“HE SHALL STRENGTHEN THINE HEART!”

 

Psalms 27:14                 (KJV)

“WAIT ON THE LORD: be of good courage, and “HE SHALL STRENGTHEN THINE HEART”: WAIT, I SAY, ON THE LORD.” 

There have been MANY times where I have had to TRUST in this passage of Scripture, especially in my “busyness” following the Brain Hemorrhage!  But this morning during my “quiet time” my EYES were OPENED to SEE things from a different perspective!!

GOD had to place me into a seventeen day coma in July of 2007 to disengage me from “this world” and all of its entrapments.  It wasn’t as if HE couldn’t do it in another “quicker” scenario, BUT HE used a two and a half week PAUSE to MAKE me SEE precisely WHO was IN CONTROL….OF EVERYTHING!!!  

ALMIGHTY GOD, the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSES, “could have” simply SPOKEN, as HE did during CREATION, and I would have been “HEALED”!  Yet HE ELECTED for me to SLOWLY heal the brain leak over an extended period of time to magnify HIS power and CONTROL, not only of my life, but over EVERYTHING!!!

Fast forward ten years later and GOD was WORKING……yet AGAIN!  A “brain hemorrhage” was taken care of, so HE decided that a quadruple bypass surgery would be HIS next achievement!  Four days after surgery I was released from the hospital!  During my first post-surgery “check up”, the heart surgeon exclaimed that my heart was VERY strong and that I should live to be in my 90’s!  

The CREATOR certainly didn’t need “a dirt dumb country boy” to display HIS CONTROL OVER EVERYTHING, but HE DID, and without consulting me!!!  I am SO UNWORTHY, and HE IS SO MERCIFUL!!!  All I can say is that “HE SHALL STRENGTHEN THINE HEART” might not be what my heart surgeon was referring to, but I AM SO BLESSED to have HIM ABIDING IN my life….FOR HIS GLORY!!!

“GOD IS LIGHT!”

 GOD IS LIGHT!  Without HIS LIGHT, “darkness” prevails…..but ONLY when GODS LIGHT isn’t being SHOWN BY HIS SERVANTS!!!  

(Matthew 5:14-16)

“THE LORD WAITS!”

Isaiah 30:18                 (ESV)

 Will Be Gracious

    “[18] Therefore “THE LORD WAITS” to be gracious to you,

        and therefore HE EXALTS HIMSELF to SHOW MERCY to you.

    For the LORD is a GOD of justice;

        BLESSED ARE ALL THOSE WHO WAIT FOR HIM.”

Trying NOT to convolute THE WORD OF GOD with thoughts from a mere human, “THE LORD WAITS” to be gracious to me!!  I don’t NEED to understand how or why, I simply need to TRUST in the FACT that “THE LORD WAITS”, and in doing so HE EXALTS HIMSELF!!!

“SO THAT THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND!”

 

Genesis 11:1-9                 (ESV)

The Tower of Babel

“[1] Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. [2] And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. [3] And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. [4] Then THEY SAID, “Come, LET US BUILD OURSELVES a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us MAKE A NAME FOR OURSELVES, LEST WE BE DISPERSED over the face of the whole earth.” [5] And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. [6] And THE LORD SAID, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. [7] Come, let us go down and there CONFUSE their language, “SO THAT THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND” one another’s speech.” [8] So THE LORD DISPERSED THEM from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. [9] Therefore its name was called Babel, because there THE LORD CONFUSED THE LANGUAGE of all the earth. And from there THE LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.”

There are times when I don’t UNDERSTAND HIS-STORY!  GOD can make HIS PLAN perfectly clear, but apparently I am unable to SEE what HE intended.  My standard mode of operation has normally been to get my instructions and THEN to go FULL SPEED AHEAD with what I “thought” I SAW as HIS PLAN???

But is that what the Children of Israel experienced in Exodus 14 on the banks of the Red Sea?  No, they HAD TO WAIT for GOD to split the Red Sea for them to, not only flee from the enemy, but so that GOD could demolish the enemy at the bottom of the Red Sea!!!  Had the Israelites tried to escape before GOD parted the Red Sea, the outcome DEFINITELY would have not been as effective.  

The “land of Shinar” (v. 2 above) was also known as Babylonia, present-day Iraq and parts of Syria.  An uneducated person might see this area as arid and undesirable.  When it is revealed that the Tower of Babel is just south of modern day Baghdad, Iraq it caused my EYES to be OPENED to SEE things more clearly!  

Humanity DOES NOT have the capability to manufacture a “way to GOD”!! JESUS HIMSELF says in John 4:24 that “GOD IS SPIRIT”??  Why then, do we even try to find a SPIRIT with our physical bodies on a physical earth???  

GOD says in Genesis 11:7 that our CREATOR will “go down there and confuse their language, “SO THAT THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND” one another’s speech.”  GOD ALONE is the ONLY ONE WHO is able to OPEN our EYES and permit our EYES to SEE TRUTH!!!  The people of Babel were unsuccessful in their efforts, something that ALL OF CREATION will SEE!  JESUS, THE CREATOR, says in John 6:44 that “No one can come to ME UNLESS the FATHER WHO sent ME draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.”  

ALMIGHTY GOD has made things “SO THAT THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND”…….and it will be that way until HE OPENS OUR EYES!!!

“BE CONTENT WITH WHAT YOU HAVE!”

 

Hebrews 13:5                 (ESV(

“[5] Keep your life free from love of money, and “BE CONTENT WITH WHAT YOU HAVE”, for HE has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.””

Recently I was thinking about an appointment I have with someone further in town, AND how I “could” stop by a pastry shop and buy an Apple Fritter!  Anyone that knows me can testify that I DO NOT NEED an Apple Fritter, but the desire was there just the same.  Instead of “my desire”, I instead ate an apple and banana for breakfast and abstained from eating something that I probably didn’t need!  

This brought my mind to an interview I watched recently with a Southern Gospel singer who said that the LORD was telling him that HE had him where he currently was “for this season in your life”!  

GOD doesn’t make ANY mistakes!  HE also doesn’t put us in situations where HE has not already been……AND USES FOR HIS GLORY!  King David probably “thought” that he had gotten away with his indiscretions with Bathsheba, that is until she informed King David that she was pregnant!  Then he began to try and cover up his actions, which only made it worse!  Ultimately his successor to the Throne of Israel was a child GOD BLESSED him with…..through Bathsheba AFTER they were married and lost the first child in the birthing process!!!

The lesson King David learned through his failure brought him the successor to the Kingdom of the nation of Israel.  GOD HAD A PLAN, and David’s son, Solomon, was part of that PLAN!  King David had to suffer through the humiliation of his infidelity with Bathsheba, THE DEATH OF THE INFANT FROM THAT ACT, and the turmoil of the existing sons, all because he couldn’t “BE CONTENT WITH WHAT YOU HAVE”!!!  

May I WAIT ON THE LORD,and BE PATIENT, and “BE CONTENT WITH WHAT YOU HAVE”, FOR HIS GLORY!!!