways. Yes, I can hope that this year I can watch my life and doctrine more closely, that I experience more victories than defeats, more joys than sorrows, but though I have no idea about the outcome of any of these things, there is one absolute that I can count on...God's faithfulness. I know that it honors God far, far more when I dwell on all He's done, rather than on all I've failed in, endured and suffered through (which has been small). I have regrets about last year and things I did or didn't do...I think everyone could say that in some way or form, but there are also times when I have no memories of regret and that's when I chose to follow God and trust in His hand. I'm praying for more of those moments this year! So, remembering last year as being bad or good isn't dependent on what did or didn't happen, it's dependent on a right perspective. With a perspective focused on God and the gospel, we will always be able to say that even the worst day was great or at least, better than we deserve.

"O Lord God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O Lord, with your faithfulness all around you?" - Psalm 89:8

Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me

Morning by morning I wake up to find

The power and comfort of God’s hand in mine

Season by season I watch Him, amazed

In awe of the mystery of His perfect ways

All I have need of, His hand will provide

He’s always been faithful to me.

~

I can’t remember a trial or a pain

He did not recycle to bring me gain

I can’t remember one single regret

In serving God only, and trusting His hand

All I have need of, His hand will provide

He’s always been faithful to me.

~

This is my anthem, this is my song

The theme of the stories I’ve heard for so long

God has been faithful, He will be again

His loving compassion, it knows no end

All I have need of, His hand will provide

He’s always been faithful, He’s always been faithful

He’s always been faithful to me.

Suck The Honey Out Of It

One of the things that God has been impressing upon my heart as of late is the importance of immersing myself in His word. I can become discouraged with what little growth I see in my life at times and wonder why my road of sanctification seems to be on a conveyor belt in reverse. But then God, with His gentle Holy Spirit, reminds me that one bit of scripture applied to one bit of life can transform ashes into beauty! Have I been doing that? Not really. I see that it's time for me to get serious about growing into a woman after God's own heart and applying myself to that task. It's more than a task...it's a life.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. - Psalm 1:1-3

While reading Psalm 1 was brought to my attention again. It is such a clear picture of what happens when we make God's word apart of our daily lives. When a person delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night, he will yield fruit and prosper. That is my hope and prayer right now. To bear fruit and prosper in godliness. To never stop producing fruit, but strive to delight in God's word so that I do not wither. There is no negative outcome that can occur by diving into the scriptures. Blessings greater than we can imagine await us there. - I love the following quote below. It has motivated me anew and God in his unending kindness has moved upon my heart with fresh passion to pursue godliness and a deeper communion with Him. All I can say is that I'm excited and God is good!

Suck the honey out of it! by Spurgeon

It is wonderful the effect of a single verse of Scripture

when the Spirit of God applies it to the soul.

What power would come upon the soul,

if we would grasp a single line of Scripture

and suck the honey out of it till our soul

is filled with sweetness.

Hope Is A Fixed Anchor

I love how E.E. ties occurances of daily life to the truth of scripture. Her wise and godly words are always a means of grace to me. I found encouragement, convictions and inspiration in this article...even though it's lengthy!

by Elisabeth Elliot
My friend Miriam is herself a walking miracle, having recovered more than twenty years ago from cancer. Her case was so serious that the doctors told her husband not to expect her home from the hospital. The cure was so miraculous that one doctor described it this way: "If you parked your car on a hill and the brakes let go, would you expect it to roll to the top of the hill? That's how incredible this is. This cancer was supposed to travel in one direction and kill her. It went the opposite way and quit."

Miriam was the only one who could talk like a Dutch uncle to my husband when he had cancer. He would listen to her when he did not want to hear a word out of the rest of us. His hope, of course, was that he would be cured as she had been.

The more hopeless my husband's case appeared to be, the more faithfully Miriam called to remind me, "Our hope, Elisabeth, is not in radiation or surgery or chemotherapy. Our hope is not in the doctors. Our hope is in God."

One night when I went to bed I found a card on my pillow. My daughter Valerie, still a teenager, had made it, intertwining the letters with tiny colored flowers. It said HOPE IN THE LORD. With all my heart I did that. With all my heart I prayed. It has been eight years now since Add died, and the card is before me tonight as I write. I am still hoping--but for what?

Christian hope is a different sort of thing from other kinds. The Greek word used in the New Testament for hope was one which in classical literature could mean expectation of good or bad, but was used by Christians to mean that in which one confides, or to which one flees for refuge. The real essence of the word is trust.

When Lazarus died, the hopes of his two loving sisters, Mary and Martha, were dashed. Jesus, hearing the news, did not hurry to the house but stayed where he was for two more days. When he finally got to Bethany both sisters greeted him with the same words: "If only you had been here, Lord!" Martha remembered the fact of the resurrection. She knew Lazarus would rise again on the last day, but that wasn't really good enough. She wanted her brother now, and her brother was dead. The terrible thing was that he might have been alive if only Jesus had been there. Jesus said to her, "I myself am the resurrection."

This is our hope. It is a living thing. It is, in fact, Christ himself. It is also something to live by. When our hopes for healing or success or the solution to a problem or freedom from financial distress seem to come to nothing, we feel just as Martha did. Jesus might have done something about it but he didn't. We lie awake thinking about all the "if onlys.'' We wonder if it is somehow our fault that the thing didn't work. We doubt whether prayer is of any use after all. Is God up there? Is he listening? Does he care?

The Lord might very well have healed my husband's disease as wonderfully as he healed Miriam's. The simple fact is that he didn't.

HOPE IN THE LORD, says the little card. How am I to do that now? By placing my confidence in the God who promises faithfulness. He has far better things up his sleeve than we imagine. Mary and Martha had envisioned his coming and raising a sick man from his bed. He came too late. Unfortunately Lazarus was dead--so dead, Martha pointed out, that decomposition would have set in. It had not crossed their minds that they were about to see an even more astonishing thing than the one they had hoped for--a swaddled corpse answering the Master's call and walking, bound and muffled, out of the tomb.

The only difference I see in the Lazarus story and our twentieth-century stories of disappointed hopes is the matter of time. Jesus did arrive at Mary and Martha's in a matter of a couple of days, and in perhaps an hour or so after his arrival he raised Lazarus. It looks very quick and easy as we read the story, but of course the two sisters experienced all that those who love a sick person experience, and all the agony of bereavement. Sorrow ran its course. They suffered what humans always suffer, albeit for a very short time.

The truth of the story is that God knew what was happening. Nothing was separating the grieving women from his love. He heard their prayers, counted their tears, held his peace. But he was faithful, and he was at work. He had a grand miracle in mind. The Jews who saw Jesus weep were baffled, and said just what we would have said: "Could he not have kept this man from dying if he could open that blind man's eyes?"

God's timing of the events of our world is engineered from the eternal silence. One time he heals a sick man, such as the paralytic who was lowered through a roof. Another time he lets a sick man die. Miriam's cancer receded. Add's cancer grew. Was God paying attention in the one case but not in the other? So it seemed to Mary and Martha at first. Their prayers for healing were not answered. Jesus did not come. Lazarus died. But what a glorious ending to their story! And ours? What about ours?

"Did I not tell you," Jesus asked, "that if you believed, you would see the wonder of what God can do?" Here is the clue to the lesson: It is faith he is looking for, a quiet confidence that whatever it is he is up to, it will be a wonderful thing, never mind whether it is what we have been asking for.

The usual notion of hope is a particular outcome: physical healing, for example. The Christian notion, on the other hand, is a manner of life. I rest the full weight of my hopes on Christ himself, who not only raised the dead but was himself raised, and says to me in the face of all deaths, "I myself am the resurrection." The duration of my suffering may be longer than that of Lazarus's sisters, but if I believe, trust, flee to God for refuge, I am safe even in my sorrow, I am held by the confidence of God's utter trustworthiness. He is at work, producing miracles I haven't imagined. I must wait for them. The Book of the Revelation describes some of them. The intricacies of his sovereign will and the pace at which he effects it ("deliberate speed, majestic instancy") are beyond me now, but I am sure his plan is in operation.

HOPE IN THE LORD. Doctors, chemotherapy, surgery, radiation might very well have been a part of God's plan, methods he might have used to answer our prayers for a complete cure for my husband. They evidently were not. But that was not where our hopes really lay. They lay then, as they lie now, on the faithfulness of the One who died for us and rose again.

What God promised to Abraham ("Surely blessing I will bless thee") he promises to us. We have two "utterly immutable things, the word of God and the oath of God, who cannot lie," according to the Book of Hebrews. Therefore we who are refugees from this dying world have a source of strength. We can grasp "the hope he holds out to us. This hope we hold as the utterly reliable anchor for our souls, fixed in the innermost shrine of Heaven, where Jesus has already entered on our behalf" (6:19, 20 PHILLIPS).

I don't know, when I'm asking for something here on earth, what is going on in the innermost shrine of Heaven (I like to think about it, though). I am sure of one thing: it is good. Because Jesus is there. Jesus loves me. Jesus has gone into that shrine on my behalf. The hope we have is a living hope, an unassailable one. We wait for it, in faith and patience. Christ is the resurrection and the life. No wonder Easter is the greatest of Christian feast days! No wonder Christians sing!

The powers of death have done their worst,
But Christ their legions hath dispersed:
Let shout of holy joy outburst. Alleluia!

The three sad days are quickly sped,
He rises glorious from the dead;
All glory to our risen Head! Alleluia!

Lord! By the stripes which wounded thee,
From death's dread sting thy servants free,
That we may live and sing to thee. Alleluia!

God Is SLOW To Anger

This morning I was overwhelmed with thoughts of God's patience toward me and all of mankind. I know I have taken His patience for granted time and time again, but He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Throughout my life He has been patient with me through my constant sin, times of unbelief and slow growth in sanctification. It makes me love Him all the more. I know I don't deserve His care and love and yet I know I never want to live without it. Today I am loving God for His patience.

"The God of Patience." Romans 15:5

There is no more wondrous subject than this- "The Patience of God." Think of the lapse of ages during which that patience has lasted. Think of the multitudes who have been the subjects of it- millions on millions, in successive climates and centuries. Think of the sins which have, all that time, been trying and wearying that patience-their number- their heinousness- their aggravation. The world's history is a consecutive history of iniquity, a lengthened provocation of the Almighty's forbearance. The Church, like a feeble ark, tossed on a mighty ocean of unbelief; and yet the world, with its cumberers, still spared! The cry of its sinful millions at this moment enters "the ears of the God of Sabbath," and yet, "for all this," His hand of mercy is "stretched out still!" And who is this God of patience? It is the Almighty Being who could strike these millions down in a moment; who could, by a breath, annihilate the world- no, who would require no positive or visible putting forth of His omnipotence to effect this, but simply to withdraw His sustaining arm! Surely, of all the examples of the Almighty's power, there is none more wondrous or amazing than "God's power over Himself." He is "slow to anger." "Judgment is His strange work." He "shows mercy unto thousands [of generations]." God bears for 15OO years, from Moses to Jesus, with Israel's unbelief; and yet, as a writer remarks, "He speaks of it as but a day." "All day long have I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people." What is the explanation of all this tenderness? "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord!" Believer, how great has been God's patience towards you! In your unconverted state, when a wanderer from His fold, with what unwearied love He went after you; notwithstanding all your waywardness; never ceasing the pursuit "until He found you!" Think of your fainting and weariness since being converted- your ever-changing frames and feelings- the ebbings and the flowings in the tide of your love; and yet, instead of surrendering you to your own perverse will, His language concerning you is, "How can I give you up?" For a lifetime, your Savior-God has been standing knocking at your door; and His attitude is still the same- "Behold, I stand!"

"But fainter than the pole-star's ray

Before the noontide blaze of day,

In all of love that man can know-

All that in angels' breasts can glow

Compared, O Lord of hosts! with thine.

Unwearied! Fathomless! Divine!"

How should the patience of Jesus lead me to be submissive under trial! When He has so long borne with me, shall not I "bear" with Him? When I think of His patience under a far heavier cross, can I murmur when He murmured not! No, I will check every repining thought, and looking up, in confiding affection, to "the God of all patience," "I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." Psalm 4:8

-John MacDuff