Which is Better? Living in fear or Trusting in God?

   

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, , neither sorrow or crying, neither shall there be any more pain for the former things shall be passed away. Revelation 21:4

In light of all that is going on in the world today, yea even in our own lives be it some kind of sorrow, or pain of any kind, from emotional to physical-the promise for those that truly love God and have asked him into their lives-is one that we so look forward to, as our time ends on earth, or at the time when Jesus comes back for those that are still here at that time.

This virus that hit us in March has literally scared the begeebees out of many people. And it has hit some of my family that way. When I go to the grocery store, people are wearing masks so that they don't catch it from someone else. And yet they touch items in the store, not wearing gloves, thus contaminating their cars when they get in them. And the masks themselves do not really protect them if they don't properly take care of them. 

There were people that didn't and couldn't even enjoy the July 4th holiday like they have in other years, simply because they didn't want to be around people during that time, even with their own families. 

I am not saying that we should not be careful. Or that it doesn't exist. I am saying, that if we truly believe God's word, he will take care of us. We are not to live in fear because he doesn't give us a spirit of fear. Instead he has given us a spirit of power, love and a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7. 

And so while we take precautions in anything we do, we should not fear or even dwell on what could happen, but trust in him. 

And remember that one day, when it all said and done, he will wipe the tears from our eyes, knowing that even so we were imperfect and we do worry at times, and we sometimes forget to trust in him, and there has been pain in our lives....

   ...he will wipe all that from us and we will have no more.

Hello Friends, what a promise that is! When we start worrying, or crying or are in bed because of any kind of pain, we can hold on to that promise and know that it will not last for ever and when God wipes those tears from our eyes, life for us will never be the same. Have a blessed day!

Lord, I just can't......

But I say unto you, love your enemies and bless them that curse yo, do good to those that hate you, and pray for them that spitefully use you and persecute you; That you may be the children of your Father in heaven, for he maketh  the sun to rise on evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the righteousness. Mathew 5:44-45

Most of us have had someone in our lives that we have had to forgive. (or for some, not) There have been many times that I have to continuously forgive over and over.  Maybe even over silly things.

But what about those that have really done us wrong. I mean really.really done us wrong. And what if that person or persons are someone in our family?

I have a close relative in mine (Pam/not her real name), that has been going through an ongoing problem with her daughter (Kim/not her real name).for several years. They used to be quite close. Until a few years ago. Pam purchased a home and because of certain circumstances, put Kim's name on the deed with her. After that at some point, Kim met a man who was into drugs and she moved him in without her mom's permission. It was agreed though that the mortgage payment each month would be split 3 ways and for a few months that worked. However, in time, he pretty much forced Pam out of her own home because of the way he treated her and she was not going to take it.  She tried getting him out by legal means, but here she is several years later,  he is still living in her home. Consequently, during that time, Kim who was already addicted to alcohol, started using street drugs along with him and eventually their share of the mortgage payment stopped going to Pam.

But she had had to get an apartment and could not afford to pay the whole mortgage payment, so she has tried everything she could to get them both evicted so she could sell the property. To no avail. And why should they? They were living there free. At least until the mortgage company forecloses on it.

I could go on and on about that situation, but you get the picture. Pam has come to hate the boyfriend and has a name she calls him instead of his real name. I won't give it here, but it pertains to drugs. So she hates him for getting Kim, with whom she had once had a good relationship with, into the street drugs. And she hates Kim for staying with him because now the property has moved towards foreclosure which will hurt Pam's credit. 

And I get how Pam feels about the whole thing, because she is 70 years old and single. It has been her livelihood at stake and her good credit possibly going down the tube.

But in her rants and ravings to me about it all, she tells me she not only hates them but she will never forgive them for doing to her what they have done.

So, what does that situation have to do with that scripture in Mathew 5?

Pam is a born again Christian. She has been in church most of her life and delights in helping other people and serving God. So why after all this time, does he not answer her cries of help and done something to take care of this so that she doesn't lose her good credit, or worse yet, her own relationship with her daughter? She knows it is his battle. She knows he has the whole picture. She knows that he will take care of it in his own timing.

But she wants all that NOW! She has gotten tired of waiting, and has become bitter and it comes out of her every time she talks to me about it. She says she is trusting him, but then goes back to ranting about them.

If I am good at anything, it is being a good listener for people that just need to talk to someone and/or vent their problems to. I have had my own times like that, and I know it is not good to bottle things up. And if I feel I have something to say to encourage the other person, I do that.

I love Pam. And I wish God would do something. But outside of his will, neither of us can do anything. 

I had tried quoting Mathew 6:14-15 to her, which tells us to forgive so that our Father will forgive us. But if we do not forgive others, he will not forgive us.

I cannot fathom what Pam is going through. But that scripture says it all for me. I do want to forgive others, no matter their offence to me, so that I can be forgiven by my Father.

So is Pam in danger of not being forgiven? I cannot answer that question. God knows her heart. He does have the whole picture and hopefully he will make it possible for her to be able to do that. I do know that forgiveness is often a process. That is something that I have learned at different times in my life. And no matter how she feels right now, he will answer her cries. But she can't manipulate him into doing it before he is ready. And sometimes I wonder if that isn't what she tries to do. Probably without even knowing she is doing it.

And I also wonder, isn't that what some of us do at times. Try to manipulate God, even when we are in pain about something? It is something to think about.

Thanks for coming today, Friends. Have a blessed day!

Old Age

Even to your old age, I am he; and even to hoar hairs (gray or white hair) will I carry you: I have made and I will bear; even I will carry and deliver you. Isiah 46:4

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I discovered the above promise this morning in my scripture reading. I probably have read it sometime in my life, but not recently and if I had at one time, I had not grasp it in my mind and heart,  much less remembered it.

But in my life, I have learned something important. God gives us what we need, when we need it. And that goes for this promises in his word.

It reminded me of that poem: Footprints in the Sand. If you have never read it, I encourage you to do so. Especially if you are going through some trial in your life. It tells of a man that had a dream, and he was walking on the beach with Jesus and saw their footprints in the sand.  He saw his life as it had passed before him. But then, he noticed that one set of prints disappeared at the saddest times of his life. And so he questioned the Lord as to why Jesus had left him during those troubled times. Jesus had told him that he loved him and would never leave him, and when he saw the single set of footprints, those were the times that Jesus had carried him.

Indeed. Jesus has promised us that he would never leave us. or forsake us. (Deuteronomy 31:6)

But sometimes, we feel like he has. Even in our old age, and when our hair is graying. He is there. We just have to remember that and get it into our hearts so that when we go through the bad times, we know he is, without a shadow of a doubt.

And then, when he is ready....

.....he will deliver us.

Why?

Because, he loves us!!

Thanks for coming friends. May our God who loves us, richly bless you on this day!

The Psalm Trees of our Lives

I have never lived in a state that had psalm trees. Not until recently, that is. I have adult children that have lived around them for years and there have been times that we have visited them. And I always sort of looked down upon the trees with distaste. There are so many here. Like jungles of them in places. And they can have long branches of leaves that get brown and not so pleasant to look at.

But this morning, and reading God's word, I came across the following, scripture.

The righteous shall flourish like the psalm tree; he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord, shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat flourishing; to show that the Lord is upright; he is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him. Psalm 92: 12-15

Groups of them, jungles of them, stand strong and tall along highways, streets, and in yards. And even when the hurricanes hit, many of them are bent over, but they have survived the tests of their lives. 

To say the least they are plentiful here. Whether we like them or not. 

But reading that scripture and thinking back to when riding along side them from our truck and seeing all of these trees, I remember the story of Jesus when he entered Jerusalem as King on Psalm Sunday riding a donkey and the people were cutting tree branches down to lay on the road before him. I have been in churches that have used psalm branches in their Easter Services in remembrance of that day so long ago. And even though I did not find scripture that actually said they were psalm branches, (that I can find), it did give new meaning to me as I saw the psalm trees used in Psalm 92. 

The righteous shall flourish like the psalm tree. Those that come and are planted into the house of God will flourish in his courts. They will bear fruit even in their old age to show that he is upright and because of his righteousness, so are those that are a part of him.

There is no weakness in those that trust in him. Oh, sometimes we feel we are weak when we go through difficult things. Like I did over the July 4th weekend. But, the truth is, I did not break. Like the psalm tree that stands and then gets hit by winds of a hurricane, does not break, I did not break during a very crazy weekend. And in fact, have not broken over the course of the not so easy years that I have been on this earth.

I pray that for myself, and you too, that when we stand before the Lord, we can stand tall and not be broken because we have endured this life and not let those things take us down in our own winds that have come along. And he can then say to us:

"Well done, good and faithful servant." Mathew 25:21

Not because of our own righteous, of which we have none, but of his righteousness that comes to those that are truly planted in his house. Bless God!

Have a blessed day, Friends!

Psalm 65:5-7

By awesome deeds in your righteousness, you will answer us. O God of our salvation. You who are the confidence of all of the ends of the earth. And the far off seas;  who established the mountains by his strength, being clothed with power, you will still the noise of the seas, the noise of the waves.  And the tumult of the people. 


Thanks for coming by today, friends. God bless you.

America

For the next few days with the approaching holiday, I may not be able to spend as much time here as I would like. But I will do something each day, even if it i short.

For today, I would just like to encourage you to thank God that he gave us this great country! The United States of America.  Yes, America, a place where there is violence, the government fighting amongst themselves, our rights slowly being taken away, and all this virus craziness....

....is still the very best place in the world to live.

And frankly friend, to those that disagree, well they have a right to do that.

But, to them, I would say, "If you don't agree with what I have said, then  you have a right to also go to some other country to live."

Because what we have here in America is still the very place we can be. And God, has given it to us to love. 

Thanks for coming today, Friends. God bless!

The Ferris Wheel and a Dream

The Ferris Wheel and a Dream

(True Story)

The young woman's life was not going well. She was having marital problems and was raising a family. There were financial problems among others as well. And yet, God had become very real to her and she was studying his word and trying as hard as she knew how, to become more like him. Hard as that seemed at the time.

As a young girl and going forth, she loved riding a Ferris Wheel when ever she could. That had never changed in her life, even as an adult. She loved  riding as the wheel would slowly take her to the top. And there she could look down on everything below. The crowds of people. The lights. Everything. It was amazing to sit for just a few seconds and enjoy it.

But going down was another story for her. As it started, the wheel would begin to pick up speed and she would begin to feel a bit panicked. In fact, about half of the way, she would feel like jumping out
of her seat so that she could get the ride over with before it crashed to the ground.

Of course, it never crashed. At least when ever she rode on one. But it was just that feeling of fear that would take over her, in those few moments before relief would take over and she was safely on the ground again. She never got over it. It happened every time she rode on one.

Later in her thirties though, Ferris Wheels and other rides had taken a back seat to rasising  a family and going through the struggles she had been facing since her early twenties. Still, she had made her way back to the Lord after some unsuccessful attempts at going her own way, without him. And she was clinging desperately to him as she read his word and tried hard to become more like him. Even though, it didn't seem like things around there were changing like she had hoped they would as she drew closer to him.

But one night she had a dream. She saw herself in that dream peacefully riding high up in a Ferris wheel, sitting at the top, and then coming down and feeling that same feeling of wanting to jump out before she might crash at the bottom. It was familiar to her but when she woke, what could it mean, if anything?

She felt like God was trying to speak to her using it, and so praying, she asked him to tell her. And he did.

Instantly, she knew what it meant. As she was going up, it meant the things in her life had been good for awhile. She had even been happy, on top of the world as she went out on her own in her late teens and then met her husband to be. But then not long after her marriage, she started having marriage problems, and then children started coming which although she wanted them and loved them, they compounded the problem through no fault of their own but then the money problems began to show up due to the demands of raising them.

Coming down from being on top of the world in the dream, she had begun to panic and she was scared. She was trying hard to stay in her seat so as not to jump out and get to the bottom safely. She was trying hard to do what God had wanted her to do by giving everything over to him and know without a doubt, that he was in control.

At the bottom of the Ferris wheel, she was relieved, as it came to its stop, And God had gotten her through, like his word had been telling her.

God had showed her in a dream,something that she could understand about her life as it was at that point. She knew him. She was trying to learn his word and be the kind of Christian he wanted her to be even through everything she was going through at the time. She just needed to understand and realize too that someday, she would get to the end and it would all be over because of him. All the problems, and struggles would be gone. The Ferris wheel would finally stop.

What a relief.

Things were not instantly better for her. She still struggled. In fact, most of her life she has struggled in one way or another. But, those immediate situations. Some of them did come to an end a bit sooner rather then later.. Later her children left home, one after another-giving her the joy of having some wonderful grandchildren. The money situation got better and in later years,  it has gotten more freed up so that she could do more with it and not be so strapped down..Other problems such as health etc would take their place. But putting it all into perspective, generally, life has been better. And those  things that she still tends to struggle with? They will hit the bottom and the ride will be over once and for all.

How do I know? Because this is my own story. The Ferris wheel. The dream. And most importantly...

Because of God

I often think back to those days and that dream. Because it had been so real to me and unforgettable. The things that he has brought me through. The things that God has taught me and continue to each me. Where I am today, rather then where I was then. Where I am going now as opposed to back then.

He is all we need, Friends. Because with him, nothing is impossible. And when he promises us something, he will bring it to pass. In his own time. In his own way. And sometime when we least expect it. 

Thanks for coming today. I hope you have a blessed day because as we know, he made it for us.

Till next time.....