Steadfast Trust

Psalm 52:8-9 “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. I will thank you forever, because you have done it. I will wait for your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly.”

Have you been thrown a few torpedoes in your life this week? Or maybe you have a friend or loved one that has? Do you feel that you are caught in a maze and can’t find the correct way out? Is everyone counting on you to hold it all together and you don’t think you can take anymore today? Do you need a hug? Or a pat-pat? Or are you looking for someone to ask you how you are doing? Maybe you need to feel someone’s smile looking straight into your eyes, and you need to have them tell you that all is going to work out? Do you feel all alone? I sometimes have.

I have a close friend that has had a whole week of bombs going off while trying to do right. I had that myself a few weeks ago. I had some temporary physical issues and then two separate large problems that happened in my job all in the same week. Both were out of my control. In the first dilemma, I was dealing with intense pain in my lower back; I wanted my mother. That brought a smile to my face. At my age I still wanted my mother’s arms around me in a hug when I felt hurt or pain. We, women, give comfort. Mothers provide support and comfort to their children. That is what we do. But life’s boomerangs are distractions sent to us by the enemy. That is what disrupts, detracts, disintegrates, detonates, and deceives us away from focusing on God’s providence in our life. The enemy wants to make us feel stupid, inadequate, dumb and feel like a complete failure. He wants to keep us in a defeated mode. He wins when we give up.

In my problem with work, I felt insufficient to know how to solve a problem that had arisen with a major customer. It was an entirely new problem I had never experienced in the twenty-four years of my career before. I did not know what the right answer was or what I should do. It took three days to figure out a resolution. I needed wisdom from God and He supplied my need.

The enemy wants to distract us from God’s purpose in our life. But we cannot give up. Our heavenly Father dearly loves us and He is waiting for us only to trust Him as He is growing us, stretching us, and always teaching us a lesson about something. I, and my fellow sales people at my work learned something new, from the problem that occurred in my industry. When I went through the set back with my back, I learned about having severe arthritis, that I had not known fully before. The question then is not why, but what questions: Example: God what do you want me to learn? What can I do better in the future? Each and every new problem I encounter in my job enables me to be a better contribution to my company. Every trial I go through gives me more empathy for anyone else experiencing a similar situation. Problems teach. Successes don’t.

David felt that way too as he said in Psalm 52, as he compared himself to a green olive tree. It takes five years for olive trees to produce their first fruit. They look majestic in their gnarled and twisted trunks and evergreen tops. Olive trees grow to about 18-20 feet in height with contorted trunks and numerous branches. Some grow from 2,000 year-old-root systems. It takes up to fifteen years to produce a good first harvest of olives. The trees have to be shaken to harvest the fruit. The fruit falls to the ground and is then crushed and pressed. So are we shaken, crushed and broken, in the wait, and pushed to our limit, just like an olive tree. Stress takes hold, but for a good reason. Fruit will be the outcome.

The olive tree can withstand and thrive in any weather condition and still produce its fruit. Intense heat and a minimum of water do not stunt their growth. In Israel, the olive tree withstands the extreme east wind heat from the desert and the west wind from the Mediterranean that brings much rain. It needs both to grow –intense heat and much rain. So must I be able to survive in any pressing circumstance and have passionate patience while in a crisis while enduring the chaos of the moment. Do you have chaos too? I must be steadfast in my faith and trust that God has this, and I am in His presence. I have to trust Him that I will come out better and not be bitter in the process. I have to believe and know that I will grow not only in bad times, that will in the end, turn into enrichment and blessings. Endurance, perseverance, trusting God as my overseer, and gaining more courage are the rewards, and God will be glorified.

Even when cut down or burned, shoots grow back on an olive tree. It is stubborn but not in a bad way! I must be stubborn in not giving up and not get depressed with self-guilt, shame, frustration, and feeling worthless and stupid over bad decisions and mistakes that are my torpedoes in life. The right solution just has to be figured out to move forward.

Are you feeling dismayed? Defeated? Discouraged? Disappointed? Be like a green olive tree and trust in God to pull you through. Be steadfast, stand firm, have passionate patience, have endurance, don’t give up. Satan is trying to disrupt, detract, and deceive you from what God wants to accomplish in your life in your obedience to Him and the path He has chosen just for you.

David also said in Psalm 27:14: “Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD! Then David said it again in Psalm 52:8-9: “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. I will thank you forever, because you have done it. I will wait for your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly.”

Listen to Casting Crowns “Just Be Held.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIZitK6_IMQ

 

 

WHILE BEING “IN THE WAIT”

In the Wait picture

Isaiah40:31: “But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

Are you finding yourself in what I call “being in the wait?” Nothing appears to be happening to solve your current trial in life right now. Or are you in a holding pattern in waiting for a specific answer? Do you feel as though you are in a blind state of existence? You know God is there, and He will answer your need, but you have no idea how He is going to do it and the clock is ticking. You are in a predicament that is perhaps causing your breathing to be a bit shallow. Your stress level has risen to a ten and you wish for it to be just a two or three on the scale from one to ten (ten being the worst). I have had that recently. I often do laundry when I am feeling anxious and waiting for the outcome of a problem I am enduring. For some reason, it is my stress reliever, temporarily. My other choice is doing one of the workout sessions we record every morning from the PBS station on TV. It is Miranda Esmonde-White’s, Classical Stretch program that is on at 6:00 AM. She promotes flexibility, releasing tension in your muscles, and improving posture and range of motion. What is your go-to for stress relief?

Here are some statistics regarding that word “wait” in the Bible: The word wait occurs 109 times in the KJV. The word “wait” comes from the same Hebrew word “trust.” The phrase “waiting upon God” is used 40+ times throughout the Bible. The Psalm’s uses it 25 times while Isaiah uses it 11 times. Waiting and then trusting in God go together. It requires having blind faith and believing that God will provide. When I took Old Testament Survey, at Northwestern College in Roseville, Minnesota, in my 20’s, Dr. Hartel, our professor, would often tell us if we had a burden about our tuition bill and needed money to pray “Jehovah Jireh,” which means “God will provide.”

What is aheadWhat is ahead? I can’t see the future.

Are you facing a trial where you don’t know how God will ever fix or solve a situation? I recently had to wait for answers to two separate health issues. I could do absolutely nothing but wait until my appointments to see the doctors. I didn’t know what the outcome would be. It was out of my control. I was fortunate this time. Then there is another situation I will be facing that I don’t know again what the outcome will be. I can’t see what the future will hold. All I can do is pray and trust in God that He has this.

There is always a deeper meaning, even though irritating, when God has us “in the wait.” When it seems that God is doing nothing, He is behind the curtain. It usually involves perfection of an outcome that is beyond our control. God’s timing is supreme. God’s timing is perfect. Pray that God will astound you with His exact ideal solution (see my first post) while you are “in the wait.”

Chuck Swindoll had said in one of his devotional writings about trusting God during the waiting period, and not going into panic mode when people break their promises to us and even forget us. That hurts! I have been there. Done that! He said it is God’s job to deal with them. My husband and I experienced a broken promise from someone. We are “in the wait.” Yes, it hurt. Again we had to pray: “God provide in all of this!”

If you are “being in the wait” be strengthened and established in His word. Have God-confidence. Have reassurance that God has this and will provide the outcome at His chosen time. Write down in a prayer journal verses that encourage you. Hebrews 10:36 admonishes us to keep on going and doing the will of God: “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.”

Romans 12:12: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”

Lastly, know that events are happening behind the scenes that God is orchestrating. He is behind the curtain. When it seems like nothing is happening or going on, it is. Our inward self-fortitude is being changed while we are “in the wait.” It is being stretched like a rubber band. I can be bitter or be made better in gaining more perseverance in tolerance and patience, and in choosing joy instead of depression. When it seems that nothing is going on, take heart. It is another exercise of growing in endurance and growing in being established in having more faith, perfected, and refined as in pure gold for God’s glory. Trust in the Lord while being “in the wait!”

Our Fortress

SOS picture for Blog

Are you holding an SOS flag in your hand right now? Do you feel caught in waiting for an answer to yet another problem in life?

2 Peter 2:9a states: “. . . the LORD knows how to rescue the godly from trials.”

Are you experiencing yet another trial in life? Have you been able to move away from asking God “why?” Have you examined where your shield of faith might have a hole in it, and you are then open to being vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy? What do you worry about most? Is it your children, finances, health, work, friends, or the future?

I have, to be honest. What do I tend to worry about most? It has been my husband’s health. I have also had anxiety in the past about the lack of finances, work, my children, and our financial possibilities in the future. I have realized however, all of these are really out of my control, including my husband’s health.

I wrote down this past summer every major trial in our life that we had experienced in my husband’s and my forty-two years of marriage together. I made a list of each one of them on paper. It appeared to me that I had to merely trust in the Lord to bring us through every time. I couldn’t fix any of them myself. There was nothing I could do to change things but to wait on the Lord for His rescue in each trial. He did answer, restore, and taught us things we couldn’t seem to learn in any other way at the time. God’s timing is never late and always just on time. I do know that, but when you are in the wait it is never easy. But God’s word brought peace in my heart and mind by seeing a special verse or promise that I read during each hard trial. In one particular trial God gave me Psalm 27:13: “I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” That verse was instrumental in God revealing to me that we were to move to California. That it was God’s will for Steve to accept the job offer that he had been approached about for two years. We have now lived here for almost twenty-five years. California was and is “the land of the living,” for us.

Then there was a major financial trial we lived through. God gave me Psalm 119:92: “If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.” Then my prayer became: “Teach me Your word during this season of my life like I have never known it before, and make this verse my testimony when I emerge from this place!” This particular verse has become what I call my “signature verse,” that I identified with when going through a very specific financial trial. We wished we had done things differently or not at all. We spent a lot of time in regretting a decision and action that cost us financial consequences that could not be reversed. But God walked with us through this experience, and it developed more perseverance and steadfastness within our physical and spiritual core. His almighty rescue came as quite a surprise and in a way that we had not fathomed was possible. But we did lose a significant amount of money. That did not change.

Do you feel you might need to use a life boat right now? Are you able to move past the “why?” Are you feeling anxious? Review past answers to prayers God has given you. I keep a gift box in my living room that is placed on our mantel. The gift card on top says: “To: Steve and Linda and family. From: God.” I write down on cards answers to prayers and keep them in this special box to remind myself of precious answers to burdens that God has answered. I date them. This also helps remind me of Romans 8:28 regarding God working everything out for my, or our good because He loves us. He loves me. That doesn’t mean that I understand it all at the time, and I may never fully understand the why part. But it causes me to have a thankful heart and give praise and glory to God for His shield of protection and blessings as my shepherd and overseer.

As my Grandma Helmers always told me: “This too shall pass.” My Pastor, Todd Smith, also said to me one time: “There will be an end to this. Believe on that fact.” He was right.

Yes, the Lord does know how to rescue the godly from trials as He promised in 2 Peter 2:9. There is an end in sight dear one. Rest in the Lord. Relax in His care. Rejoice that God has this!

Let your prayer be Psalm 62:1-2(NLT): “I wait patiently before God, for my victory comes from him. He alone is my rock and salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken.”

 

Let Jesus astound you!

Jesus fed 10,000 to 15,000 people from five loaves of bread and only two fish in Mark 6:30-45. Now jump to Mark 6:45-46: “immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray.” They all needed rest. Jesus found rest by leaving the group to pray. Jesus always found strength from prayer. One of the greatest encouragements to us is to know that Jesus found it essential to pray in order to feel re-energized in the strength of the Lord.

Next a storm came up in Mark 6:49-50. The disciples were in the boat and were not making any headway because they were rowing against the wind and getting nowhere. Jesus saw this and walks on the water. Jesus had never left. He was always there. Try and remember this was now around 3AM-6AM. They had to be exhausted from lack of sleep besides physical exhaustion from rowing against that wind. Here is the punchline in Mark 6:51: “And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly ASTOUNDED.” The disciples didn’t consider the miracle of feeding the huge amount of people just minutes before. They saw it but didn’t get it. They were shocked that the wind suddenly stopped and the water was calm.

I am praying that the Lord will astound me in my answers to prayers! I am just like these disciples. I am just like these men. How quickly I forget one answer to prayer and then move onto the next hard circumstance in life and too often forget the blessings God has previously given me and doubt floods in. May I, may you, be ASTOUNDED in Jesus calming your storm(s) in life this week!