Psalm 22:11
Be not far from Me, for trouble is near. For there is none to help.
Not a pleasant thought, is it?
That trouble is always near.
Trouble is just a second away.
Every day...every moment of every day....trouble lurks in the shadows of our consciousness, and in every situation we move through.
How we respond when trouble comes knocking is always a sure sign of what we are trusting in.
Some trust in the bottle when trouble rears its ugly head.
The burning taste that covers the pain and guilt of bad choices and bad times, becomes our only friend.
Some trust in drugs when they can no longer cope with the trouble and stress.
Funny part in all of this...the drugs and alcohol do nothing to eliminate the trouble. They only mask the emotions we are feeling, not knowing how to deal with our situation. Rather than face our trouble, we run from it. We hide from it. We seek to alter our mood and mind with these substances.
I wish I had the power to open the eyes and hearts of those who are still under the curse of addiction, so they could see and understand the truth of what God wants to do in them and for them.
Psalm 91:14 - He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him. God is one prayer away from you, right now at this moment. His heart is to deliver you, not just out of your current situation, but from a curse that has been hanging over you since the day you were born. The curse of sin and the power it has over your life. Sounds hokey, doesn't it? Believe you me, it isn't. It is as real as the ground you walk on.
I will be with him in trouble. Now, there are two kinds of trouble in this world.
Self-inflicted trouble, or that which we create by our bad choices. And the kind of trouble that just happens, beyond our control. God wants to aid us in learning how to move out of all the self-inflicted trouble. But the other kind...the kind that comes to us to strengthen our faith and trust in God, those are the times when the presence of God will become more real than you can imagine. Those trouble times are when we find out a lot about ourselves and what we truly believe. When God lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, in the book of Exodus, He took them out into the wilderness. During that forty year stretch of moving through this harsh land, those people saw God in ways that they had never seen before. When they had no food or water, they saw the hand of God split rocks and geysers of water come rushing forth. They felt the wind begin to blow and with it came quail. Food to eat delivered to them for the taking. God is always there with you no matter what the situation. That is a promise.
I will deliver him and honor him. The whole deliver part, I get. The honor part is what I have trouble with. I don't know about you, but I always feel as though I am such a foul-up when it comes to following God that it's hard for me to see myself being honored for anything. But there it is in red....I will honor him. We need to wrap our brains around the idea that this God truly does love us and wants to have a relationship with us. That is big time stuff!
So what did we learn today?
Hopefully that God is always more than we can think or imagine.
That no matter what happens today, good or bad, God is right there, in control, waiting for us to turn to Him.
Now that, my friend, is good news.
God on you....
mb
2 comments:
Really, really good news! He is an ever present help in time of trouble. How was the service last night? I have a son at Rapha and he talks about how good the services are.
Saturday's service was one more in this journey God has us on. I taught from Romans Chapter 1 about the need to be in a community of like minded people if we are to survive. There aren't any Lone Rangers out there going at this recovery thing on their own. I hope to post the message from Saturday by next Friday if possible (6-28). If you are free, you are more than welcome to come and join us on Saturday. I have opened up the meeting for the guys at rapha and their families. Thanks for posting here on the blog.
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