40 Days of Healing - Day 3 - March 8, 2019

"Many will say, 'Who will show us better times?' Let your face smile on us Lord.
You have given me greater joy than those who have abundant harvests of grain and new wine.
In peace I will lie down and sleep, for You alone, O LORD, will keep me safe." Psalm 4:6-8, NLT

TEXT: Psalm 3 and 4

I am continually amazed at how David was always able to find the rays of joy in his life, even in the darkest hours, simply by focusing on the faithfulness of the Lord.
Whenever he reflected on his blackest times in the Psalms, he always, it seems, coupled it with an expression of gratitude and trust for the Lord's constant protection and provision. Even when circumstances beat David down, he always clung to his hope and trust in a mighty and faithful God. 
It amazes me, considering all he endured, even when the trouble was self-inflicted, through his sometimes sinful choices. He knew God's loving hand would never abandon those who cry out to him in humility in their brokenness.
Like David, my testimony to God's love and faithfulness does not lay in the moments where things are easy and going well. It is, instead, most visible in the points where darkness has all but enveloped me and I have felt reduced to dust. The light of His grace shone into these moments, and His hand lifted me out of the mud.
Even in the times I have been my own worst enemy, when my own sin has been the foe that surrounded me, I can look back and smile. I am still standing hopeful and victorious today because Jesus did not give me over to destruction. Instead He lifted me out of the mire and set my feet, time and again, on solid ground.
I am able to find joy in the simple things not because my life has been without trouble, but because I serve a God who has never let me go when the waves of trial have washed over me in torrents.
My joy, my gratitude, is not in my own strength, but in His might and loving hand in the times where I have had none.
So, as David, I can be thankful for each new day, knowing the Lord has brought me safely through the night. I can be grateful when I have enough, because the Lord has always, and will always provide in my time of need.
And I can live always in courage and in joy when I remember the Lord who has always been my rescue is greater and stronger than any trouble the world can throw my way, and as Paul writes in Romans 8, there is nothing that can separate me from His unfailing love!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FINDING LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS - RACE REFLECTIONS

It is amazing sometimes how God's plan can so vastly differ from my own. In the past couple of days, I have begun to reflect on my experiences at the Run for the Rocks Half Marathon, and the aftermath thereof. A week ago, I was approaching it with no real concrete goal in mind. I planned to take it easy, and run little more than a relaxed (for me), leisurely pace - a chance to recover after a difficult, but fulfilling, summer of racing. But somewhere about three days before the race, I started to feel like God's plans for this race were far different than my own. On His leading, I decided to run the race to support and represent Prodigal Ministries of Kansas, a small men's transitional shelter I have been involved with on several levels for nearly a decade. It felt like a calling to be a voice of light for a ministry that, on so many levels, changed my life and my heart many years ago when I was in a dark, dark place. With this renewed focus put on the race I was r...
Read more

HELP CARRY THE BURDEN

Read: 2 Corinthians 1:3-11 As I sat on the couch in my Fort Collins, CO apartment on the morning of September 11, 2001, watching the tragic events of the morning unfold, New York City and Washington, DC seemed like a world away. While I was as angered and grief-stricken as millions of others at the senseless loss of life, I never thought I imagined I would have a truly personal connection to the tragedy. Fast forward a decade and a half. Through my involvement in various running organizations, I got to know and become good friends with someone who had volunteered at Ground Zero in the weeks and months following the terrorist attacks. For sake of a dear friend’s privacy, I don’t want to say too much more about their identity. Through my friend, though, I came to know far more about the far-reaching effects of the tragedy than I ever could imagine. Even today, survivors and first responders who worked at Ground Zero continue to deal with serious health effects from dust and chemi...
Read more

NOTHING TO FEAR

A million thoughts are racing through my head right now, very few of them good ones. I have an appointment with a specialist in a couple of hours to get a prostate problem checked out. Though my rational mind says it’s more than likely a small, benign issue, the more worry-prone, less rational side cannot help but imagine the worst possibilities that could come of this. At 37 years old, I feel like I am too young to even be having to entertain these ideas, but the twinges of dread linger in the dark corners of my mind nonetheless. What if it is serious? After a long family history of cancer, the fear lingers that I could be the next to battle it – again, I know not necessarily rational, and maybe a needless concern, but it is amazing what our minds and hearts consider when fear invades. I have a beautiful wife that I want to have many more years with, and a treasured daughter that I want to be there for as a father as she grows. Even the most remote possibility of not being a...
Read more