Wednesday, October 19, 2016, 8:12 p.m. – The Lord Jesus put in mind the song “I Am Willing, Lord.” Speak, Lord, your
words to my heart. I read Psalm 60 (Select
vv. NIV).
Restore Us!
(vv. 1-4)
You have rejected us, God, and burst upon us;
you have
been angry—now restore us!
You have shaken the land and torn it open;
mend its
fractures, for it is quaking.
You have shown your people desperate times;
you have
given us wine that makes us stagger.
But for those who fear you, you have raised a banner
to be
unfurled against the bow.
In this life we will have
trials. When we go through these times of difficulty, we may feel as though God
has forgotten us, or even that he has turned against us in anger. Maybe things
had been going for us pretty well, at least on a surface level, and then, all
of a sudden, it seems like the bottom dropped out. What is happening to us may
have been completely unexpected, too, so it caught us off guard. Our lives,
perhaps, were being lived in relative comfort and ease, and now our world seems
to have been turned upside down. Nothing is like it was, and it will probably
never be the same again. In some ways, that can be a good thing, because the
Lord does allow trials in our lives oftentimes to shake us out of our comfort
zone, to move us to change, and to make us more effective for his kingdom work.
Trials are not intended to be
comfortable, though. They are to stretch us. They are to test us, to see what
we are made out of, not that God doesn’t know, but so we will know, so that we
can allow God to change us and to strengthen us where we are weak, so we can be
who he made us to be.
Particularly here in America,
although it may be so in other nations, as well, we do live in relative comfort
and ease, though not everyone does. Much of the church has gotten so
comfortable, though, that they have forgotten who God is, that he is to be
feared, and that Jesus saved us so we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
So many Christians in America take God and his grace for granted. They have
become so much like the world that they barely blink an eye at the garbage that
is fed to them regularly on TV and on the internet. They feel they are doing
well if they spend 5-10 minutes a day in the Word and in prayer, while the rest
of the day is lived how they want.
So, it should not surprise us
when God brings some troubled times into our lives in order to shake us out of
our complacency and into getting serious (or more serious) about our walks of
faith with God/Jesus Christ. We may have seriously wandered from our pure
devotion to our Lord, and need a big shaking to bring us back, or we may have
relatively minor adjustments that need to be made to our character and
attitudes and actions. Still, God promises us that he will discipline (rebuke,
chastise) those he loves. Yet, “God disciplines us for our good, so that we may
share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but
sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the
peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Heb. 12:10-11). Amen!
So, when these trials come
upon us, which they will, we should pray, and we should ask the Lord the
purpose of the trials, and what he would have us to learn through them. We must
accept whatever he has for us, that it is for our good, and we must submit to
his sovereignty over our lives, rest in him, and trust him with our
circumstances. Then, we should allow him to change us through them, and to make
the necessary adjustments in our lifestyles, actions, words, thoughts, and attitudes,
etc., according to his standard, and according to his plan and purposes for our
lives. When that is done, I believe, we can pray for deliverance, for
restoration, and for healing. Yet, God may choose to extend the trial, for his
purposes, so we must trust him in that, as well, and let him deliver us through
the trial(s), instead.
God has given us a banner
(standard) which he has raised (lifted up), and that standard is his Word (his
righteousness and holiness), which we are to follow, and which we are to spread
to the world around us. We are also to use his Word as part of our spiritual
armor with which to fight off Satan’s evil attacks against us, so that we don’t
give up in defeat, and so we don’t surrender to the enemy. So, when God takes
us through these difficult days, and Satan and his evil attacks threaten to
undo us, we need to raise that banner (standard) against those attacks, stand
strong on the Word of Truth, and not fold out of fear of what might happen to
us. God will see us through these troubled times. He will accomplish his
purposes in our lives. And, one day soon, he is going to take us home to be
with him. Amen!
With God (vv.
11-12)
Give us aid against the enemy,
for human
help is worthless.
With God we will gain the victory,
and he will
trample down our enemies.
When God brings or allows
troubled times to come into our lives, in our natural selves we may be tempted
to try to escape them, and/or to try to fix the problem ourselves. Yet, if God
is in this, and he has allowed this in our lives for his purposes, because he
has things we need to learn, and because we have areas in our lives where we
need to repent of sin and/or where we need to grow in his grace, we will just
be spinning our wheels, for we will be fighting against God and what he is
wanting to do in our lives through our trials. For, no matter how much human
effort we may put into trying to alleviate our difficulties, it will not bring
relief, unless God is ready for us to be relieved of our trials, and then it is
him who does it, not us.
Another thing to consider
here, too, is that our true enemy is Satan, not our circumstances, and not
other people. Sin is also our enemy. We may fight against what we think is our
enemy, and then truly be defeated by our real foe. In other words, if I
consider the bed bugs and the fleas in our apartment as the foe I must defeat,
but I don’t learn what the Lord wants me to learn through this process of being
tested, then what have I really gained if we are “bug” free, but if I continued
on as I was before the trial? What I mean is that the real victory is over our
real foe, so even if the bugs remain for a time, until God is ready to deliver
us from them, but I learn what I was to learn, and I grow and mature in my walk
of faith, then I have been victorious! Yet, I also pray for deliverance from
the bugs, too.
One of the many songs the
Lord has had playing over and over again in my mind, since this trial began 2
weeks ago, is this song, “I Am Willing, Lord,” by Joni E. Tada. Joni was in an
accident when she was a teenager, and it rendered her a quadriplegic. At first
she was very depressed, but the Lord lifted her up and gave her a new purpose
in life. He taught her how to draw using a paint brush or a pencil in her
mouth. And, she began writing, too, and she also learned how to sing, and she
recorded some songs. She does public speaking, too, and she has a ministry to
handicapped people. But, God never healed her body. Instead, he healed her
soul, and he used her for his glory to impact many lives for Jesus Christ.
Sometimes God delivers us out
of our trials, and sometimes he delivers us through them. The true victory is
not whether or not our trials go away, but it is in what we learn through them,
and how we are changed, and then how God is able to use us for his purposes and
for his glory in other people’s lives.
The Lord denied Paul’s
request for deliverance from his “thorn in the flesh.” He told him, instead,
that his grace was sufficient to meet him in his trial, and that God’s strength
would be perfected in his weakness. So, Paul had to accept that thorn, and to
trust God, and to even to be thankful for his thorn, because when he was weak,
then he was strong in the strength of the Lord.
Are we willing to accept
trials in our lives as from God, and to learn from them what he wants us to
learn? Are we willing to yield control of our lives over to God, and to rest in
our Lord, even in the midst of difficulties? Will we trust him with our
circumstances, even though they may linger, for a time? And, are we willing to
let God do in our lives what needs to be done, so that we can be who God wants
us to be, even if it means our trials are extended, or even if they are never
relieved until we go to heaven?
I am willing, Lord, to be what
you want me to be, and I trust you with my circumstances, and I pray for
deliverance, but I accept what you have for me, knowing that you are working
all things together for my good. Amen!
I AM WILLING, LORD / Joni Eareckson Tada
Sometimes when I am down,
And I don't feel like You're around, Oh Lord,
Feeling so sorry for me,
Not knowing that all the while You're working to see,
If when I'm put through the
fire,
I'll come out shining like gold…
I'll come out shining like gold…
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