He shall strengthen your heart

I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait on the LORD, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the LORD! Psalm 27:13-14 NKJV

Are you struggling? Ready to give up, ready to “lose heart’? I have been there myself. It is a dark place, a place where fear & anxiety rule. To lose heart would be to give up, to give in and not have the strength to overcome whatever struggle is in our life.

King David, the author of this Psalm, knew heartache and betrayal. If you read all of Psalm 27, you will hear his anguish as he begged the Lord to hear his cry. I have begged the Lord to hear my cry. Maybe you feel that way right now.

You and I need to know that we can go on. Through whatever is happening in our life, we can go on. We need strength. Sometimes our hearts are so weary, so tired…we want to give up, but we must not quit.

Do not give up. Believe that you will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. As a child of God, a follower of Jesus Christ, we will definitely see the goodness of the Lord when we get to Heaven. But to see the goodness of the Lord while we are here among the living…yes, sometimes we need that encouragement now. To know that God is in control.

The verse goes on to say, “Wait”, have courage that you will see the good things that are here and God shall strengthen your heart.

It is as we wait, that we must be of good courage, to be in a positive mindset and then the Lord shall strengthen our heart. He will strengthen our heart. He will help us hold on.

He will help you hold on. Go to the Lord with your struggles and as you wait, perhaps for answers, trust Him and let Him strengthen you through it all.

To Wait Patiently

“I waited patiently for the LORD, and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He also brought me out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth—Praise to our God; many will see it and fear, and will trust in the LORD.” Psalm 40:1-3 (NKJV)

These verses make me wonder how patient am I? Have I waited patiently for the LORD? The verb wait is used in the past tense in this verse…waited patiently. Already done. Have I waited? How important is it to “have waited patiently?”

Let us explore what it means to be patient and to wait patiently.

Patience—the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble or suffering without getting angry or upset.

Wow! That is a challenge for many people on a regular basis, and for probably everyone… at least once in a while.

Patience is mentioned over 70 times in the Bible. The Bible encyclopedia describes it as, “A forbearance or endurance. It is a quality of self-restraint or of not giving way to anger, even in the face of provocation, it is attributed to both God and man and is closely related to mercy.”

Patience is the 4^th Fruit of the Spirit and is also referred to as longsuffering.

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control…” Galatians 5:22 (NLT)

As a believer in Jesus Christ as my Savior and as a follower of Him, through the Power of the Holy Spirit living within me, I can bear the trials of life. You can too.

How? It is the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit when He is alive and well within us. By allowing the Holy Spirit the freedom to produce this quality within us…by knowing that God is in control . This helps us see hope in every situation. By knowing God that sees the whole picture and He knows & does what is best for each of His children.

I like this caption that I read recently, “Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.”

Are you waiting for things to happen in your life? Have you been praying, and it seems that Heaven is silent? Are you waited patiently? What has been the attitude of your heart? Are you keeping a good attitude while you wait?

I must admit, at times…I have not.

When we are patient, it puts us in control of ourselves. Being patient gives us time to choose how to respond to a given event or circumstance, rather than let rampant emotions take over. Often times impatience makes us react in damaging ways as we look for shortcuts and quick fixes. The enemy of God’s children, Satan uses impatience to derail us from achieving God’s purpose in our lives.

It is beneficial to be disciplined to wait, to learn this behavior and make it part of who we are. We can be mindful of the things that make us impatient. When I feel myself getting impatient, I take a deep breath. I ponder how losing control will not help the situation and I picture how being patient will pay off.

There are many benefits of having patience. Some are that we enjoy better mental health. There is less stress on our body’s as we learn to wait. It makes us a better parent, friend and neighbor. It helps us achieve our goals and not harm others as we reach them.

Patience does not mean we are weak or passive. It is a strength and one that our Creator God tells us to practice. We remain active and continue doing what God has called us to do, while we wait.

I do not always wait patiently. I sometimes want to prod God along and make Him answer my desires in my way and in my time. This thought process has caused me nothing but sorrow. It makes me angry with God as my anxious and worrisome thoughts think He is not doing the job I think He should be doing.

As I learn from Jesus and the Scriptures, as I wait, and watch—I learn how to act and when to react. I become more compassionate. Through time in His Word and learning to patiently wait and worship Him through each trial, I have immense blessings. He inclines His head to me and hears my cry. He will hear yours too. Simple advice but so profound!

A Saturday of Life

What does Saturday make you think of? I usually say a day off, end of the workweek, a time to go out and enjoy life. Maybe even a day to party.
But I was listening to a sermon on Good Friday by author & Pastor Max Lucado and he talked about looking at Saturday in a different way. He said not to overlook the Saturday after Jesus was crucified. Many of us jump right to the Resurrection Sunday, which is an awesome day, but what about what was happening or not looking like anything was happening on Saturday. A time of waiting when Heaven seemed to be silent. Silence as the disciples scattered, devastated by the death of Jesus and all hope seemed to be gone.

It got me to thinking about waiting. If you think about it, we spend most of our life waiting, waiting for big things, like:

• Waiting for the right person to marry
• Waiting to buy a house
• Waiting to have children
• Waiting for the perfect job or to get promoted
• Waiting for test results can be a big & scary thing to wait for

Some smaller things we wait for could be and we wait on a daily basis for most of these:

• Waiting in line, at the checkout, at the bank, at the movies, at the drive thru
• Waiting in traffic or at a light
• Waiting for others to speak and then we can respond
• Waiting at an appointment
• Waiting for the commercial to finish to get back to our favorite show
• Waiting for our dog to do his business so we can go back inside
• Waiting for the coffee to brew
• Wait, wait, wait

We are not very patient at waiting it seems. We want things fast.
Society has changed much over the last few years, it seems we can have things in our hands or done for us faster & faster.

Quick meals via the microwave and now instapot, Meals delivered to our door with a few clicks online, online banking where we can take a picture of a check and it is quickly deposited into our account, fast internet to connect and have a group chat, Skype or other video chats, or look up information, self-diagnose or order products, We have overnight delivery of mail because we need it now! We don’t like to wait.

God tells us we need to know how to wait. But how do we act while we wait? How do we react when God isn’t answering our prayers, when we have asked & asked, even pleaded, knocked & knocked, yet Heaven is silent? When the wait is stealing our joy for today.

Are you in a time of your life where you are waiting? Waiting for this COVID-19 virus to be over, waiting for test results, waiting to go back to work, waiting for the children to go back to school, waiting for money to come in, waiting for a phone call from a loved one, waiting to see & hold your loved ones again.

Waiting can make us weary, like maybe life will never be back to normal or what is was. To be honest, this day number whatever of self-quarantine was leading me to a slump.
How can I encourage you if I am discouraged? The answer is to look to God for my strength. I sometimes want to rush God to get Him to fix areas of my life. I can get anxious when He is not working in ways that I want Him to or ways that I can see or in my time frame. Is He working?

I was recently working on a Bible study and these verses on waiting came up at the perfect time in my life. I needed this encouragement from the LORD today.
“In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; In the morning I lay my requests before you and WAIT in expectation.” (Ps. 5:3)                                                                            He hears our voice and we should be waiting expectantly for how He answers!

“We WAIT in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.” (ps. 33:20)                        We wait in hope that He will help us and protect us.

“WAIT for the LORD and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land.” (Ps. 37:34) We shall receive all that He promises if we wait and follow His ways.

“I will WAIT for you, O LORD; you will answer, O LORD my God.” (Ps. 38:15)                     We can wait without getting anxious.

“They that WAIT upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” (Isa. 40:31, KJV)
We can wait without getting weary, even though time seems to drag as we wait. He will give us strength. We can run and continue with our life, continue with His plan for us while we wait for answers.
Through everything God is working. He is working all things out according to His purpose. Think back to Good Friday and that Saturday in between, after Jesus died on the cross, Mary waited, Peter waited, James & John waited, the rest of the disciples waited, perhaps even all of creation waited. They did not know that Sunday was coming!

They waited through Friday and that hopelessness dragged into Saturday, but on Sunday morning Jesus rose from the dead! He did what He said He would do! God was still very much at work between Friday & Sunday! I am thankful for the reminder. I am in a Saturday of life right now, maybe you are too…waiting, waiting…most of the world can probably say they are waiting with the Corona virus and the shutdown of life as we know it…we don’t know what is going to happen, what the future holds but God does.

So hold on—Sunday is coming!

New Creation

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he (or she) is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)

Are you in a dark place? Feeling overwhelmed? Are you trying to change? Are you trying to do things the way God has called you to do them…and yet no results? You see no difference?

Hold on. Just as the Monarch caterpillar waits patiently within its’ chrysalis to be transformed…so are you being transformed. Being a child of God makes you a new creation. The old ways of the flesh have passed and the ways of the Spirit are emerging.

Don’t get me wrong, it takes time to change. God has a much different time table than we do. Be patient.

The Monarch butterfly cannot see the beautiful changes taking place within the darkness…but we can!

Just like in the picture. The beautiful Monarch butterfly seemingly hidden, cannot see the beauty of it’s wings. It is dark in there. She has to be still & wait. No wriggling & fussing like I sometimes do.

We too, must wait and TRUST our CREATOR & FATHER GOD. We must have FAITH that He knows what He is doing.

Take a closer look, the black outline of the wings are showing! Just a few more days. Breaking forth from the darkness is so close! If the Monarch would quit now, it would miss the new creation it will become. You can be so close to emerging from your dark place too!

As you are transformed by CHRIST, your new creation emerges!

You & I are beautiful, new creations in CHRIST. Maybe in your darkness, you cannot see your changes. I can see the beauty of your wings. Just wait. God has so much more for you!

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Strength in the Storm

Are you going through a storm?  A fierce trail or heartache that seems like waves of sadness & defeat are slapping you again & again and not letting up.  You are not alone and MORE IMPORTANT…you DO NOT HAVE TO GO IT ALONE!  I will share the comfort that our amazing Heavenly Father is giving me.  It is yours for the taking too!

When one of the biggest emotional storms hit my life, I fell to my knees. When my whole life was shattered like a pile of broken glass on the floor, I needed hope.

When my heart was so broken and I slid to the floor, I cried out to God.  In the quietness of my heart I heard His reply, this is how the conversation went,

Me: “God, I can’t take this. There is no way that I can get through this.”

God: “Yes, my child, you will.  I will help you.”

Me: “No Lord, it is too much.  I can’t bear it.  I don’t have the strength.”

God: “You are right.  You do not have the strength, but I DO.” 

Me:  “I don’t understand Lord.  What must I do?”

God:  “Lean on Me.  I AM your strength, don’t let this shake you.” 

“He alone is my rock and my salvation,
    my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.” (Psalm 62:2)

Me:  “I’m scared Lord.”

God:  Shhhh, little one, I am here.  I will never leave you.  Trust Me.”

He is right.  All my struggles did not go away but leaning on God and trusting that He is working on my behalf gives me peace…I will get through this in His Strength.

You may be going through difficult times.  Maybe you have felt lost and without hope. When we are dealing with missing loved ones who have passed, broken families, wounded relationships, and the stresses & storms of life…Lean on Him.  Trust Him.

“I wait eagerly for the LORD’s help, and in His word I trust.”  Psalm 130:5

God is trustworthy, steadfast and sure. He is the strength of my heart. May He be the strength of your heart too.

Pause and Thank

This is such a busy time of year!  Running here and there, searching for the perfect gifts, planning the perfect meals, while our plates are already full with putting in hours outside the home, taking care of children, spouses, parents, attending church services, volunteering, catching up with extended family and so much more.  How can we ever get it all done?!  What if the plans don’t go right?

I would encourage you to do what I do.  I plan the best I can.  Something will go wrong, but it’s okay.  I am going to leave the outcome up to The LORD…

I am going to FOCUS on HIM this THANKSGIVING.  I am going to PAUSE, and be THANKFUL for ALL He has BLESSED me with.

“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”. Psalm 27:13 & 14

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