Blessings and Lessons on the journey – promises, fear, His faithfulness, writing – His Love is enough!
So many friends and family have been good to let me know they are praying for me and leaving encouraging messages on my email or facebook. God is faithful and blesses us with faithful friends. The lesson in this is to not only pray for others when they ask, or when God prompts us to, but to also let them know we are praying for them. I just didn’t realize how much it means to know people are praying for you until I was going through a crisis. Now that I know, I am going to do my best – through Christ who strengthens me – to let others know that I am praying for them.
I have re-connected with so many friends from my past just in recent weeks. I believe that God has allowed me to reconnect with them as a way of broadening my prayer base and to remind me that friends are friends for life and we should never lose touch.
God is faithful. He is the anchor that holds me secure – he never moves and he is never shaken. He is strong and mighty and is preparing the way for me. He has blessed me with so many verses from scripture that I have claimed as promises. Most of them have come at just the time I needed them. For example – Psalms 91 – has been such a blessing. I first came across it when reading a Proverbs 31 devotional on crosswalk. I clicked the link to the writer’s blog and she mentioned that when her daughter was having surgery a friend had brought them a box of feathers and referenced the verse in Psalm 91 that talks about his covering us with his feathers.
The following Sunday in church my pastor mentioned this same scripture, then a few days later a friend on facebook quoted verses from psalm 91. I knew that this Psalm was a blessing, a gift from God for me to cling to. I read it several times that week.
On the morning before one of my Doctor appointments, I asked God to speak to me as I was reading this Psalm to show me his message for me that day. (The evening before I had been going through fears and what if’s – what if I die and I am not ready to meet God etc.) As I was reading Psalm 91 yet again, the verses at the end of the chapter stood out to me in a way I had never really noticed before and I knew this was God speaking to me as I had asked him to: “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.” Vs.14-16.
As I read this I realized that God was not only answering my fear about my salvation and being ready to meet him, but also answering my fear about dying. I am clinging to this promise. If I live it is because he wills it and he has a plan for my future. If I die, it is because he wills it and he has a future for me in heaven with him. Either way, it is with him and it is his will and his plan, so it is the best plan for me.
I am choosing to claim his promises and live by faith in him that all is well with my soul and my health. I am planning, if God wills, to live a long fruitful life in him and for him. He is my rock and my shield and my help in times of trouble. He wants me to live in his truth and the freedom that comes with that truth. His love is perfect and perfect love cast out all fear. He doesn’t want me to be afraid. Fear is a trick of the enemy to keep us defeated. God does not give us a spirit of fear. He gives us hope and a future. I want to live and be well; I want to give my life and my dreams completely to God. I want to be submissive to him and allow him to be sovereign King of my life.
This is a lesson I have been learning throughout this journey and it is a lesson that I needed to learn. I have to give up control and confess the sin of fear and allow God to heal me from all my sin, sickness and pain. And that includes fear, which is a sin that brings sickness and pain. It is a close cousin to worry and they usually go around hand in hand. Today, I choose to trust God completely – he is in control and he will be with me. He will keep me. He will finish what he started in me – in spite of me. I give up my will to him and I trust that he knows me better than I know myself and he knows just what I need. He will use me for his purposes – and whatever he chooses for my life will be the best thing that could ever happen to me.
I want to come through this experience a stronger person – not in my own strength but in the strength of the one who saves me. His Word says that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I want to live in Christ and allow him to work in me.
There is nothing I can do to earn his favor; there is nothing I can do to ever be good enough. The beauty is I don’t have to be good enough. I just need to trust his provision. His blood covers me, and that is all I need. His greatest command is to love the Lord our God with all our heart soul mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. His love is the law we are to live by. If we can just grasp the magnitude of his love and let it fill us completely and overflow to the world around us, then everything else will fall into its rightful place. When His love is the law, then everything else comes under it’s influence and we are ready to do his will.
My prayer is that he will teach me and help me every day to love like he wants me to; to make time to worship and have a relationship with him and to make relationship with others a priority. I desire to have clean hands and a pure heart. I ask him to write his truth on my heart and speak his peace to my soul. I want to commune with him and bask in his love. He wants to love me. I imagine that he is holding me in his arms and loving me like a father loves his small child. When I sink into his love and rest in his arms there is peace and restoration and I am given strength for the journey. Teach me Lord to wait in your arms.
“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23
I feel like there is so much in me to write about when it comes to God’s faithfulness and goodness and the lessons I have been learning. I have had so many thoughts that I didn’t write down. I hope over time I remember the ones’ I didn’t write and that I will be able to write them when they need to be written.
Writing is a blessing from God. I know I have ability to write – I love words and language and reading and writing. God has given me this gift and I want to use it to bring glory and honor to Him. I had asked him recently to help me find a way to use my writing to help others and to bring glory and honor to His name.
Again, this just shows how he is working behind the scenes on our behalf before we even ask. I received a letter in the mail asking me to be part of a Women’s devotional book. Money has been donated to publish a year long devotional that focuses on Psalms and the proceeds from the sale of the book will go for scholarships for women.
This is a non-paying writing gig, and is only one devotional out of 365. But it is an answer to prayer. It will help others and it will bring Glory to God. My devotional will be like a small pebble that hits the water and then keeps circling out into larger and larger circles. The impact that this book will have could be great. Whether people know my name or not, or even remember my devotional, I will still be part of something that is doing good for God. This was an answer to prayer. This is a confirmation that he is willing to use my writing, if I am willing to give it to Him. I think this is exciting. So, my writing belongs to God and I am excited to see the ways he will use it.
If we had not pursued God’s will in coming to the place we are now in, I would not have had this opportunity to be published. This too is a reminder that I need to be faithful to the course we are on and honor my commitment to work fulltime while my husband finishes his degree. I thought I was putting my dreams on hold to help him have his dream, but God is reminding me in so many ways that he has not forgotten me in this and that I too will get to pursue dreams. In fact, being here may very well be the open door to my writing that I have been wanting. Had I not been willing to come here, I may never have had a chance to be published. Now, I can officially say, when this project is complete, that I am published. God is good. All the time. Sometimes we just forget that and need to be reminded. This journey has had many reminders for me and I look forward to the many more.
At one point on the journey I was ready to read the book of James. The day I started the book of James – you know the one that starts of with enduring in our trials and finding joy in our sorrows. Well, it came at just the right time to give me hope and to be a reminder that I can find joy even in the midst of a trial. And it gave me a purpose to look for the joy and the lessons to be learned and to welcome them.
I think – wait, I know, when this is over I will be able to say that I am glad I had this trial, because it has made me stronger. When I am weak I am strong – and that is because when I am weak, I truly know just how much I need God’s guidance and I lean on him – the source of my strength and that is what makes me strong. Nothing I can do, but what He does for me and in me. Thank you Jesus!
There is a time for everything and it is God’s timing and he is always right on time! Dear God, my time is in your hands. Thank you for your grace and your mercy. You are my strong tower, my ever-present help in trouble, my deliverer, my comfort, my peace, and my salvation. Thank you for the blood of Jesus shed for me, and thank you for the Holy Spirit who lives in me. Thank you for loving me enough. Today your love is enough. Amen.
The road ahead is paved with God's footprints. He knows where I'm going before I take the first step. TH 1.16.10
