“Blessed be the Lord,
for He has made marvelous His lovingkindness to me in a besieged city.” Psalm 31:21
For those of you that follow my blog closely, you may have noticed that my Monday quotes and the verse of the day have dropped off. Life has been a bit challenging and I’ve had to surrender a bit to maintain my sanity. Life with chronic illness is a battle against both known and unknown factors. It is a battle of the mind and soul as well as the body which often leaves one feeling besieged.
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“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20
“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10
Whether alone or in a crowd, have you ever wondered where God is? Despite God reminding us throughout scripture that He is in fact with us and will never leave us, we still have our doubts. I’m not sure how it came about, but during a recent worship service I started thinking about the presence of God. If I had to guess, I would assume that Matthew 28:20 was one of the texts used in the sermon. In any event, I’ve been pondering our failure to recognize the presence of God in our lives. I don’t know about you but, I certainly have a tendency to take it for granted and, therefore, fail to recognize it or rely on it when I should. As I’ve considered this problem, there seem to be four primary reasons that we fail to recognize God’s presence in our lives: ignorance, immaturity, impediments and refusal.
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“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength
of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26.
I’m taking it easy this week. Due to the the holidays,
traveling and my normal responsibilities, my body, mind and soul need a
rest. Consequently, I thought I’d use the
opportunity to provide some personal background for this blog, and for those
who are unaware, share my passion. It’s
not my norm. My history tells me not to
trust, but my Lord says to be transparent to help others. Further, I prefer to focus on the positive to
keep me from dwelling on the negative. With
those disclaimers in place, let me open up a bit for you.
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God’s grace is not given to make us feel better, but to glorify Him… Good feelings may come, or they may not, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether or not we honor God by the way we respond to our circumstances.
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” Matthew 16:26
Trust is a fairly basic concept as it rests solely on confidence. That confidence relies on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of some entity or object. In contrast, what we consider valuable in our lives and how much we fear losing those things varies from person to person due to maturity, faith, relationships, life experiences, etc. Another contrast between the two is the impact on our well-being. Trust provides calm, healing and peace while fear brings distraction, stress and destruction. Fear comes in varying degrees and for various reasons but consider the following factors of fear: the object, the measurement, the security and the trustee.
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The greater your knowledge of the goodness and grace of God on your life, the more likely you are to praise Him in the storm.
To learn strong faith is to endure great trials. I have learned my faith by standing firm amid severe testings.
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9
My wife and I went to a dinner theater last week with my aunt, uncle and a few of their friends. Shortly before the intermission, one of the ladies in our group collapsed into the lap of the woman sitting next to her. Admittedly, given her symptoms, most of us thought that she was dying. Thankfully, by the time the ambulance arrived, she had recovered enough to walk to the gurney. After spending the night in the hospital, she was released with a heart monitor. Aside from the obvious concerns for those involved, it raised a deeply rooted fear of my own. As much as I accept God’s will in my life, the thought of a public medical emergency still haunts me…and I’ve had a few. For many of us, it raises concerns about embarrassment, image, and acceptance. Ultimately, we cannot control the events of our lives, but we can control our response to them with a bit of truth.
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For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward. Mark 9:41
Our family spent the weekend with my aunt and uncle at their lake house. Saturday morning our older daughter asked if I would go running with her so I agreed. I can usually run a short distance without much problem, however, this time it seemed as if everything was against me. In the end it was a couple of miles of pure frustration. It left me unsettled with a few questions: is this an anomaly, will I no longer be able to enjoy a good run, or is this something that I will recover from? Further is it may be yet another loss that I must accept and another limitation to undermine how I feel about myself? In any event, I kept moving one small step at a time…sometimes running, but mostly walking. In the end it became an object lesson about living well and led to a conversation with God about life and faith.
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O Lord, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear to vindicate the orphan and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth will no longer cause terror. Psalm 10:17-18
As I stated in the last post (Pride and Humility Part 1 – Pride Renounced), we live in a culture that promotes autonomy, independence and self-assuredness. When controlled, these characteristics are useful tools in life. However, left unchecked, they will likely lead to pride. Prideful arrogance impedes a relationship with God, inhibits relationships with others, multiplies guilt, brings dishonor and insures judgement. Alternatively, humility is often despised by our culture because it appears to be the weaker trait. However, it is desired by God because it yields rewards in both this life and the one to come. Following are a few of the benefits.
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