Tag: trust
Video 11 A Pauper in Money but Rich in God’s Blessings
Video 10 Building the Painful Muscles of Trust
Video 8: I Feel Discouraged But I Know if God Worked a Miracle in the Past He Can do it Again Today
Discouragement: Choosing to Be a Joseph or a Murmuring Israelite
If I were to write a poem right now the title would probably be discouragement. It would certainly sum up the mood of the day. Not only for me, but for my business as well.
Here we are, nearly a month into Quarter 4 and after weeks of pushing myself to the breaking, I made 3 whole sells on Etsy for $18 dollars. I know what you are thinking, how will I ever manage to spend so much money. A new car, a house, a vacation, or all of the above? Ha ha, it really is enough to take the wind right out of one’s sales.
I know that I have a way to go to develop really good designing skills, but even though I did not expect a rush on my products, I had hoped that at least 1 or 2 of my designs might get a couple of sales. I was sure that some, like my Turkey’s protesting Against Thanksgiving and insisting that you should play Sudoku instead was not only colorful but humorous as well.
Sadly, even though my Mother helped me to purchase a mockup to give it more appeal, it has gone over as well as bag of potatoes filled with bricks.
If that were not discouraging enough, in a few days we have to move from our temporary rental, and we still have to find a new place to move too. And between the holidays and the arrival of the winter birds there is a good chance that we could find ourselves on the street.
It is hard to believe that when we put our home on the market almost 1 year ago, there were multiple homes in our price range. Even more amazing, it is hard to believe that at the time, interest rates were low enough that we could get a house for $300,000 and it would have cost less per month than the house we were living in. Why at the time we put our house for sell, there was a 4/3 manufactured home on 3 acres for $180,000 that we were hoping to get once the house sold.
But fast forward a couple of months to when our house finally sold, and it was as if a vacuum had come along and sucked up every descent price home and then spit out a bunch of higher priced fixer uppers. Almost overnight anything that was descent disappeared from our price range or shot up in price along with the interest rates. Before we sold there were dozens of halfway descent places under $250,000 and even some under the 180,000 mark. Then our house sold and their were only a handful of fixer uppers remained. It has been six months since we sold our home and 4 since we had to move out into one temporary rental after another, and the market has become even bleaker. Now, with the our down payment dwindling and the competition for housing rising, it seems as if it will not be long before my mother, sister, and I shall soon be homeless.
As each day brings us closer and closer to this possibility, I find myself pondering the story of the Israelite and their years of wandering in the wilderness. From the day beginning, as we moved from our house to house with the remains of my beloved father and a few weeks later placed the remains of our sweet pup Happy by his side, I was reminded of how all through their wilderness wanderings they had carried the remains of Joseph.
Continue reading “Discouragement: Choosing to Be a Joseph or a Murmuring Israelite”
Sabbath Afternoon Fun: Find 3 Difference Romans 5:6-8
I hope that you are having a Sabbath afternoon. And that you are enjoying this chance to learn better how to keep your heart rested in the promises of God. I know how hard this lesson is to learn, but before the last great battle we must learn this lesson fully if we hope to stand. Yet learning this much needed lesson is painful.
Currently God is teaching our family this lesson. Between the death of my father and the change in the economy our house became too expensive for our tiny budget to support so we had to sell the house. In the months leading up to our home going up for sell the market was full of good homes at a price we could handle. But within days of our house going on the market most of the homes were gone. But every so often a seemingly good home would appear. But as soon as our house sold and we could finally put in a bid, the competition became so fierce that there were times I found a potential home in the morning and before I could show my mother and sister a few hours later, it was sold.
Over and over we would call about a home to find out it was already pending, or after a few days of discussion and prayer we would decide that it was time to call the realtor to see the home, and it was gone. The first few times we were not worried, but after days turned into weeks, and the time to move drew dangerously near, we began to worry. Finally we decided that we would have to put our house hunting on hold and find a place to rent. But to our dismay we found out that even though we will have the money to rent a home for a year while looking for a new house, because our income is too low, we cannot find a home to rent.
Now we are only days away from having to leave our home, and we still have no place to move too and no idea where we are going to put our belongings or how we will move them since none of us have the health or strength needed to move hundred of boxes or heavy furniture. It is a very unnerving position to be in. One that I would not wish upon another. Living on the street is hard for someone in good health, but for a diabetic dog who requires refrigerated insulin and three sickly women, it is a potential death sentence.
I wish that we could say that we have reached this point without questioning or murmuring. Our trust in God so complete that like Peter we can fall into a sleep so deep that even the glory of an angel in our room cannot wake us. But that would be a commandment breaking stretch. At times our blood pressure has reached dangerous levels, our nerves have gotten so taunt that we had to apologize for our tense and irritated words, and at moments the fear has become so strong that we could not help but with tears wonder if God had abandoned us.
Yet at the same time, after gathering in prayer to ask for God’s strength and help, peace filled our hearts. While we were worried, our trust in God outweighed that fear to the point that smiles replaced tears as our minds were pointed to all the ways that God had helped us in the past. Promises from God’s word were recalled to our minds and as our trembling hands reached out to grasp them, He made us stronger.
At this moment we cannot fully say where God is leading us or why He has chosen to take us down this frightful path, we have no clue if we will have another roof to go to when we leave this home or if the car will become our new home, but we can say that God has been faithful to His word and is holding our hand. Here and there doing little things to prove that He taking care of us and to help strengthen our trust in Him.
It is my hope that for whatever future test God is preparing us for, we will prove faithful. That in some way this test of our faith, of painful muscle building, will not only draw us closer, but will in some way become such a testimony to others that it will help others to find the courage to stand firm and bring others to the Lord.
As you enjoy today’s find the difference verse about God’s love for sinful man, it is my prayer that God will help you to hide this verse in your heart. So when your test of faith comes, you will have the words of love and hope that you will need to help encourage your faith and to be a light to your feet keeping them from falling off the narrow path that leads to light.
Tears are a Language God Understands
Today, as the tears of heartache and worry for Happy who was so sick that he stopped eating, drinking, and walking for over 12 hours. We have already lost at least 9 family members, including my father and grandmother, in less than 3 years. This year my mother has been in and out of the hospital multiple times with uncontrolled blood pressure that was climbing over 200. Last month both of her sibling gave us a scare after ending up in the hospital within a couple of weeks of each other. And once more, before we had a chance to recuperate from one loss, we were facing the very real possibility of losing our little Happy pup. With a sea of tears we have been presenting our petition to God day and night that He might, if it would not cause Happy greater harm, raise him up, and give us more time with him.
Over and over we lifted our hearts up to God as we poured out the unspoken sorrow of our heart to His patient ear. Even though we trust Him, it has been a struggle to place Happy fully in God’s hands. When we looked at the heartbreak of the past couple of years, coming so close that one scar could not heal before another wound pierced our heart, it was so easy to hold back and say Lord, you must heal Happy. To point to our many losses, our financial insecurity, and say Lord, how can you let us endure another blow. If you love us, You have to heal Happy.
But would that really be putting things in God’s hands? No, sadly that would be saying God, even though You know what is best, You can do what you know is best as long as it what we think is best. For a moment this might work out. For a moment it might save us from the sea of tears caused by the ache that was tearing our heart to pieces. But in the long run, when the danger or sorrow that the Lord was trying to save us finally came our way, the little ache of today, would be a thousand fold worse.
Hard as it was, we had to remind ourselves that God, tender father that He is, longs to keep us from heartache. And that before He allows any sorrow to come our way, He weighs it out to determine what we can handle, and what is for our best and the best of those around us. That unlike us, He sees the beginning from the end, and sometimes He like he did with King Hezekiah, He makes painful choices. How much better would things have been for Hezekiah, who at the time was a hero of faith, if like King David, he had bowed his head in acceptance of God’s word.
Oh how hard it must have been for Him to hear the sad proclamation that he was going to die from his ailment, especially knowing that he was without an heir. But at that moment he would have died with an untarnished record of faith. His record would have been one of trust and faith in His Lord in a time of great trial and tribulation.
But instead of trusting that the God who knows the beginning from the end, might be trying to save him from some unseen danger, pointed to his record as reason to why God should answer my prayer. King Hezekiah got his way. He got 15 more years of life, but at what cost? God knew that King Hezekiah was in danger of losing his faith. Flushed with his great victory of faith, King Hezekiah probably felt invincible. At that moment he might honestly have believed that nothing could get between him and God. And he might have imagined all the things He could and would do should God raise Him.
But while he did not see his danger, God did. And preferring to have a sleeping saint rather than a live sinner, God had made the hard choice to say no to healing him from his disease. It must have been with a heavy heart that God answered Hezekiah’s petition to look at his record and raise him up. He knew that when the cutting test of pride came his way, Hezekiah would fail.
Sadly, when the Babylonian representatives came to find out more about the miracle of the sundial moving backwards 10 degrees, Hezekiah forgot all about God. Instead of pointing them to the Great Healer, and telling them about the mighty maker of heaven and earth who not only had the power to hold the sun in place for a whole day or move it backwards 10 degrees, but also had the power to change men’s hearts, he showed them his great wealth.
Hezekiah had been given one of the greatest witnessing opportunities ever given to man. What other king, including King Solomon, had such a prestigious delegation from a budding super power knocking at their door practically begging to hear a sermon? Truly this was one of those moments when we could set back and wonder how different this world’s history might have been if King Hezekiah had proven true instead of giving way to pride and without one word of thanks or gratitude to God, squandered a golden opportunity to witness to the leader of the kingdom who would a few years latter be represented by the head of gold!
How different might the history of our world been if instead of showing off his wealth, King Hezekiah had spoken of the greatness of the God who raised him from his death bed and as a token of his word moved back the sundial by 10 degrees as easily as one leads a puppy. Never before or after was there such a moment to touch hearts as when that delegation, awed by the great miracle, were actively seeking to learn about a God so powerful that he could alter the course of time. At that moment their hearts were open to hearing and being impressed by the words of life. If Hezekiah had remained grateful, and spoken words of praise and gratitude to God, who knows how many members of that prestigious delegation might have given their heart to God. What a mighty witness for truth Hezekiah could have been. Only when the books of Heaven are opened, and God pulls back the curtain of history to reveal what might have been if that delegation had been able to bring back words of life to their king instead of visions of silver and gold, will we find out how the history of Israel and Babylon might have been forever altered. Instead of becoming an enemy of God and his people from which the call must be made Babylon is fallen, is fallen, come out of her my people, Babylon might have become a bastion of truth.
While this is a more sever example of the dangers of demanding God give way to our wants and desires, there is always great danger in seeking to pull things out of God’s hands and trying to force Him to do our will. Like Job in his suffering, he had no way of knowing that his misery was due to the cruel desire of the devil to bring him to his knees and tear him from the side of God. Right now the curtain between our world and the Heavenly realm is closed to us, and we cannot see how the hard the devil like a thief is seeking to pass the wall of protection that God has raised up so that he might steal us from God’s side. As overwhelming as today’s tears might seem, we have no way of knowing what greater pain and suffering the devil is longing to bring upon us if given the opportunity.
It is not easy to accept the tears of today. When faces with the painful, but purifying fire of tribulation, it is very easy to do as King Hezekiah and say Lord I want you to do things my way. It is so easy to lose sight of the fact that in this moment of pain, we are not the only ones shedding tears. But that as tender and loving father, the arms of God are wrapped around us, holding us up, even carrying us through the trial. And that His tears are mingled with our own.
Thoughts about Faith
Faith, it is a very small word containing only five humble letters, yet it certainly is a mighty word. When everything is going right, and the road of life is quiet and well paved, it is really easy to say I have faith and think that you understand what that word really means. But how can you? What faith is required when life is at its best and want and fear have no place in your life.
What faith is required to walk on plush carpets and eat ice cream by the pool? What faith do you have to rely on when your life is like a romantic postcard or an add for a tropical resort? What exercise of heart and mind is called for when your life could be flashed up for the poster image of successful because your every want and need is met for years to come. When your beliefs line up with the crowd and are excepted at every turn as the only way to live, saying I have a measure of faith takes neither courage nor self-denial.
It is not until trial and adversity hunt your steps, when discouragement and disappointment hunt you down like a pack of hungry hound dogs that you really get a glimpse of the depths and power of faith. Because it is then that you have to chose to hold on to faith. It is then that you have to chose to grab hold and cling to faith, that it become more than words.
From our comfortable arm chairs it is easy to look back at the mighty men of faith and say, I would do the same. Or to look down at those who fell short of the mark and say, I would never do that. Nothing would make me lose my faith. I would never chose the comforts of this life over faith in Jesus. If I were in that garden, or if I had been King Saul, or if I had been so and so I would have done this and not done that.
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I Trust and Wait
I trust and wait, is an easy thing to say when everything is going right. But during times like these, when the tiny two steps forward that it has taken years of struggle to gain, in one second has been swallowed up, and it seems like you are about to be pushed back a thousand feet farther than ever before, its not so easy to say. And harder yet to mean.
I trust and wait, praying and working, even though that is all you can do in this life, sometimes does not seem like enough. And it seems like vanity, when you look at the wall of problems eagerly seeking a way to knock you down.
O how simple those words of faith are in times of ease, but in uncertain days like this, when your fledgling business that a few months before was just starting to grow, has suddenly turned upside down. And a thousand clicks is lucky to bring in one or two sales. And all your painful sweat, your agonizing hours of pushing through exhaustion and pain, have evaporated into another lost dream, suddenly its not so easy to promise to put everything in God’s hands, and to give over your heavy burdens.
In times like these it is so tempting to rip them from His hands, and say Lord, I know better than you. To say why did I let go, when everything I have tried goes wrong. And every corner of my life seems to be filled with nothing but impossible dreams.
Yet this is the moment, this is the hour that our faith must rise to the challenge, and take an even stronger hold of that Almighty hand. Now more than ever, it is time to give God every corner of our heart, and to tell His listening ear of our increasing woe. For we are small and powerless, but who can stand before the Maker of the Universe? Who can cross the line, of Him who by a word quieted the storm?
They say that after a long trip, the last few miles home are the hardest. And from the looks of things, that is where we are in the scheme of prophetic history. The bulk of our wandering in an arid desert is almost over. In a few more miles we shall reach the banks of the Jordan and there we shall at last lay down all of our burdens. But like the wandering children of Israel before us, the last few miles will not come easy. Temptation and trials will increase, as the devil uses every device to trick, discourage, and if possible prevent us from making it to the other shore.
If you enjoyed this poem you might want to check out my book Poetry From the Heart Poems of Faith.
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