Do You Feel Far Away From God?
It is a delight to have the opportunity to write for various websites. Here’s an excerpt from a recent post at 5 Minutes for Faith. Won’t you join me for the rest of the article? Great! See you there:)
Soul, do you feel far way from God?
- Do you know the comfort of God’s presence when days are hard or do feel He has left you on your own?
- Do you know the healing of His touch or do you feel brittle with a thousand cracks from wounds that never seem to heal?
[tweetthis]What we think about God has everything to do with how we relate to Him.[/tweetthis]
For the child of God, He is always constant within. We often forget this, relying on feelings rather than faith. Strong emotions can reveal what we are really believing in the moment. They can uncover the fact that we are not truly relying on Christ as our source for life, value, and security.
Full and complete, God has no need or lack. He doesn’t enter into relationship with us with any ulterior motive or manipulation. Sometimes we think God responds like we do.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.
–Isaiah 55:9
He is for us with a fierce love. He holds nothing back, not even His Son. Inviting us into His strong embrace with the breath of life, He gives energy to all that we do–simply that we might know Him as our true source of life.
For in Him we live and move and have our being–Acts 17:28.
[tweetthis]Strong emotions can reveal what we are really believing in the moment.[/tweetthis]
Read the full article at 5 Minutes for Faith.
Have you discovered the lovely communities of bloggers through these link ups? Grace and Truth and Faith and Fellowship
Family Traditions Create Special Memories
When I was a little girl, Easter was all about the bunny.
And the basket.
And the dress. Oh yes, the dress!
Sisters in our Easter Dresses 1969.
The special Easter dress was family tradition that we looked forward to. As a child, I loved the pretty dress that often matched my sister. Some years we even had Easter bonnets–the frilly white kind.
In our white patent leather shoes and lacy socks, we loved the thrill of hunting for Easter eggs, colorful and filled with sweet treasures.
Easter 1967
I have many special Easter memories stored away in my heart. Years of traditions shared with family. What a treasure these old photos are.
As I have grown older, I still love the sharing holiday traditions with my family. What joy to plan egg hunts and make Easter baskets for my own children.
Easter 2001
My mom saved those many of the Easter dresses my sister and I wore, and what sweet moments for my own girls to wear them.
Easter 2000
You will notice that I did not make them wear the bonnets…mom saved those too.
Over the years the generations change as the crawling babies grow into teenagers and the young parents become grandparents. Easter is still one of the few times we gather as extended family, and it is precious.
As a military family, we have not always lived close enough to spend Easter with family, which makes the memories all the more special.
Easter 2008
Easter 2005
[tweetthis]Family traditions bring generations together, creating strong bonds and family stories. [/tweetthis]
Whether it is Easter dresses, decorating and hunting for eggs, playing games, making crafts, or baking special recipes, take time to create family traditions. It’s never too late to start!
Through the years traditions will change with the ages and interests of the children, but always the best tradition is to celebrate life and love together as a family!
It’s 2012 and sisters are still showing off our Easter dresses!
This year, all of my kids will be joining us for Easter. The college crowd is making the time to come, which is a challenge as they don’t have time off for Easter.
The lure of fun times with aunts, uncles, and cousins beckons as they realize the years are passing and time with the older generation is not to be taken for granted.
[tweetthis]Love is the glue of family traditions that brings generations together and creates love for a lifetime.[/tweetthis]
Here are a few websites that have great ideas for Easter activities with kids. Enjoy your traditions and add a little something new.
101 Easter Activities for Kids
A Collection of the Best Cross Activities
12 Not-So-Traditional Easter Hunts
The Kids are Growing Up
Kids go through phases and stages that you think will never pass. Most of the time they are fairly small behaviors that worry you like crazy as you pull your hair out and wonder if they will ever outgrow it.
At three, you worry they will never be potty-trained. At six, you worry that they will never learn to write legibly…(well, somethings they might not quite grow out of. ) At thirteen, you worry that they will never learn to keep up with their stuff as you make yet another trip to school to drop of a forgotten major project.
Before you know it, high school graduation arrives and you cry bucket of tears as Pomp and Circumstance echoes in your head.
Some how…some way, they grow up. All of the worries, questions, prayers, and sleepless nights somehow by the grace of God and a good measure of parental sweat silently roll into the future and your teenager enters adulthood, ready to step into a wider world with new challenges and joys to experience as one more graduation day approaches.
Recently both our college kids were home for spring break. For one, college graduation is quickly approaching and there are plans to be made. I happened to ask, “Hey have you ordered a cap and gown?”
“A what?”
Oops. They grow up…but do they? He’ll have fun scrounging one up.
It seems like a few hours ago I was writing about his graduation from high school. Seriously.
We took a few pictures for his graduation announcement–score! Getting this guy in a photo is a rare moment these days, so I’m keeping these for sure!
After graduation, this fellow will be returning to the Northwest to work as a behavior specialist at a camp that serves children with severe, life-altering medical conditions. He shares, “Last summer, working at camp transformed me completely, and I’m looking forward to another summer spent sharing camp’s message of irrepressible hope to our amazing campers.”
From there, he will be headed to the Southwest for a year of service with AmeriCorps. This has been a post-graduation dream for some time now, and he is thrilled to have been selected for this group of civic-minded young leaders.
I can’t wait to hear about his adventures and all that God teaches him in the process. So proud of this young man with a huge heart and a desire to serve!
We had more plans to make as one of our girls is gearing up to take 6 months off from college to do a YWAM discipleship training school (Youth With a Mission). She’s so excited she can hardly hold herself in!
She will be training and serving in missions outreach to remote international communities. Here’s a few words as she shares little bit of her joy:
YWAM is a combination of missionary training by learning more about our God’s character, love, and purpose, as well as going out and sharing that with others. During the outreach phase we will be going out and reaching remote, indigenous communities. The last 6 weeks, we will be traveling to a second country that will be decided as the Lord reveals it to our team through prayer.
I am continually surprised and in awe by God’s faithfulness in providing opportunities for me to serve and love others. He calls us to make disciples of the nations, and he has so faithfully opened doors for this trip. I am completely trusting God with this trip because through Him, ALL things are possible (Matt. 19:26).
If you would like to support her with your prayers, she asks that you would praying for:
–open hearts for what God has for our team and the people we interact with
-eyes to see opportunities to share His love and hope with others
-unity/oneness of spirit for our team
-complete reliance in God through fundraising for this trip for the entire team
-safe travels, protection, and rest for us
If you would be interested in supporting this work, please send me a message using the contact box on this website.
Both of these kids believe that every human is important. They long to do bigger things and are trusting God that dreams do come true. I am in absolute awe of what God is doing in the lives of these two young people. Absolute awe. Words completely fail me. The kids are indeed growing up!
With joy,
Ginger
Just One Thing: A Guest Post by Karrilee
Holiness moves through the small things, grace for the moments, simple and short. Added together, holy moments change lives and steer destinies in God’s direction. But it all comes down to attitudes and choices made…one moment at a time. (From One Simple Thing).
Today I’m so excited to introduce you to one of my favorite bloggers, Karrilee Aggatt. This creative gal is spunky, creative, and overflowing with heart. Karrilee joins me in exploring the power of simple choices and changes for powerful growth.
Just one thing… One simple thing.
Sometimes we feel as if we need to change All. The. Things. and stat! But real change, deep-down-in-your-soul change… that happens slowly, on purpose, over time. The good news is that it is often kick started with one small shift. A different perspective, or renewed priorities, or a return to the basics of what we really believe and how we live it out every day.
I am new around these parts but if you know me from my own little corner of the world wide web, then you know that I have a hard time picking a favorite… a top ten, or just one of anything! Also… if you have hung out with me in my space, you may be familiar with the tagline that the Lord gave me. Those are really Three Simple Things. OK – sometimes they are not so simple… but if I am intentional to do them every day, they can be simple. So let’s dig into those.
Speak Life:
Listen… I was raised with worry and fear. There is enough bad news to keep us awake forever. It’s easy to point out what is wrong/missing/negative. God has called me – us, I believe – to Speak Life! Call forth the good, look for the positive. We hear enough death all around us and coming from our own negative thinking. I was challenged to speak life… not death. I began to look for ways and opportunities to do this and that One Simple Change has made all the difference!
Be Love:
I know… it’s not easy OR simple, but that is because we so often think this means our love! Oh no… in my own strength, with my own mixed-up, wounded heart – I can’t be love to anyone. But be His Love… now that we can do! It’s simply treating others the way we know God treats us! With Grace and Love and Gentleness. Honestly, ‘what the world needs now’ – to quote Burt Bacharach, ‘is love. Sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.’
I believe that as we meet with God and ask Him to fill us up, He will cause us to overflow with His love and it will leak out wherever we go! Yes… we must be Intentional about it again… but I promise you that you are leaking out something every day! Be Love… leak Jesus!
Shine On:
We all know that we are called to so let His Light shine, that they will see and know that there is something different about us… that wherever we go, the darkness has to flee… To me, letting His Light shines comes from the peace and joy that I walk in. Everyday? No… not everyday -but that is the goal!
He lives in us and He is the Light of the world and oh my goodness, how the world needs to see… needs to be warmed by the Light and needs the Light to grow. We all need it… Him. We all need Him.
I guess really, to live out all of these three goals, the one simple change that is required is to Be Intentional. To be present, and live our lives each day on purpose, with purpose.
When we do that, we will find ourselves shifting the atmospheres around us… releasing the Kingdom wherever we go… we will find ourselves speaking life, being love, and shining on as we go about the daily part of our days, letting heaven linger a bit closer here on earth.
Tweet Love:
Call forth the good, look for the positive.
Be present, and live our lives each day on purpose, with purpose.
Karrilee is a wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend. She is a writer, reader, pray-er, photographer, artist, beach lover, laugh seeker…serving God to the best of her ability. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and nearly grown girlie. She is passionate about diving in deeper with the Lord and inviting others to discover His love for them. Her life message is…Speak Life. Be Love. Shine On. Karrilee loves to share her heart and what the Lord is speaking to her over at Abiding Love, Abounding Grace.
You can connect with Karrilee on her blog, Abiding Love, Abounding Grace. She is also all over Bossy Social Media (and clearly has a love/addicted relationship with it!) You can find her on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram as well!
Simple ways to Meditate on God’s Word
Learn simple ways to meditate on God’s Word. The distance between the head and the heart, between knowing and inhabiting truth can be a long road. Learning to read Scripture with the heart rather than the head empowers us to receive revelation rather than simply learn information. Inspiration for Christian women to reflect on the Bible for going deeper with God.
Letting God’s Word seep into the depths of our heart and the nitty-gritty of our moments brings life and wholeness we long for.
God’s Word changes lives when it transforms our hearts and minds. Yet the distance between the head and the heart, between knowing and inhabiting truth can be a long road.
Learning to read Scripture with the heart rather than the head empowers us to receive revelation rather than simply learn information. The truth is many of us struggle to understand what biblical meditation is and how to do it effectively.
Why Should I Meditate on God’s Word?
Maybe you’ve asked yourself this question. There is a lot of confusion about what it means to meditate on the Bible. The Bible has much to say about the importance of meditating on the Word of God. One of my favorite passages is found in Moses’ instruction to Joshua:
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will achieve success.–Joshua 1:8 NASB
From this instruction, we can see that meditating on Scripture is linked to obedience and blessing. Now this isn’t a mantra of prosperity gospel, but a solid truth about the benefit of following God’s Word with heart, mind, and soul.
In the book Life With God, Richard Foster writes the following:
“The best guard against any handling of Scripture that leaves our souls untouched—and ourselves unchanged—is surrender to the cleansing, forming flow of the Holy Spirit. Simply this means opening our whole selves—mind, body, spirit; thoughts, behavior, will—to the open page before us. We seek far more than familiarity with the text alone; instead we are focusing our attention through and beyond the text to the God whose reality fills its depths” (p. 62).
Foster explains a compelling case for the importance of understanding how to engage with God’s Word through meditation.
The Value of Holy Expectancy in Scriptural Meditation
Holy expectancy brings us to God with a heart ready to receive right in this very moment. For “there is a difference between simply being in the same room with others versus truly being present to them” (Richard Foster, Life With God, p.23).
Meditation teaches us to read with the heart being fully present with God. It is one simple way to let God’s Word seep into the fiber of our souls. As our thinking is transformed by God’s word, truth becomes life as we choose to live God’s way.
Through meditation we learn that the words Christ speaks to us “are full of the Spirit and life” (John 6:63).
Meditating on the Bible Is Not Hard
Truly, you don’t have to be a spiritual guru or and religious expert to dig deeper into God’s Word. How do we get hold of this idea of meditation? Will it involve convoluted body positions or ummm…. strange sounds?
[tweetthis] If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate on God’s Word.[/tweetthis] Many theological books have been written on the subject, but for today, let’s keep it simple.
Let’s stop for a moment and define the word meditate. It simply means to attend to, to practice, be diligent in, to ponder or imagine. Meditation is worship that ponders giving time for truth to penetrate. In the book Prayer, Timothy Keller defines meditation as simply “thinking in the presence of God.” Now that’s not too hard is it?
[tweetthis]Simple ways to Let God’s Word Seep Into Your Life[/tweetthis]
I often think in pictures and illustrations, seeing the connections between the practical and the spiritual. Here are a few comparisons, tips, and images that will help you be intentional with meditating on God’s Word the easy way. Sounds good, right? Here we go. . .
Meditation is Like a Candle
Meditation lights the candle of our hearts. We make our hearts ready for the light of understanding to transform dark corners of unbelief, resistance, or confusion. The Holy Spirit creates light in every place we make ourselves available to receive. Holy fire brings clarity of inspiration, power to move and believe and grow and change.
Mediation is Like a Door
Meditation walks through the doorway to enter deeper into Christ. Meditation opens the door to understanding and obedience takes us all the way in. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20.)
Meditation is Like Rocking in a Chair
Meditation rocks in a chair by the fire. Sink into a verse like a comfortable chair and let the meaning of the words rock back and forth in the rhythm of holy listening. Prayerfully read the verse several times, emphasizing different words or phrases each time.
Meditation is Like Following a Path
Meditation ponders truth like following a garden path, stepping over stones one by one. The path curves deeper into the delights of the garden. Meditating on the paths of truth, follow the Holy Spirit who leads the way to discovery and freedom.
Meditation is Like a Scrapbook
Meditation treasures truth like a scrapbook stores cherished memories: take time to collect truths and experiences that God has worked in your life. Paste them in your heart or even in the pages of a book, set aside as special and significant, pictures of God’s truth and grace in your life.
Meditation is Like a Sponge
Meditation soaks truth like a sponge, absorbing living water for the soul. Saturated and full, we are soaked through with God’s words.
Meditation is Like a Journal
Meditation writes truth on the tablet of our lives. Journal connections and observations. Pressing pen to page, ask questions and stop to think and listen. Journaling meditation stands on the watchtower, ready and waiting to see what God will say.
As God’s presence soaks into our lives, holiness will move through the small things, the choices and responses we make in the moment. Added together, holy moments change lives and steer destinies in God’s direction. But it all comes down letting God’s Word seep into our soul as we learn to live present with God.
Which one of these ideas is most helpful to you? What helps you meditate on Scripture?
If you have found this post helpful, won’t you please share these simple ways to meditate on God’s word on your favorite social platform today?
Deepen Your Relationship with God
More Posts on Meditating on God’s Word
- 15 Simple Ways to Overcome Distraction to Focus Your Attention on God (with printable)
- 10 Benefits of Reviewing What We Learn from God
- Do You Have Spiritual ADD?
- Simple Ways Silence Can Deepen Your Faith
- Discover Six Important Truths About Listening to God
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Simple Choices for Your Busy Moments
We all have busy days. Just when we get one project in the air, another responsibility slips through our fingers. When busy days bring a jumble of blessings and projects, responsibilities and relationships, it’s easy to loose our focus.
What choices can we make on the busy days that empower us to thrive rather than barely survive? How can we sustain a willing heart and a cheerful spirit instead of giving into frustration and stress? What simple things that can help us to choose wholeness in our busy moments?
I’ve had some busy days lately, as I juggle multiple projects and opportunities. Multitasking makes my head spin and I’m not good at sustaining focus in multiple directions at once. I start doing absent-minded things like trying to open the front door with the car keys and putting the milk in the cabinet. Just now, I put the stamps in the refrigerator after I paid the bills. At least I’m catching it, right?
On Your Busy Days
In a society that worships independence and productivity, we aren’t naturally wired to ask for help. No one strategy is the ultimate fix for a busy day, but one simple solution is to ask for help and team with others. Today, I am doing just that.
Meet Becky Keife, a mom who finds slivers of time to write about the treasure of the moment. Becky shows the simple choice to stop and appreciate the wonder of the moment. Taking time savor blessings wrapped up in the moment gives us time to breathe in the midst of our busy.
Discovering joy in the moment, creates energy by changing our perspective. It can make the difference between harassed and blessed. Choosing to treasure the little things can move us from frantic to flexible, enabling us to bend with grace and shoulder heavy loads lightly.
The Moments Add Up (and why you shouldn’t give up when you’re thick in the ordinary grit)
We’re eating chicken bowls after church and my six year old scootches his buns across the vinyl booth and buts up next to me, leans in and breathes. I pull out my phone and snap a selfie to remember the sweetness of a little one who wants to be near.
Later I look at the grainy photo and see how big my boy has become.
These sit-close days won’t last for long.
* * *
It’s the end of the month and I’m trying to stick within our budget, which means getting creative in the pantry instead of zipping to the store. I see a can of pumpkin left from fall baking and decide that muffins are probably in order.
Little boys love to mix and measure, take turns calling out ingredients and stirring with the wire whisk and wooden spoon. (Okay, they actually dislike sharing in the most grumblesome way and voice their disgruntled objections at every turn that isn’t theirs. I may have lost my cool with voice raised in matched grouchiness.)
But in the end there are warm muffins to satisfy hungry tummies, a beach towel made picnic spot, and sunshine. There are boys still in jammies with sneakered feet. There is family. There is love.
* * *
The moments add up.
It’s the small moments of daily grit that add up to a life marked by faithfulness. Beauty. Love.
And it all matters. Every moment matters.
Maybe you feel like you’re not living a big dream or fighting a big fight. Maybe you feel like you’re not making a meaningful difference or even a small dent.
Maybe you just feel small.
Maybe you feel like your days are strung together with a blurry ribbon and you can’t see how it all matters because you’re just hanging on by an unraveling thread.
What I want you to hear today, deep down in your weary bones and questioning soul, is that the moments matter.
- Capturing beauty glimmer by glimmer.
- Mustering thanks through the mundane.
- Not giving up in the thick of the grit.
It. All. Matters.
You matter.
You can read the rest of this post and see more of Becky’s beautiful photos right here. Please encourage Becky with a comment when you visit her blog.
Tweetable:
Capture beauty and muster thanks.It. All. Matters.
Perspective enables us to carry heavy loads with grace.
Sharing encouragement with #RaRaLinkUp and Holley Gerth.
Be Still to Discover Your Strong
Discovering strength to thrive in every season of life, has everything to do with finding our true source of strength. Now faith, is the holy habit of choosing to trust God and hang onto hope. Faced with difficulty, our first inclination is to do something to save ourselves, to fix the situation. Psalm 46 has words of wisdom for finding our strength in God.
We learn to focus on God rather than fear when we truly believe He is our refuge, our place of safety and security that does not change no matter what is happening around us. Psalm 46 teaches that God is our strength, and our present, findable help in the troubles and distresses of our lives.
We find our strong as we choose to come and behold to works of the Lord. Today we complete our reflection on Psalm 46, which is filled with practical ways to discover your strong.
When the nations rage and the kingdoms totter, it is our great temptation to give into the rising tides of trouble. Striving within, we often give way to fear and any other fix we can find to win the battle at hand. Yet in the middle of our mess, God commands us to be rather than to do. Be still and know is one simple choice that opens the door to God’s strength.
Cease striving.
Cease striving is often translated, be still. Stop the striving and the battling. The Hebrew word for be still is raphah, meaning to sink, relax, sink down, let drop. It also means to let down your hand and to desist from any person or thing.
Oh friend, sink into this quiet place of inner stillness that has laid down every self-effort, every resentment, every false source of strength. This is the two-fold command:
Be still
and
Know…
I am God.
When the battle rages and my emotions strive within my soul, I cannot hear the quiet strength of God. It’s hard to see, and hard to know by experience that God is my very present source of strength.
Why is it hard to find our strong when mountains are slipping into the sea? What difference can one simple choice to be still make?
Think of trying to find good reception on a radio station. As long as we are frantically turning the dial, we only hear static and the incomplete broadcast before we move the tuner again. It is only when we slow down, tune in, and be still that we can receive a clear station.
The knowing comes as the striving stops.
It is in that place of inner stillness that the streams of God’s presence calm my heart and I can know the He really is God Most High, God Right Now.
This knowing isn’t an intellectual or a casual knowing. It isn’t a far off in the distance as in I know about…
This knowing is a deep, inner knowing that comes through our experience. It points to a process of learning to know, to become aware of, to discover, and to become acquainted with. This knowing is deeply personal and present, right in the center of our need, our hurts, and our fears.
Settle your soul and sink into Him.
Take your hands off the lever that cranks and twists your fears like churning butter. Pry your fingers off the problems and lift your eyes to your Most High.
I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
From beginning to end with all the problems in between, God is our refuge and strength.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Psalm 46:11
For thus says the Lord, “do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but Gods.” 2 Chronicles 20:15
The burden of proof is on Him.
He is with us, right in the very midst of us. Let this truth be your strong hold of faith as you let God fight the battle. Grace for this moment is for the attitudes and choices that we make to focus on God rather than fear, to come and behold His works, and to be still and experience He is God.
How can you choose the simplicity of stillness to live full of God and full with God as you find your strong in this moment?
Come Find Your Strong
Holiness moves through the small things, grace for the moments, simple and short. Added together, holy moments change lives and steer destinies in God’s direction. But it all comes down to attitudes and choices made…one moment at a time. If I reach for the grace of holiness in this moment, what difference could it make? (From One Simple Thing).
What simple choices can become holy habits to give us strength when the day is hard and the night is long? What simple (not easy) ways can we overcome fear? We are continuing finding God’s strength in Psalm 46.
Who or what is your most high?
God has been reminding me that joy and well-being cannot be tethered to the responses and approval of others. Security is elusive when it is based on circumstance or relationships. It cannot be tied to success and it can’t be rooted in the world’s systems or definitions. No person or situation can be a stable source of joy and strength. We are not made for that.
When we put our faith in the world’s mountains and false places of security, we are at the mercy of the roaring waters when they burst through the strongholds of our false gods.
What we depend on, whether for joy or for strength, becomes our most high.
God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.
Whatever we are trying to draw life and stability from (apart from God) blocks the flow of God’s Spirit with in us. We will not know His very present help when we look to other solutions or try to fix our problems with our own resources. This doesn’t mean God won’t help, but what we learn and experience will be entirely different.
God will help and the sun will rise.
Sometimes, morning seems a long way off, but the sun always rises and morning always comes. Light is dawning and God is helping as we learn to trust Him.
He is our Lord of hosts and our strong place.
The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered;
He raised His voice, the earth melted.
7 The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our stronghold.
When the waters roar and foam, the rushing sound of anxiety stirs us up within. It is the inner striving that drowns out the gladness of God in our hearts, isn’t it?
Find your strong in the knowledge that God is with you.
There is very little God asks of us. He is the One who wins the wars, breaks the spears, burns the chariots. He is the One who overcomes everything that can come against us. Notice there is not one word about fighting our own battles here. Again, the focus is all on Him.
He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth;
He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two;
He burns the chariots with fire.
What does God ask of us? What is one way to find our strong in the moment we need it?
Find your strong when you come and behold the works of the Lord.
Come and behold the works of the Lord. –Psalm 46:8
What are you looking at? Are you looking at the problem, or are your eyes on the work God is doing? Come–be present with God. Come and behold His works, perceive and see what He is doing. God invites us to a front row seat to His action in our very own lives.
And when you can’t see what He is doing in the moment, stand in faith and remember what He has done in the past. Remind yourself again and again. Remind yourself as many times as it takes. Notice how many times the psalmist makes a bold statement of God’s strength and presence.
The psalmist shows us exactly how to keep our focus on God in the very writing of this psalm. He doesn’t just tell us what to do, he shows us as he writes out his heart as enemies gather against him. Though he cannot help but recognize the danger, the power of his words exalt God as his strength and help.
May God give us the ability to find our strong as we keep coming and keep beholding His work.
How can keeping presence with God and focusing on His work strengthen you in this moment?
One Simple Focus to Find Your Strong
Life is filled with blessings and challenges. It is marked by cycles of transitions, with a continual planting and uprooting as we journey through life. Our days add up with celebrations and joy, but also with loss and instability. We long to flourish in the midst of it all.
Yet on too many days, survival may see to be the most we can hope for.
Finding strength to thrive in every season of life, has everything to do with discovering and holding onto our true source of strength.
We look for strength in all kinds of places…the good assignment, a favorable situation, healthy family, stable government, a prosperous bank account, and even our own abilities and resources. It is easy to depend on the closest thing for strength and stability, rather than to ground our strength in God.
God is
OUR refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
The words of Psalm 46 open with all of the focus on God. Who He is to us.
He is our refuge, our place of safety and security that does not change no matter what is happening around us. God is our strength, and our present, findable help in the troubles and distresses of our lives.
If we do not know He is the one that is for us, the present One, we will look for strength wherever we can find it.
When life as we know it crumbles, God is our source of strength.
We can only discover this by going through the hard things.
The Psalmist begins these words with his focus on God as his strength, rather than getting caught up in the trouble that spins around him. His eyes are on God and not on the problem as he looks to God for his right-now help.
There will always be trouble and there will always be help when we place our confidence in God as our strength.
When our faith is planted firmly in the strong presence of God we can echo the psalmist who writes this anthem of faith.
Focus on God not fear.
How can focusing on God rather than fear enable you to find your strong today?
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Focus on God not fear.
