A few days ago, I was sitting eating my breakfast and reading my bible when the Holy Spirit spoke to me and asked me to turn to Psalm 5. This was the verse that stood out for me.
In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests
before you and wait expectantly.
The Amplified Version of the Bible says it this way –
In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will prepare a prayer for You
and watch and wait [for You to speak to my heart].
Today – the 1st of Jan 2019 – is the morning of a new year. In fact I would consider the whole month of January to be this.
At the moment I am thinking about what I need to place before the Lord. With this in mind, I have no idea what this year brings.
Every year the Lord seems to give me a scripture that seems to sum up the future or the year ahead. Sometimes He gives me the same scripture for a few years…or half a year. Last year’s verse was Proverbs 3:5-6. This year a lot has been thrown at me, and for me the word has been “trust”.
God wants us to trust Him.
In fact, if I needed to add anything more to that it would be this – We really need to understand, that for our own sake, God wants us to trust Him.
Over the past year I have found my life to be… interesting. My friends know that when I use that word, I am not sure what else to call something, or I am trying to be polite. Apart from now learning to live with chronic pain, and still keeping up my very active and busy lifestyle, my role as a mum and wife has become full on for so many different reasons. So much has changed over the past year that I could not go over it all , even if I had the space to write.
In the middle of this I have had some very revealing conversations with God. Okay, let me rephrase that – God has spoken and I sat thinking and wondering what to say. In many ways He has revealed a new layer of things for my life. Yet even in this I still know little of what is ahead in my future. For me my life in service for Him is about a step by step process of only knowing enough to know that I am still on the right track. Yet in this, He keeps giving me tasks to do that make me wonder of my future.
Finally, a few weeks ago, I was sitting reading my bible and praying. All of a sudden, I blurted these words out aloud, “God is turning my world upside-down”. I felt a shock go through me and I realised that God had just revealed something new to me.
Now for those that know me well – I don’t like anything surprising, new, out of the ordinary or not structured. I do not like adventure and I cringe at anything outrageous. In fact, I have had situations where someone changed something at the last moment and it completely threw me into a spin.
Yet when I spoke those words, I was completely a peace. It was at that moment that I realised for the first time in my life, I was excited about a world where I didn’t hold a control over what was happening, and that my world at the moment although crazy and chaotic was exactly as it was supposed to be – and I am at peace with God working things out.
Now for my friends reading this who happen to be more adventurous and less structured than me, and who desire me to be crazy, adventurous, and wild like them…yeah, just steady up and hold your horses!!
I am yet to see how much of my life he has changed in that way. The fact that he is changing me is a huge thing. This important revelation that come to me over this conversation with God was this –
Over the past years He has taken me through things that have cause me to have a greater faith and trust Him for the outcome. This has been scary and frightening. But I need to go through this to get to where I am now.
Did God cause these stressful and terrifying times to happen? No, but he wasn’t going to allow hard times to go by without the opportunity to grow, should I chose to take it up. I do believe that during the past 15 years, there were things that happened which God allowed to transpire so He could take me deeper in my faith. If I hadn’t chosen in those time to trust Him, I would not be here now. In fact, I would still be a faith baby – still unable to digest a fuller, stronger, flavoured faith that has been needed.
I don’t know what is going to happen this year, and neither do you. To pray for requests at the start of the morning or the start of a new year is like deciding what to wear when you don’t know what the weather is like outside.
The greatest thing we can ask for is faith and then trust God to do the rest.
If you are going through some hard times at the moment, you cannot rely on the weather, careers, people or family …and especially not in governments or politicians. If you are trusting any of those things, you are going to be deeply disappointed.
I know of people at the moment that are in desperate need of trusting God. I know for some, they wonder even if they have the faith to believe in God. There is nothing that I can say that can help this. I can give you all of God’s promises but without you taking a hold of them yourself and making them yours, I am the person you trust, not God. You need that relationship with God where He comforts you, and you believe Him. My comfort and my words are tiny and small and a comfort that will not last…because it is not given to your heart.
The words in this blog are to encourage you to have the faith, the hope and the trust in God Himself. It is to encourage you to place your requests before God and to wait with expectation, and for Him to speak to YOUR heart.
I have found God too be trustworthy. This is useless to you unless you too find Him to be trustworthy. Don’t rely on my faith and my strength. I can speak out what God has done for me, so that you too will call on Him. You need your own testimony of God’s goodness, not mine.
God does not promise our lives to be without trouble, but He has promised us to be there in our troubles.
If you are new to all this God thing, or if you are in need of faith may I encourage you to start reading the Psalms in God’s Word. Read them again and again asking God to give you wisdom and revelation Ephesians 1:17-18
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, (NIV)
This is my prayer for anyone reading this blog.
Place your requests (not wants and wishes) before Him and wait with expectation and listen for Him.
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 1 John 5:14 (NIV)
Note from the author:
For the coming year and whatever it brings-
May God be found to be your hope and strength.
May you find in Him a rich store of love and peace.
May His presence be with you, His hand upon you,
and may He be the Rock on which you stand.