decisions

"Trust in the Lord, and do good; 

dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

Delight yourself in the Lord, 

and he will give you the desires of your heart. 

Commit your way to the Lord; 

trust in him, and he will act. 

He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, 

and your justice as the noonday...

The steps of a man are established by the Lord, 

when he delights in his way;

though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, 

for the Lord upholds his hand.

I have been young, and now am old, 

yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken 

or his children begging for bread. 

He is ever lending generously, 

and his children become a blessing...

The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, 

and his tongue speaks justice. 

The law of God is in his heart; 

his steps do not slip."

                          -Psalm 37, ESV

My favorite line in this, my current favorite psalm, is, "I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. He is ever lending generously." It's so true, isn't it?

So why do I doubt it? Why do I even for a second think that the Lord will forsake me or leave me begging for bread? 

I have some important decisions to make within the next few days. By this Monday, actually. These decisions, one in particular, are quite possibly the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make. God is asking me if I trust him, if I have faith in the promises that he has made. 

Here is a prayer from my journal from a few days ago:

"Test me, O Lord. Pray away at my heart, bit by bit. And find me faithful. Find me true. Only You satisfy, and I can only realize that when I am right here, thirsty and hungry for the Living Water and for manna. 

All these trials and emotions will pass, sweet Jesus, and I will be left just to be with you for eternity. What a blessed thought. I couldn't want anything more. 

To be with you, Jesus, is life. To talk to you, Jesus, life. Knowing you, satisfaction. Trusting you, the greatest adventure that life offers. 

I want nothing more than this right here. You. From today on, even when I break down, I still long for only you. Because I acknowledge that everything that's messed up right now will soon be made right. Your glory and Kingdom will reign. Hallelujah! I eagerly await that day...

Breathe on me your fragrance and trust. Put a fire in my bones. I am no true disciple of you if I sit here claiming to want your Kingdom and yet not acting in your name. Direct my passion. You are the God of all gods and the Light among lights. You give life and you heal. What an amazing Father you are to those that love You."

May the Lord direct you and uphold your head. May he guide your path. May his will for your life be your will for your life because of how close you are to his heart. 

"Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way." -Psalm 25:8

manna

Being in the desert is hard. Just ask the Israelites. They were there, in the wilderness, for 40 years (bear with me).

I often think about the Israelites and how similar I am to them. God delivers me from a place of hardship, and after a little more testing, I would rather go back to the first evil than face the current difficulty. Is this making any sense? Have you experienced anything similar?

Anyways, I was thinking about this same idea today and about how easy it is to worship God because of what I think he does or how I think he acts instead of worshipping him for who He IS. If I worship God only based on what he does or does not do, when a loved one dies from cancer, God cannot be who he says he is. When a friend hurts me and wrecks the friendship, God cannot be who he says he is. When a husband is unfaithful and tears apart the family, God cannot be who he says he is. When you have to spend forty years in the wilderness living on manna, God cannot be who he says he is.

And yet, God claims to be faithful, loving, patience, peaceful, gracious, gentle, merciful and unchanging. In fact, the very roots of our faith go back to and rest on the qualities that God says he has. Where does our worship go wrong?

Our worship goes wrong when we forget that God is who he says he is. Period. End of story. God IS faithful. God IS good. And although our world is terribly messed up and sinful, and although things like death and destruction take place, those things do not occur because God willed them to. Those things occur because sin exists.

So, praise God for all that he does, yes, but more than praising him for external actions, praise God for all that he IS- his heart! What he IS is unchanging, no matter our viewpoints. How we view what he DOES changes. I mean, look at the Israelites. One day, they are praising God for deliverance out of Egypt, and the next, they want to go back into the very place they came from.

Back to the blog title. Elisabeth Elliot says the following in her book, Passion and Purity: "Was it necessary for God to test the fiber of His children for forty years in the wilderness? Wouldn't forty days have been enough? The process must go on...and on...and on...Through affairs of the heart God uncovers our true intentions: 'whether or no it was in your heart to keep his commandments. He humbled you and made you hungry; then he fed you on manna...' But it was not manna the people wanted. It was leeks and onions and garlic. It was meat and bread, wine and oil- ordinary food...[The natural is not] the only thing God has in mind for us. We are not meant to live merely by what is natural. We need to learn to live by the supernatural. Ordinary fare will not fill the emptiness in our hearts. Bread will not suffice. We need extraordinary fare. We need manna. How else will we learn to eat it, if we are never hungry? How educate our tastes for heavenly things if we are surfeited with earthly?"

Friends, if you are in the desert and are feeling abandoned by God because of circumstances and contexts, cling to who God says he is. And don't be afraid to be hungry and thirsty; God provides manna when we are in the desert to see if we are truly hungry for what is supernatural. Come hungry. Come thirsty, "For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things (Psalm 107:9)."

We need manna, not bread.

struggle

Are you struggling this week? With friendships? With family? With sin?


Read this.


"My soul, praise the Lord, 

and all that is within me, praise His holy name.
My soul, praise the Lord,
and do not forget all His benefits.

  

He forgives all your sin;
He heals all your diseases.
He redeems your life from the Pit;
He crowns you with faithful love and compassion.
He satisfies you with goodness;
your youth is renewed like the eagle.

  The Lord executes acts of righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.
He revealed His ways to Moses,
His deeds to the people of Israel.
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger and rich in faithful love.
He will not always accuse us
or be angry forever.
He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve
or repaid us according to our offenses.

  For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is His faithful love
toward those who fear Him.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has He removed
our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
For He knows what we are made of,
remembering that we are dust.

  As for man, his days are like grass—
he blooms like a flower of the field;
when the wind passes over it, it vanishes,
and its place is no longer known.
But from eternity to eternity
the Lord’s faithful love is toward those who fear Him,
and His righteousness toward the grandchildren
of those who keep His covenant,
who remember to observe His precepts.
The Lord has established His throne in heaven,
and His kingdom rules over all.

  Praise the Lord,
all His angels of great strength,
who do His word,
obedient to His command.
Praise the Lord, all His armies,
His servants who do His will.
Praise the Lord, all His works
in all the places where He rules.
My soul, praise the Lord!"

-Psalm 103 HCSB


You are healed. You are forgiven. You are loved. Be encouraged, friends. Take heart. 


Praying for you all this week!


-Kait