Philippians 4:4-7 ESV
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
As I have mentioned before, I got sick on New Year’s Eve,
and although I am greatly improved, thank the Lord, it is not over yet. I am
still dealing with the tail end of an ulcer, which I may have gotten with food
poisoning that day I got sick. We don’t know the source of it, but it sounds as
though that could have been the culprit. And although my doctor recommended
eating baked potatoes, those are not doing well with me. They are very heavy on
my stomach, so I will discontinue them. So I am still in the process of finding
foods that don’t aggravate what is remaining of the ulcer.
About a week after I got sick then began a severe cough and
coughing up mucus. The coughing up mucus stopped about a week ago, but I still
have a lingering cough, just enough to still keep me from being able to sleep
lying down in my bed. I have had to sleep sitting up in a chair pretty much
since I have had this cough, but thank the Lord we do have reclining seats, so
I don’t have to sit straight up. So, it is a minor inconvenience, but the cough
was pretty severe, so I have some lingering body aches and pains which were
causing me to be bent over, so I am having to retrain myself to sit up straight
and to stand up straight, but my body is still pretty weak.
All this has been a trial for me, each part with its own
challenges, but God is good. Many times Satan has tried to get me to be anxious
and to doubt God, but I have resisted him. I have had to fight off his attacks
against my mind. And I have had to reassure myself of God’s love and grace, and
that God is in control, and that he has got this. I know he is healing me, but
by his choice he is doing it incrementally, instead of all at once. So this is
testing my faith, but the Lord is strengthening me through it all, and I am
growing in my walk of faith in him because of it all.
I have had to guard against responding in the flesh,
continually giving this situation back over to the Lord, trusting him with my
body. But I have been thanking and praising the Lord for every increment of
healing he has provided. I even thank him and praise him for the releasing of gas
and for burps, because that means the gas is being released from my body
instead of being stored up inside my body as it was when I first got sick and
probably for the next two weeks or more. Then I had such a terrible pain in my
gut and I could not eat. I am so thankful I can eat now. Praise the Lord!
Oh, and I am praying profusely. And I am definitely letting
God know my requests, but I am also submitting to and surrendering to his will
for my life. For I know he brings things into our lives to test our faith, and
to mature us in him, and to increase our faith, and to teach us to rely on God
and not on ourselves, and to prune us, and to make us more like Jesus, and to
teach us perseverance, and so we will share in his holiness, and so we who are
being trained by his disciplines might have those disciplines yield the
peaceful fruit of righteousness in our lives.
And the Lord is filling me with his peace. Satan is still
fighting against me, but by the power of my Lord within me, I have been using
the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20) to fight off his attacks against me. And
the victory is the Lord’s, praise his name!
[Matt 5:10-12; Matt 10:16-25; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 6:22-23; Lu
21:12-19; Jn 15:1-21; Jn 16:33; Jn 17:14; Ac 14:22; Rom 5:3-5; Phil 3:7-11; 1 Pet 1:6-7; 1 Pet 4:12-17; 2 Tim 3:12; 1
Thess 3:1-5; Jas 1:2-4; 2 Co 1:3-11; Heb 12:3-12; 1 Jn 3:13]
Search
Me, O God
An Original Work / July 12, 2012
Based
off Psalm 139
O Lord, You search and know me.
You know all that I do.
O Lord, You discern my ways.
I put my trust in You.
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Where can I flee from Your presence?
Where’er I am, You are with me,
Guiding me in love.
O Lord, You search and know me.
You know all that I do.
O Lord, You discern my ways.
I put my trust in You.
O Lord, You made and formed me
In my own mother’s womb.
Your hands beautif’lly made me.
I give my praise to You.
My frame was not hidden from You
When I was made in the dark place.
All the days ordained for me
Were written in Your book.
O Lord, You made and formed me
In my own mother’s womb.
Your hands beautif’lly made me.
I give my praise to You.
O Lord, how precious to me
Are Your thoughts, O my God.
When I wake in the morning,
You are still here with me.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offense.
Lead me in Your truth.
O Lord, how precious to me
Are Your thoughts, O my God.
When I wake in the morning,
You are still here with me.
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