Category Archives: Trusting God

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August 7, 2014

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Peace of God, Trusting God

OUR ROCK OF REFUGE

ROCK9393aWEBTurn your ear toward me. Rescue me quickly. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me. [Psalm 31:2 (GW)]

Naomi Sachs, a landscape architect and designer of hospital healing gardens, says this about safe havens: “We feel safest when we can see with a clear view – prospect – from a safe vantage point without being seen – refuge.” While hiking one day, I saw a rock that made me think of David’s “rock of refuge.” High in the mountains, it afforded a clear view of the valley below and yet provided both a place of concealment and shelter from a storm. Of course, David was speaking figuratively when he likened God to a rock of refuge. It was not until I read Sachs’ words, however, that I truly understood why this metaphor is so apropos. We can’t all climb a mountain and rest in the shade of a huge boulder while gazing out at the world below us, but we all do have a rock of refuge that welcomes us: our Lord. He not only provides a vantage point for our lives but also shelter, protection and salvation.

The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my Savior, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the strength of my salvation, my stronghold. [Psalm 18:2 (GW)]

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August 3, 2014

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God's Plan, Prayer, Trusting God

HIS FATHER’S PLAN

And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” [Luke 2:49 (NKJV)]

When Jesus tasted the vinegar, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and died. [John 19:30 (NCV)]

Even Jesus had to follow a plan: God’s plan. Jesus knew what he had to do, he did it, and he knew when it was completed. God has plans for us, too. Too often, however, His plans are not the plans we have in mind. Instead of asking God to bless the plan we make, let’s ask God to make our plan be the one that He blesses!

This agrees with the purpose God had since the beginning of time, and he carried out his plan through Christ Jesus our Lord [Ephesians 3:11 (NCV)]

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August 1, 2014

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Today: Make it Count, Trusting God, Worry

DON’T TRIP ON YOUR TROUBLE

So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today. [Matthew 6:34 (NLT)]

Our anxiety about everything that can go wrong tomorrow can cause us to miss enjoying everything that went right today. Occasionally, however, we’re so concerned about the potential predicaments of tomorrow that we overlook the obvious troubles of this day. While we’re busy contemplating all sorts of hypothetical future difficulties, we may fail to notice the problems or danger signs that are right in front of us.

Lord, stop us from focusing so intently on the mountains we might have to climb tomorrow. Don’t let us trip over the molehills that are in front of us today!

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time. [Abraham Lincoln]

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July 27, 2014

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Challenges & Difficulty, Faith & Hope, God's Plan, Trusting God

FROM BAD TO WORSE

I hate my life, so I will complain without holding back; I will speak because I am so unhappy. [Job 10:1 (NCV)]

When Job’s life became a chronicle of disasters, he honestly expressed his anger to God. Most likely, we all have felt like Job at one time or another. We can barely get out of bed to face another day where things just seem to go from bad to worse through no fault of our own. Unlike Job, we may not have lost family, health and wealth in one fell swoop and we may not have expressed our feelings so vividly, but we’ve all endured times of despair and misery. Although Job wrongly believed that his problems were a result of God’s anger at him, the one thing he never did was turn from God in his misery. In spite of wondering where God was in all of his wretchedness, Job refused to curse God in his despair.

Lord, it’s easy to believe in a loving and merciful God when our lives are filled with your blessings; it’s much harder when life goes wrong. Keep us strong in our faith so that we never let outward circumstances alienate us from you. Help us accept your plan for our lives, no matter what it may be. The outer circumstances of our lives won’t necessarily change with our acceptance, but the inner ones surely will.

His wife said to him, “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.” But Job replied, “You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” So in all this, Job said nothing wrong. [Job 2:9-10 (NLT)]

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July 22, 2014

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Faith & Hope, Trusting God

WHAT IS FAITH?

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. [Hebrews 11:1 (NLT)]

Paul tells us that faith and hope go hand in hand. We can’t see into heaven and we can’t see into the future, so we have to have faith that what we hope for actually will occur. We must have faith in the reality of God’s promises. Yet, what exactly is faith? Faith isn’t just belief in our Triune God; faith is loving that God, following him, and accepting His will for our lives. Faith encompasses our minds and bodies, our hearts and souls, our thoughts, words, and actions. For me, clearly defining faith poses the same problem Supreme Court Justice Stewart had when defining obscenity: “faced with the task of trying to define what may be indefinable … I shall not today attempt further to define [it]… But I know it when I see it.”

Dear Lord, I may not be able to define or explain faith, but I know it when I see it! Let me filled with your Spirit and strong in my faith.

Faith is a work of God in us, which changes us and brings us to birth anew from God. It…makes us completely different people in heart, mind, senses, and all our powers, and brings the Holy Spirit with it. What a living, creative, active powerful thing is faith! … Faith is a living, unshakeable confidence in God’s grace; it is so certain, that someone would die a thousand times for it. This kind of trust in and knowledge of God’s grace makes a person joyful, confident, and happy with regard to God and all creatures. This is what the Holy Spirit does by faith. Through faith, a person will do good to everyone without coercion, willingly and happily; he will serve everyone, suffer everything for the love and praise of God, who has shown him such grace. [From “Preface to the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans,” by Martin Luther, translation by Bro. Andrew Thornton]

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July 16, 2014

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God's Grace & Love, Trusting God

HE CARES

DSC03642-Rosenlaui webThe righteous person has many troubles, but the Lord rescues him from all of them. [Psalm 34:19 (GW)]

He will deliver us from our troubles or carry us through them. Either way, we will be free of them eventually.

God doesn’t promise us a life of mountaintop experiences. There will be valleys to go through, too. Dark valleys. Disorienting valleys. Valleys of depression and despair. What he promises is not a road map that will give us a detour around those valleys, but that he will walk through those valleys with us. When we emerge from those experiences, we look back and realize that is where the growth is. It isn’t on the mountain tops, above the timberline; it’s in the valleys. [From “When You Can’t Come Back” by Dave and Jan Dravecky]

Even if I walk through a very dark valley, I will not be afraid, because you are with me. [Psalm 23:4a (NCV)]