This devotional article was taken from the year 2004 and
some things may seem off base with today but still it has a lot of good
points! Let’s check it out! In His Word-
63
Things
are going along well; you are praying every day, reading your Bible, bills are
being paid, the food is on the table and God is awesome in this place. Suddenly
things start to hit you; your car breaks down, you get an injury, your computer
crashes, your paycheck at work gets wiped out before you receive it and reads
the wrong numbers when reprinted…what do you do?
Lets look… In His Word!
I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock
and my fortress, and m y deliverer; my God , my strength, in whom I will trust;
my buckler and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon
the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies.
As for God His way is perfect; the Word of the Lord is tried;
He is a buckler to all those that trust in Him.
It is God that girded me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like hinds’
feet , and setteth me upon my high places. He teaches my hands to war, so that
a bow of steel is broken by mine arms. Thou hast also given me the shield of
Thy salvation; and Thy right hand hath
holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great. Psalm 18: 1-3&30,
32-35.(KJV)
We tend
to feel like we are going through things alone at times, in our lives . What we need to remember is that God is with
us! We are not being left comfortless because Jesus promised that. We are never
alone, after all wherever we go God is there to be our salvation from whatever
it is, or whomever it is that is troubling us.
He loves
us. He loves each one of us so much that He, Jesus, died on the cross for us to
clean away all our sins from our life’s story. That in itself would be amazing!
But He did not stop there! He continuously fights battles for us! When we are
crying out in pain from an injury to our physical body or our emotional self,
He hears us. He responds even when we do not realize it. Eventually we will look back and see the
handiwork of God on our lives, and in our lives.
Some of
you reading this know that my first favorite scripture was Trust in the Lord
with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways
acknowledge Him and He will direct your path. Proverbs 3:5-7
I trust
Him daily with my life, with my kids, with my husband and the rest of you! I
trust Him to come through and heal, solve problems, effect financial outcome
for so many of you each day and I know that He will do it!
I know
that my Lord is with me in all that I do, because I pray for Him to do so and
be so.
Still, as
I am human and frail I have my own days of why God why, or when God when. I
find there are times I wonder how God can sit and watch things happen in some
of your lives and not just fix it up! I have even questioned in times past why
God had forsaken me in my time of troubles. But I know in my head, and my heart
that God is with me.
So, what
is the point to this testimonial type devotion today? Why am I rambling on
about the wonderfulness and worries of knowing that God is with you, and me?
The first verse says it. “I will love thee, O Lord, my strength.”
This
time of year, many people celebrate lent, or Passover or Resurrection Sunday,
commonly known as Easter. I want to reflect today on the fact that Jesus gave
us strength in His Love. When we don’t think He is listening, we can look at
the Cross-. We can know that He really does love each and every one of us,
personally! He would have died if it were only for one of us, yet he died for
all of us. Why? You might ask yourself; would Christ die for me?
“The Lord is my rock and my fortress, and m y deliverer; my
God , my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler and the horn of my
salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be
praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies. “
That is why. Because He is your deliverer! He is my deliverer! He died
to deliver us from pain and sorrow beyond our understanding!
We all
know what a horn is, it is something that signals the approach of something. In
this case salvation of our souls! He
protects us from ourselves at times, though we do not usually realize that
until we are many years past a time when God changed our path in midstream. Or
at least that’s how it seems at the time. He often times gives us a heads up of
something of potential danger to us, or sometimes that horn may blow to alert
us to rejoicing for Him!
What
about a buckler? He is my Buckler! A buckler is someone who protects or
defends! Yes Jesus does that for us all! He protects us from problems that are
not seeable to us at the time, as well as those we see and ask for His help in!
We can know that He also defends us.
In a
book I once read that was about the high tower that God is, I read that He
lifts us up to a safe haven to keep us out of harm’s way.
We are
living in a time when many harmful situations come at us, we are living in a
time of war. Not only the War in the Gulf, in Iraq, (today we can insert Ukraine here) but the war we live in from
day to day is the war against evil.
We have read the Bible and seen that Jesus wins, so we know we are on the winning side, but it does not always look or feel that way to us in our daily struggles. There are times we wonder if we are really listening to God or if we heard Him wrong and took the wrong turn. The one thing we can remember in all this is that He will return us to the path He set us on, even if our computer crashes and holds our works hostage!
A week
or so ago my computer did that! I came in and turned it on one morning to find
that it did not want to comply. I attempted restart, and the few things I know
to do and called my husband at work. He suggested what he could from there and
we left it be for him to deal with.
I have
to admit that was the longest day I can remember! Long because I did not get to
go online and check my email, long because I tried not to bother my husband to
see if he was getting anything to work, and long because I found I had a lot of
time on my hands and only so much to do in it!
I found
that I could not hide from my shoulder injury by going on line and ignoring the
housework I could not do. I found that I could not go online and research a
subject I needed to find for schooling my children. I found that I had more
time to read my Bible! (Although I do make it a habit to read it before
going online most days!)
Now you
have to realize that I could have just been going bananas wondering if my works
would be restored. I could have been in tears throwing a fit getting mat at the
computer! It dawned on me as my hubby labored over the computer that is still
holding my work hostage that I had a peace. You know that peace you get from
time to time that really makes no sense? That’s the one! I felt such peace, and still do!
A few
days later I cried a little thinking of all the work I had done, but even that
was not long because I still had that peace. The thing I cried about was the
fact I would have to find the time to rewrite as much of it as I can! Aha! You
say, and you would be right! I was lazy in my writing! I was thinking of the
fact that I wanted things to go my certain way, to send things out in my
timing, to write when I wanted what I wanted and continue on as such! But God’s
timing is not my timing, He made my feet like hinds’ feet all right! I am
prepared to do battle with the hands he has trained me to war with! I will not go lazy in my writing again! I
know my God has given me writing as my way to reach the lost, the weak or
heavy-laden! I know that He has trained my hands to this! My writing is not my own, but His! But
somewhere along the way I think I stopped thinking in His timing and was
impatiently wondering why my timing was not happening.
I think
that of it in another way as well… the enemy does not like that I use my
writing for God’s glory!
Everything that I have written on my computer that came to
mind that I would have to replace is ministry related stuff! God knows that I
use it for His glory too! And God spoke to my heart a couple days ago,
reminding me of something I had heard in church when Pastor Jeff was preaching.
He said that God was going to restore to us that which was lost.
At the time I felt God had spoken it to my heart, and even questioned that I had anything to be restored. I looked at selfish things throughout my life trying to see what physical things I wanted back. I could not find anything. But then the other day when He spoke it to my heart again! I knew! I know that even though I have not seen it, and the hard drive is sitting beside me on the desk wrapped and waiting for God to put into process the restoration, that HE will indeed do that!
Now this is not about me, though it sounds a lot like it at
the time, this writing today is about how God will do what He says in His Word!
He will protect you, though you may not
realize it at the time, He will remind you! He is our shield and our salvation!
He loves
us so much that He will stop at nothing to restore unto you the Joy of your
salvation!
Because His way is perfect, not breakable, or fallible like
a computer. All we need to do is trust in Him to take care of us, and he will
be our buckler! He will protect and shield us!
He will put us in that strong tower to keep us safe from the enemy! That
tower is PEACE!
Protection- Eternally- Always- Caring - Enough ~God loves
you today, and He wants you to rest in His arms knowing that He really will
restore it to you, He will protect you, and He will hold your hand in the times
of trouble.
Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for today, for your peace,
love, hope and for just being there for each of us. Help us to trust you more
and more each day. In Jesus name. Amen.
Suggested readings for the coming week:
Monday: Psalm 18-all
Tuesday: Psalm 17-1-15
Wednesday: John 14:1-26
Thursday: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Friday: Philippians 2:1-15