“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NKJV
Have you ever had one of those moments when you realize God is teaching you something significant? Where every current scene that plays out in your life you spiritually awaken to the idea of God’s guiding presence in a new way; His hand steering you this way and that?
I have had some of those revelation moments lately. God is cracking old perceptions I once held of myself and He is pulling me into new areas of trust. In this area where I am being drawn, I readily admit I don’t know what I am doing. My human frailty comes to the forefront but God is showing me Him. He is showing me more of His heart, more of His care, and more of His heavenly abilities to work it all out.
Oh, His ability to do it all has always been there, but there were certain areas of my life where there were still scales on my eyes, shielding me from seeing the bigger picture; from seeing God fully at work in it all.
I was awakened on the inside and became more aware that there is so much more to me than me. God has me on His radar and He is orchestrating my life in a unique and special way. No, I don’t have all the answers, nor do I know what tomorrow looks like or how this will all end up, but by faith, I want Him to take the lead while I just step out and follow.
It requires not only a moment of revelation but a life of trust. It’s purposely declaring every day and with every step, “I don’t know it all, but I choose to follow the One who does.” It’s a time when we let that one moment of believing God is the fullness of His promises defines the makeup of our future. It’s when we permit the wonder of all that He is to overshadow any doubt or discrepancies that we might feel within ourselves, realizing what He has made us for and ordained us to do never depended on us in the first place.
Is there an area of your life where God wants to give you that ah-ha moment of revelation? Or, are there still scales blocking your full vision of Him?
Father God, remove the scales from our eyes that we might see the full vision of You. We are praying against every hindrance that tries to blind Your people and obstruct their view from the wonderful works You want to do through them. Amen!
I pray for your moment of connection with God. I pray that you would trust in God more, and focus on Him more than whatever you think you can’t do. It only takes a moment of sincere trust and total abandon to Him to change your course in history forever.
“Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.” Jeremiah 17:7
One of my favorite times of the day is waking up. Not the actual waking up part (sometimes that’s a little hard 😉 ), but when I finally get up, I get to draw back the curtains and see the new day. It’s untouched. It’s filled with hope and promise. Whatever happened yesterday is not here for this is today. It’s that freshness that draws me in and gets my soul stirred for the possibilities ahead.
When we go on vacation one of the places we stay at is a condo in the mountains. It’s so peaceful. With coffee in hand in the morning, I head out onto the balcony and sit to admire the new day. The only thing I hear is the birds singing their song. The deer break twigs and rustle leaves when they walk. Sometimes you see the groundhogs and other animals eating their meals for the day. You get this sense about you that this is the way it was meant to be.
And it makes me wonder about a time when all days were meant to be like this. When there was a time when all days started in innocence and nothing was yet corrupted. When there was a time that man walked freely in the Garden with God.
I love gardens and I declare one day I will have a nice one. I’m working on it. We were meant to live the garden lifestyle. We were designed to reign in innocence and peace. The world we live in today contradicts the fellowship we were created to have with God. We were to have an up-close relationship with Him. After the fall the Bible tells us, “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…” (Gen. 3:8).
Let your mind go back, not to the sin, but to the experience of being with God in the garden. Adam and Eve experienced God on a level that no other being will have the privilege to. Surely this was not the first time God had paid them a visit in this fashion for they knew what it sounded like when they heard Him in the garden. They had a realistic divine view of the Almighty here on earth.
What would it have been like to have the Sovereign of the universe, day by day to come and see about me? What would it have been like to verbally hear the mouth that spoke things into existence speaking to me? What would it have been like to hear Him moving among the garden with my own ears and to know it was the Lord? What would it have been like?
There, before the Fall, fellowship with God was uninterrupted by evil. There the beauty of all God is could be seen by those He created. There, peace was the predominant feeling because the shaker of peace had not entered the scene. There, God spoke directly to man unhindered by fleshly desires. There, it’s hard to imagine, but life was nothing but good because the man knew nothing but God.
Imagine the best backyard barbeque. We sit around laughing and enjoying the company of others. Not that we are bringing the Sacred down to our level but in our finite understanding can we imagine in the garden, Adam and God chit-chatting about the day, about the animals, or about life in general? Can we imagine the way Adam’s heart must have felt assured every time He heard the voice of God speak to him? Can we imagine that when Eve was presented to her husband there was no fear, only love, because that’s all they ever received was love on the earth? Can we really imagine?
It may be hard for our minds to fathom such an age of innocence and honesty. It’s hard for us to see what this must have been like because now our view has been corrupted by sin. But I imagine it was glorious. It was nothing like we’ll ever know here on earth. In that garden, during that time, beauty is all that was seen with our eyes and with our hearts. God was all that was known. Oh, imagine.
It’s hard to put into words when everyone was right before God. It’s hard to describe from one’s soul a place of longing but never viewing. It’s hard to capture the essence of what being with God was like there, and yet my heart still yearns to know what would it have been like?
What do you think it would have been like to see the world at its best? What do think it would have been like to fellowship with God at your best? Where we live in the mid-Atlantic region we are expected to have rain most of the day. Even in this dreariest of settings, I’m looking at the trees swaying outside my window and imagining the beauty of that time. I guess that’s what it would have been like, beautiful because everything was in harmony with God. Beautiful represents their relationship with God and it represents the surroundings that God created for them.
One day we will experience that garden lifestyle again, that age of beautiful unbroken relationship with Him when we meet Him in our heavenly home. And I can’t wait.
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“Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation. Give heed to the voice of my cry, my King and my God, for to You I will pray. My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning I will direct it to You, and I will look up.” Psalm 5:1-3, NKJV
There is always something about the stories where the underdog comes out on top, where the least of all becomes the greatest that sends chills of inspiration up the spine.
The story of David and Goliath has long evoked a sense awe at the victory won and the hope of possibility in the soul still in the fight facing his/her own giants. The fact of the matter is that many things in this life which we face day to day can at times seem too much to bear. Our worries don’t necessarily have to be against the biggest guy around. Just the struggle of making it one more day, another try at giving it your best shot, can make it really hard for some people.
That’s why this article is not going to focus on the beast Goliath was or how David brought him down with just a stone and slingshot.
Nope. I want us to focus on the confidence that David had in God.
To me, it doesn’t matter if what you face is big or small. Sometimes the hardest stuff is the routine, small stuff that gets on your nerves every single day and makes you want to throw in the towel and quit.
Yes, David did the impossible in the name of the Lord. But, what I have found out in my own life is when we evoke that same confidence in God in every area of our lives, big or small, God tends to step in and work it out for us. And, you know it was Him because that very area in life that used to be a source of hardship and frustration now becomes a place of peace and productivity.
David, before confronting Goliath, declared, “The LORD delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine,” (1 Samuel 17:37, NKJV. emphasis mine). I want us to focus on “He will” of that statement. David expressed in those two little words the amount of confidence he had in the God he served.
Confidence in God the key no matter what. Many of times we misplace our confidences in the things and the people we see around us, allowing them to become our focus and control, when God should be at the forefront of the battle with us. Over and over again we are told in His Word, “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man,” (Psalm 118:8, NKJV); yet, man seems to always get more of our attention and we wonder why we falter in the battle and don’t end up standing as victor over the giants and circumstances we face.
We have to rely more on God than anything else in this world. He truly is the only one who can get in there and fight with us and for us and bring us to a victorious end on the other side.
Below are some reminders to trust God and have confidence in Him no matter the size of anything we face. Knowing this will improve our day to day struggles in life and turn them into day to day victories.
Today remember, you are a child of the King and He is for you! Cry out to your heavenly Father and He will hear! Psalms 56:9 tells us, “When I cry out to You, then my enemies will turn back; this I know, because God is for me,” NKJV.
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Anytime we hear a three-worded phrase followed by a quick, “Oh my,” our minds automatically associate with that old 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. It’s when Dorothy and her companions are readying themselves to go into the dark, dense forest when their chant of possible woes begin that tell of what may lay ahead and come to prowl.
The Bible tells us there is an enemy that’s on the prowl. He is described as a “roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour,” (1 Peter 5:8). He is never full and always looks for destruction and he seeks to block the pathway of those trying to reach that glorious city. And no, we’re not talking about the Emerald one, but that city called heaven.
Hurts, disappointments, and troubles are things we can run into during our sojourn in this life and things the enemy seeks to magnify in our lives. David likened it to times of walking through the “valley of the shadow of death,” (Psalm 23:4a). It can be a fearsome place with many traps and travails scattered about the pathway. But, unlike the fear that took over those venturing into the dark forest, David declared, “I will fear no evil: for thou art with me . . .” (Psalm 23:4b). For David, it wasn’t about the dark forest and it wasn’t about the valley of the shadow of death. For him, it was all about Who was with him in the midst of it all.
And, the “Who” that was with him was the same God who declared, “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” (Hebrews 13:5). The same God who sits high above the earth and His train fills the temple, Isaiah 6:1. The same God who is ever mighty, ever omnipotent, everlasting, and never failing.
This is the same God who is Jehovah Jireh (Genesis 22:14), our Provider in the time of need. He is God Most High (Psalm 97:9), always in charge and always reigning sovereignly over all. He is always above and never beneath. He is always with and never without. All dominions and powers must and will bow down to Him.
God is the Creator who spoke the universe with all its cycles, atoms, particles, and life into existence. With His power to speak anything and everything into being, comes also the strength and authority to heal. With His ability to fashion the things uncontrollable to men such as the winds and the waves, He can speak, and bring forth peace out of chaos, and make them be still.
You see, when David gave his recitation of the Lord as his Shepherd, he was doing more than putting cute words together. He was making a bold declaration of faith, choosing to believe in and focus more on He who was with him than all that’s going on around him.
This is the strong key to the faith we need to successfully deal with things that may be hiding in the dark forest or the low valleys of our lives. Hurts, disappointments, and troubles are something we will all have to face from time to time.
But, oh my! When they meet the God I know; the God I serve! The God whom David expressed such bold confidence in! The God who is indescribable in His holiness and majesty because it goes beyond what we can comprehend; and yet, describable by His characteristics of love, mercy, and grace. The only God of all heaven and earth . . . When they meet Him, He can change their roaring course. He can subdue their evil uprising. And, He can take over and overwhelm their destructive nature, all the while, surrounding and protecting His people with His love, security, and readiness to stand with them and for them.
While we are on this side of glory we are going to have unpleasant things to face. But, oh my – when we see Jesus, every trial, trouble, and evil way will dissipate and all that will remain is our God and those who are tied to Him in a covenant relationship through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Until that day, remember, no matter what you are dealing with today, if you are a child of God, you are not alone. He’s there. He’s here. He’s right beside us. His Spirit dwells in us. God is walking with us and holding us through every dark forest and every valley of the shadow of death.
Isn’t that wonderful to find out – oh my, you are not alone. Lean into Him with trust as He walks with you through this journey.
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