Tag Archive | Deuteronomy 31:8

She’s gone on ahead…

May16

My best friend has gone on before me.

And I’m left behind

What do I do now when

I need her to pray for me

Or I just need to talk!

She helped keep my emotional balance

When life shifted & became upended

It worked both ways for us

For I lifted her up in my turn

Iron sharpening iron

We had that in each other

And in her final moments, I was prevented from sharing them with her

An event she look most forward to never happened

So we both were denied at the end

We shared similar dreams

We constantly found ourselves experiencing similar problems

As we helped guide each other through them

Our 20 plus years of friendship has been abruptly halted

Focusing on what I’ve lost is the tempter’s plan

I’ll not give in to that darkness

The things I don’t understand will just have to be filed away

To wait for a future revelation

In the meantime, I will grasp hold of God’s promises

He will never leave me or forsake me

He will work all things together for my good

He will be my strength at my weakest of times

He will give me reasons to continue moving forward

One day or moment at a time

Seasons! some good, some not so good

Jul12

Winter
Summer

 

      Each season possesses beauty unique to its time. Sometimes the beauty is obvious and a wonder to behold and experience. Some seasons, however, the beauty is less obvious. Those seasons require an extra effort on our part to experience the beauty. Nevertheless, the beauty is there; waiting to be known. 

     Life is like that too! There are seasons that present quite the challenge to discover its beauty. Seasons change. Some changes are sudden and completely upend our lives. Some changes happen slowly but inevitably. 

     These changes bring with them a most undesirable host of temptations. (I call them fiery darts, remember) Fear, doubt, discouragement, anxiety, depression, anger (just to name a few!) have the potential power to overwhelm us (even destroy us). And they will, if we face them unequipped.

     There is only one source that I would recommend that is capable of extinguishing the temptation of such powerful negative emotions. 

Consider the following:

Fear 

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7  Do not receive what has not been given to you by God.

Doubt

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. James 1:6  Without faith, fear will overwhelm us. 

Discouragement

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.Deuteronomy 31:8 God is with us and goes before us all at the same time. He can do that because He is God. He is preparing the solutions ahead of time to our problems.

Anxiety

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 Worry and anxiety are sin. But the world will tell us it’s normal. We can’t help it. Oh! but this verse wipes out such a false assumption. Do we desire peace or anxiety? It’s a choice we make! 

Depression

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Psalms 42:1 Without hope, depression can get the best of us. Think about God, how He loves us, the extreme measures He went to to assure us of hope. Don’t allow the enemy to steal that from us. 

Anger

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. James 1:19-20 Anger can be brought under control. Take the measures recommended here to defuse it.

     For every fiery dart that attacks us in those not so pleasant seasons of life, there is a Truth thought that will extinguish them. Only then will we have to vision to uncover the beauty they hide. If we can but remember Romans 8:28,

 

 

 

Who do we believe?

Nov11

autumn trees

Why do we so easily believe the lies of fiery darts? But struggle to believe Truths from God’s Word?

   If the darkness of the world, Satan, and our flesh influences our thinking more than God’s Word, then our thoughts, attitudes, and actions will reflect that darkness.  Thus our focus will be on the darkness, blinding us to the light of God’s truth that lies beyond it. 

  Yet, if we desire to believe God over the lies of the enemy, we must do the following:  

We must seek God.

When God speaks we need to listen.

When God speaks we need to believe.

When God speaks we need to act on His words.

Take to heart the following:

…when you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. Is 43:2 ESV

The LORD is the One who goes before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you. Do not be afraid or discourages. Deut. 31:8

Don’t be afraid anymore, only believe. Mark 5:36 NASV

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16

   Yet sometimes the problems we face threaten to overwhelm us. We believe God,. We believe His Word. We go to it daily.  We talk to God about it a lot, but the hoped for solution evades us! What do we do in situations like that?

We wait!

   As we wait, we continue to pray and search the Scriptures. We focus on verses like the ones above. We become alert to the encouragement God sends us as we go about our day. Through those encouragements and God’s word, we grow in our faith and perspective of the problem.

   We learn to recognize the fiery darts and how to reject them. We learn to replace them with the Truth thoughts from Scripture that God directs us to.

   We may not feel so good about the way things are going, but we must remember that if God says He will never leave us, that He will not fail us, then in spite of how things look, we must take Him at His word. 

Our well being depends on who we believe!

 

God goes before us!

May28

image ps 94 19

There are times when our thoughts seem to become more anxious by the moment.

   Recently, anxious thoughts took center stage in my mind. They indeed appeared to multiply. The fiery darts of worry and fear joined forces with doubt and confusion. The problem loomed large. My ability to handle it grew smaller. I was close to feeling overwhelmed. I needed peace of mind.

Then God gave me a Truth thought that settled me down.

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” Deuteronomy 31:8 NIV

As I meditated on this verse, I gained a new perspective on my problem.

God had gone on before me. You know out there where that problem was.

When I get to the point where I have to face the problem, I am not going to be by myself. God assures me He will be with me the whole way!

Fear and discouragement get left behind!

Now that’s what I call Consolation!

   I asked God for a physical sign that He would protect me and not allow me to be taken advantage of. Normally, I don’t ask God for a sign. But this time, I felt it was necessary, considering my weakness. He gave me that sign!

   So every time, the fiery darts of doubt, fear, discouragement, etc., attack, there’s my sign reminding me of God’s promises from Deuteronomy. That’s when the verse from Philippines 4:6-7 comes into play.

Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. NIV

   Did you notice God’s peace (which I am sorely in need of) will guard my heart and mind, surpassing all those multiplying anxious thoughts!

   Now, I must focus on these verses whenever I’m tempted with anxious thoughts. If I take this approach, I will face the future, where my problem looms, with confidence in God. He has gone on before me, remember!

 

 

 

 

 

If we would only believe, GOD

May20

yedLi1526788851

The question that came to my mind as I was reading the verse above was, “How would your attitude toward your problems change, if you really believed this?”

Would I worry so much about my future, if I really believed the LORD Himself was already there preparing a solution?

Would I be so susceptible to fear and discouragement, if I really believed God was with me constantly and had NO PLAN to forsake me?

   Of course, we would desire to have the kind of faith Deut. 31:8 makes reference to. So, why is it we succumb so easily to the fiery dart that this kind of faith is impossible for us? Why is it we believe Satan’s lies before we believe God’s Truths?

If Satan can deceive us into discounting the power of a fiery dart, and then add to that our unfamiliarity with God’s Word (caused by a lack of realization of its power), is it any wonder why we fall prey to fiery darts … p. 40 FD’s 3rd edition

   Satan doesn’t want us to believe God. Therefore, if we aren’t familiar enough with the Truth’s found in Scripture, then Satan’s trap is set. He will be able to manipulate us into believing the lies of fiery darts. We have a choice to make dear readers.

Are we going to believe Satan?

OR

Are we going to believe GOD?

 

 

Life or Death–You Choose

Jul22

   When I think about all that God offers those who would believe in Him and compare that to what is in store for those who don’t, my mind is overwhelmed as to why anyone would not choose God. Yet, far too many not only reject God but set out to destroy those who do. I read in the Bible of the blessings and curses that come with choosing God or not choosing God. Deuteronomy 30:11-20 gives us the following:

Choosing God

Life

Prosperity

Increase

Be blessed by God

Will live an abundance of years in the land you possess

Rejecting God

Death

Destruction

Curses

Will not live long in the land you possess

   

   Who in their right mind would deliberately choose from the Rejecting God list? Yet, many do. They don’t realize what they are doing actually. Because, you see, if they have rejected God, then they have rejected God’s Word. And if they have rejected God’s Word then everything in this world, every experience they encountered will be defined by a context that excludes God. They live in darkness, while Satan is promising them the world!

            Satan would give Christ the world if He would only worship him! After all, 2 Corinthians 4:4, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God,” (NIV) p.39, FD

   In America, today, it seems our country is being taken over by those who have rejected God. Satan has released one fiery dart after another successfully blinding those who discount and reject God into believing they have been enlightened and they have finally broken free of all the restrictions of Christianity.

   They are bent on changing wrong into right, just so they can live anyway they want to without guilt.  They refuse to acknowledge sin and it’s consequences. Satan ‘s fiery darts have hit their mark once again in manipulating them into believing they are seeking freedom. Because they have been taken over by fiery dart thinking, they don’t see that it is license they are pushing for; not freedom.

   Daily I pray for my country, 2 Chronicles 7:14: (NIV)

14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

   And while in the meantime we as believers may have to suffer, we always have the following hope:

 It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”Deuteronomy 31:8 ESV

Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.Deuteronomy 31:6 ESV