Wait for the Lord....

Wait for the Lord;

Be strong, and let your heart take courage;

Wait for the Lord!

Psalm 27:14

A commentary on waiting...........

I'm reading a book by Paul David Tripp entitled "A Shelter in the Time of Storm."  It's a group of meditations on God and trouble based on Psalm 27.  The section I read this morning is about waiting and why we struggle to "be strong, and let [our] hearts take courage."  Mr. Tripp addresses the question with this:

"Perhaps the answer is found in Romans 4:18-21.

• "In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, "SO SHALL YOUR DESCENDANTS BE."  Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb; yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform."

Why did Abraham grow stronger in faith as he waited those many long years?  It isn't because he played mental denial games.  No, the passage makes it very clear that he faced the facts of the situation head on.  In his time of waiting, Abraham had a very different experience than we often do, because Abraham did something that we often fail to do.  Here it is: the temptation, in times of waiting, is to focus on the thing we are waiting for, all the obstacles that are in the way, our inability to make it happen, and all of the other people who haven't seemed to have had to wait.  Along with this we rehearse to ourselves how essential the thing is and how much we are daily losing in its absence.  All of this increases our feelings of helplessness, our tendency to think our situation is hopeless, and our judgment that waiting is futile.

While it's true that Abraham considered the facts, they weren't the focus of his meditation.  No, his focus was on the God who had made this promise. Every day Abraham would get up and remind himself that the God who had made the promises on which he was waiting was absolutely able to deliver them.  The God who made heaven and earth would have no trouble causing an old woman to deliver a promised child!  Abraham didn't fill his mind with his own weakness and the seeming futility of the situation. No, he filled his mind again and again with the glory of God's immeasurable power, and as he did, he grew stronger and stronger in faith."

This brought me encouragement in truth and I wanted to share it with all of you.

Book review....

I just wanted to let you know that I did a book review over on my other blog.  It has helped me a great deal as I walk the road of infirmity.  So, so helpful.

Polishing God's Monuments by Jim Andrews

I highly recommend getting a copy of this book!

Encouragement in tribulation......

This morning's reading in "Streams in the Desert" is a beautiful analogy that I want to share.  It encouraged me once again to remember that God knows what He's doing and to mess with that is not profitable.

Bless your day today!

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us (Romans 8:18).

I kept for nearly a year the flask-shaped cocoon of an emperor moth. It is very peculiar in its construction. A narrow opening is left in the neck of the flask, through which the perfect insect forces its way, so that a forsaken cocoon is as entire as one still tenanted, no rupture of the interlacing fibers having taken place. The great disproportion between the means of egress and the size of the imprisoned insect makes one wonder how the exit is ever accomplished at all -- and it never is without great labor and difficulty. It is supposed that the pressure to which the moth's body is subjected in passing through such a narrow opening is a provision of nature for forcing the juices into the vessels of the wings, these being less developed at the period of emerging from the chrysalis than they are in other insects.

I happened to witness the first efforts of my prisoned moth to escape from its long confinement. During a whole forenoon, from time to time, I watched it patiently striving and struggling to get out. It never seemed able to get beyond a certain point, and at last my patience was exhausted. Very probably the confining fibers were drier and less elastic than if the cocoon had been left all winter on its native heather, as nature meant it to be. At all events I thought I was wiser and more compassionate than its Maker, and I resolved to give it a helping hand. With the point of my scissors I snipped the confining threads to make the exit just a very little easier, and lo! immediately, and with perfect case, out crawled my moth dragging a huge swollen body and little shrivelled wings. In vain I watched to see that marvelous process of expansion in which these silently and swiftly develop before one's eyes; and as I traced the exquisite spots and markings of divers colors which were all there in miniature, I longed to see these assume their due proportions and the creature to appear in all its perfect beauty, as it is, in truth, one of the loveliest of its kind. But I looked in vain. My false tenderness had proved its ruin. It never was anything but a stunted abortion, crawling painfully through that brief life which it should have spent flying through the air on rainbow wings.

I have thought of it often, often, when watching with pitiful eyes those who were struggling with sorrow, suffering, and distress; and I would fain cut short the discipline and give deliverance. Short-sighted man! How know I that one of these pangs or groans could be spared? The far-sighted, perfect love that seeks the perfection of its object does not weakly shrink from present, transient suffering. Our Father's love is too true to be weak. Because He loves His children, He chastises them that they may be partakers of His holiness. With this glorious end in view, He spares not for their crying. Made perfect through sufferings, as the Elder Brother was, the sons of God are trained up to obedience and brought to glory through much tribulation.
--Tract

Streams in the Desert at Crosswalk