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God is not unjust. And, He is a Rewarder of those who seek Him, to know and walk in His good and perfect will for their lives. Teach me to do your Your will, for You are My God; May Your good Spirit lead me on level ground [Psalms 143:10]. It is the prayer of the psalmist, timeless and true, to speak with relevance and power in your life today, that you may be led forward by the Spirit and the word of God.
And as a child of God it is the compass that shows the path to take, for as it is written, As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God [Romans 8:14]. This then is the key criteria, for there being no pressure or stress in your path of progress. Rather it will be pleasurable, and you will find delight in doing the will of God for your life, without compulsion of any kind. And God loves the cheerful giver, who yields willingly and joyfully to what God calls him to do. It becomes possible when He plants the right desires in your heart, and also gives you the power to work it out in your life, that you may be fulfilled, and He is glorified, as you are blessed, to be a blessing.
As you and I can easily affirm, after seeing what a virus can do world wide, life’s turn of events can be anything but predictable! But it also has to be balanced with the truth that nothing surprises the Maker of heaven and earth, who is your Heavenly Father. His plan and provision for your life has taken everything into account, to provide for your safe journey towards His ordained destiny that is yours, as you surrender and abide in His will. And as it is written in the words of Job in the scriptures, you can find your rest in knowing that . He can do all things, and no purpose of His, will be thwarted [Job 42:2].
As written in God’s word, every scripture is God breathed, giving a picture that is honest to the core. It talks not about supermen but about ordinary men who served an extraordinary God. And He is the same unchanging God even today in your life and mine, just as He was in the life of men like Moses and Elijah.
Elijah was a man with a nature just like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months [James 3:17]. It was not his prayer, but whom he was praying to, that made the difference. Elijah had setbacks and ups and downs in life just as you and I have experienced or could be experiencing right now. And Elijah’s life can speak volumes to lift you up in your times of difficulty and limitations, when you can feel lost and insignificant and certainly not like the person God has called you to be.
The times of doubt and discouragement that threaten to pull you down, is when the truth of God’s word that the God of Elijah, is your God, can transform your world. And nerve wracking and troubling though your situation may be, it will not overwhelm you. Rather it can bring freedom and a joyful lightness in your spirit, that moves you forward in God’s will for you, instead of remaining stagnant, or worse still, backsliding because of peculiar challenges that can come in your path, because you are a christian, a child of God who belongs to Christ.
It can encourage you as nothing else can, for in the world it is not so. There are limitations of age, qualification, personality, and of late, communication skills, when it comes to finding a suitable job. Even taking an insurance for your medical needs seems to bean onerous task involving various terms and conditions that seem to be specially designed to keep you from availing it’s benefits!
His standards are high; and His grace takes you from where you are, to the place where He needs you to be, that you may fulfill His calling. He qualifies those whom He calls with the empowerment that is required for it to be accomplished. And the wondrous part of it all is that, God specializes in choosing the weak things of the world. The one who is of no repute in the eyes of the world, could end up finding favor in the sight of God. God has chosen the foolish things of the world, in order to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world, to put to shame the mighty [1 Corinthians 1:27]. The world may reject you saying you do not fit the bill, but God can still choose you, and accomplish in and through you, the good work that He has already prepared for you. And with a heart of thanksgiving and praise, you will be able to declare, as the psalmist does ‘This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’ [Psalm 118:23].
Elijah in his despondency and fear, wanted to die, yet was fleeing for his life! John the Baptist, the fore runner of the Lord, announcing the Messiah’s arrival on earth, was not immune to doubt either, as imprisoned and facing death he sent his disciples to the Lord, asking if He was the One [Matthew 11:3]. And the disciples displayed their weakness too, in doubting His word. It was when Peter being overcome by fear, was beginning to sink, yet called out to the Lord, to receive His life saving helping hand, and the disciples acknowledging Him to be the Son of God [Matthew 14:22-33].
And being crowned with a not so flattering adjective, the doubting Thomas doubted the very resurrection of the Lord, only to be rid of it , by the appearance of the Risen Lord Himself [John 20:24-29]. The Lord had a long way for him to travel yet, all the way to our beloved country, carrying the gospel! Similarly, when the father brought his suffering son to the Lord, to be healed, and also acknowledged his doubt in saying, ‘Help Thou my unbelief’ the Lord in His compassion, dealt with it, to remove it, by working a miracle that saw his son healed [Mark 9:24]. They all go to show that having a doubt in your walk with God does not have to mean that you are not a spiritual person, for it can come or develop even in someone who is strong in his faith.
But Christ is with you and in you, to help you out of it, is also the encouragement that you receive from the above incidents, in order to progress in the path of His will, irrespective of the wind and waves of public opinion that arise all around you to pull you down, especially in such a time as this! And the one who is of a divided mind or is double minded cannot expect to receive anything from God, is what the scripture makes clear [James 1:7,8]. A doubt therefore, needs to be addressed, and God helps you to deal with it by uniting your heart and His word, that you may not be unstable in your ways, but have the wisdom and clarity to move forward.
You may be weak, riddled with doubt right now. But it need not remain that way in your life, for the Lord is at hand to help you. And it is knowing the truth that will set you free. Therefore, when in doubt, turn to the truth of God’s word. For even in the world, the proof of a written document, concerning an issue ,can bring to an end, a heated argument about the matter, between two sides. And even in your walk and relationship with God, when challenges come that cause you to doubt and become confused or fearful, it is turning to the written word of God to receive it in your heart that can heal your doubts by removing it.
And whatever may be your area of doubt at present, whether it is concerning your future, your finances, your health, your children, to name a few, you will find that the word of God has written in it the perfect answer, one that works in you as nothing else can. Looking to God’s word in your time of doubt is also looking to the Lord, who sets you free. It is the perfect solution to doubt that can also lead you to a place of anxiety or fear.
For turning to Christ, to become a Christian, can make you susceptible to peculiar fears, as the devil comes at you with far greater viciousness, knowing that you are no longer under his dominion. It in no way means that you have lost your spirituality. David was a man after God’s own heart, and yet he was afraid, and not without reason. His enemies were many, and they were hounding him mercilessly [Psalm 56:2]. But he also declares the course of action in such a situation in saying, When ever I am afraid, I will trust in you [Psalm 56:3]. And the proof of his trust is what he describes in the very next verse to say, In God, I will praise His word [vs 4].
It is by declaring His praise that you demonstrate your trust in God. Therefore, it is by speaking what the word of God says concerning your situation, that you cast your care on Him, who cares for you. Abraham was able to lay his son on the altar, with the words that he spoke to his son ‘The Lord will provide’. It is an articulation of your trust that removes your fear, that you may conclude in the words of the psalmist, In God I have put my trust;
I will not fear; what can flesh do to me? [vs 4]. Thus you can begin with being afraid, to end with not being afraid, when there is a declaration of your faith lies between the two, as an irrevocable proof of your trust in the Lord God Almighty, your Provider and Keeper, your shield and your exceedingly great reward.
Life and death are in the power of the tongue, it is written in the scriptures. And therefore, put in simple terms, ‘let the weak say I am strong’, land let the poor say I am rich; becomes the application of it in your situation, that could be characterized by limitation and lack at present. Now is not the time to give up, threatening though the road ahead may appear to be. For the Lord is with you to help you, pointing to the long way that is yet before you, even as it was laid out before the prophet Jeremiah.
And He strengthens your heart giving you a right understanding of His word, when your hindrance to progressing ahead is a heart that is hardened and not sensitive to His guidance. He did so with the disciples when in spite of being with Him, and observing His many miracles, the baskets of food that were left over, as He fed the five thousand, and the four thousand [Mark 8:14-21]. So He said to them ‘How is it you do not understand?’ [vs 21]. A lack of understanding that leads to hardness of heart can happen, as it did to the disciples, when having been born and raised in a christian family one is too familiar with the scriptures, to glean it’s full understanding for the truth of it to percolate into one’s own life, overcoming doubts and fear.
And the present need can become so all consuming in your mind, that you lose track of all the goodness of God that you have experienced thus far in your life. But remembering His loving care of you all through your past, is the solution, for He who has carried you thus far will certainly do so until the very end. The truth of the faithfulness of God that never changes, and His mercies that are new every morning, is the light of understanding that shines in the heart of the prophet Jeremiah, in the midst of his lamentations [Lamentations 3:22-24]. ‘The Lord is my portion’ says my soul. Therefore I hope in Him [vs 24]. It will cause the heart that is hardened, and is like a dimly burning wick, to become one that burns like fire, extinguishing every doubt that threatens to consume, or overwhelm you.
Counting your past blessings, as the familiar song goes, will certainly surprise you, and in knowing what the Lord has already done in your life, you will know without any doubt that He will take care of your present need too. And underlying it all is the truth that no matter what, He never gives up on the desire that He has planted in you, together with the empowering that comes from Him. He deals with what can stand in the way in truth and grace, as He did with the ego of the disciples.
It was about who was the greatest among them, a discussion that was not open to discussion! And so the disciples did not have an answer to the Lord’s question, when He asked them what they were discussing about [Luke 9:46]. But it was not the end of their story. The Lord did not wash His hands off them to go and make disciples of other, seemingly more worthy recipients of the gospel message. By His gracious work in their hearts, they were transformed to be weak, yet worthy vessels to carry the message of the gospel, to go and make disciples, baptizing them in His Name, and the assurance of His authority and His presence that would accompany them. It was going to be all about the Lord, was the lesson the disciples had to learn. And it is the same today in your life and mine too.
You and I, in our humanness, just as Elijah was, are weak and fragile. We are ordinary, yet serve an extra ordinary God. The vision that He plants in you, may seem bigger and beyond your reach. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us [2 Corinthians 4:7]. For, if it is simply about doing what you can do, there is nothing special about it. It is when you can do it only by the strength of God, that it brings Him glory. It is in His strength that you overcome, every doubt, every fear, every proud egoistic thought to move ahead in fulfilling His desire in and through your life.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance [Acts 2:4]. Lack or limitation, could be filling you with doubt and fear right now, in some aspect of your life. And it could be leading you in the path that is not God’s destiny for you. But take heart in knowing that it is not the end of the road. All you need to do is to to take a simple yet powerful step.
There is help at hand; you will receive power in the Holy Spirit, that works mightily inside you, to transform your very personality, overcoming fear and doubt, to accomplish all that God has already prepared for you. And even as the word of God dwells in you richly, as you meditate upon it day and night, the Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance, the right word that will transform your world. And so, though you may have doubt or fear concerning your future, the Spirit will bring to your mind God’s word that says ‘Your times are in His hands’ [Psalm 31:15] and His plans concerning you are of welfare and peace [Jeremiah 29:11]. And it will see a divine peace settle in you, driving away everything that is not of God.
In your time of difficulty, the Spirit will remind you that you can be content with what you have, for He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you’ that you may boldly say ‘The Lord is my Helper; I will not fear’ [Hebrews 13:5,6]. What breaks your limitations, is the revelation of God’s word that comes to you in the power of the Holy Spirit, to bring about a radical transformation in you. Your chains are gone. And His amazing grace takes you to where God wants you to be, in the promise of His good towards you. His word keeps you secure, as He remains your shield and portion now and forever. And as you give thanks unto the Father, for His faithfulness, may it see your doubts and discouragement swept away, by the dynamic power of His word to you, that He may be glorified. In the Name of Christ Jesus Amen.
