This should be the warmest day
for a while, we will hit 100 again, but after that it is forecast that we will
be in the 80’s and that is just fine with me.
Made some more doggie
cookies. Will keep some and send the
rest home with Teresa for Wanda, it will help her adjust at home and Teresa
won’t have to make any more for a few days.
I can well imagine she is going to have to take a few days to get back on
Pacific Daylight Savings time and rest up from her trip.
Talked with Rose last
night. The Coos County Fair is this week
instead of the usual last week of July – I wanted to go down and watch Rose and
William compete, but it isn’t going to happen this year.
She has the number of hours
required to get her driver’s license but doesn’t know when she will get it, “I
will get it when Dad says I am ready.”
No resentment, just the understanding that her parents have her best
interests at heart.
Not much else going on in our
household today.
Psalm 28:1-2 Unto thee will I
cry, O Lord my
rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them
that go down into the pit.
2 Hear the voice of my
supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy
oracle.
What a terrible thing it is to
think you are far away from God and can’t reach Him. We are under duress and feel we need Him to
intervene - and instead He seems to ignore us.
We feel crushed, alone and in
despair, if we are not careful depression can set in and we spiral down into
what we feel is a deep well and He is even farther away.
We cry out, day and night
without any relief. We can sympathize
with the Psalmist; we know how he feels.
While we may not have endured all he had, we know what it is like to feel
alone without God.
Then I realized I was reading this; READING these verses.
The Psalmist did not have the
advantages we have today. In America, we
can go to almost any store, particularly book store, and pick up a Bible for
less money than a couple of fancy cups of coffee. We can go to a Bible Book store or go on-line
and find literally thousands of books written by Christians on their experiences
or that of another. We can purchase
commentaries.
Yes, not all of them are good
and some lead people astray, but we can READ the Word of God to judge them.
Christians in many parts of the
world have little access to the written Word of God. They clamor for it, they treasure even a book
or two, a passage or two that they can read and meditate on. Many of these Christians can cry out as the
Psalmist, be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I
become like them that go down into the pit.
Oh,
how they treasure their copies, some of which have been given to them in great
peril and even the death of others to get it to them.
I do not treat the Bible with
the respect it deserves. It is His Word, it is His messages to us; it
is there for us to read in times of triumph, trials, tribulations or anything
else that is happening to us.
His Word is deep and it
addresses us at many different levels.
The more we read, the better we understand Him, and it is far easier for
Him to speak to us.
In it He gives us reassurance,
He tells us of the many glorious things He has done with people, just like us,
in the past. He gives us promises that
He will NEVER leave or forsake us.
When we open up the Bible and
ask the Holy Spirit to lead us, to strengthen us through His Word – He is
there. There to teach us the truth that
has been given us in this magnificent piece of literature; His Love, His Mercy,
His desire that we have Him in our life.
How foolish I have been in the
past – and will probably be in the future if I don’t use care. GOD can speak to us every day, any time at any
hour; anywhere we are, no matter what we may be doing AS long as we are seeking
Him.
When I look back at some
troubling times in my life I realize that I often was not spending time in His
Word. I neglected a time to read and
meditate on Him, He was there, but I didn’t see Him; I didn’t hear Him.
The Bible is HIS WORD, HE is speaking to us every
time we open it up, read and meditate on it.
It is more than just a well written book; it is more than a history of
the Jewish nation; it is a reaffirmation from God, who HE IS and how He wants to
be in our life.
It is our emotions that keep us from understanding
that God is there. It is our emotions that prevent us from listening
to Him as He tells us of His love and desire to place His powerful arms around
us.
We measure emotional
interaction, or the lack of it, with our relationship with God. Emotions are important, it makes us who we
are, but when we think that God only speaks when He makes us happy is to limit
God.
We pray and we don’t see an
answer right away. We want something
done and God doesn’t do it. We get
frustrated because we believe He isn’t listening to us because we don’t ‘feel’
the answer or His presence – we don’t see the results we want.
But God is speaking to us, we just aren’t
willing to listen to what He says. Often
He speaks but we are so lost in our own feelings our own emotions, we cannot
hear, so we think He has abandoned us.
We have the advantage over the
Psalmist; we can READ what God has to
say. We have the written promises of
God, signed by Him through men that put into writing what God had told them.
We understand that our timing is
not God’s timing. We learn that
sometimes hundreds and thousands of years may go by before He answers prayers
and delivers His people from duress.
We understand that as we
dedicate our life to Him, He guides us with His Holy Spirit. It may not be in a voice we hear as we do
with a person, but He is there none the less.
The more we read God’s Word, the
better we can understand what He is saying to us. The most important of which is that He is
always with us and will never forsake us.
Hebrews 13:5-6 Let your
conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye
have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake
thee.
6 So that we may boldly
say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto
me.
God has spoken, He is speaking and will continue to do so –
it is up to us to listen.
Later, Art :-)
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