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Honoring God

Honoring God

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I am so overwhelmed by the love of the Lord. I know what the prophet Jeremiah meant when he said, “It’s like fire shut up in my bones” (Jeremiah 20:9). I just know that what I am feeling on the inside has to be showing up on the outside. There is no explaining worship. It just is. And, here’s the thing…It is in our walk, it is in our talk, it is in our work, and it is in our living. It is even in those things that cause us the most grief. Worship is not only when we are in church with other saints. Worship is an everyday act of honoring God. 

Worship is thanking God for allowing everything we go through to have a purpose. It’s knowing that even though it is sometimes painful…we can still praise God right in the midst of our pain. I heard a preacher say once that our trials…our burdens don’t always come from the enemy. Sometimes, we are praying that God removes the thing He designed to keep us humble. 

I believe that our greatest opposition, trial, or burden, reminds us that no matter how successful we become, or how talented we may be…we can do nothing without God. He is the Creator and the Sustainer of everything that is anything. He is our Rock and our Fortress. He is the One and Only True and Living God. He is our Provider, our Healer, and the Lifter of our heads. He deserves our worship, and He deserves our praise. He is all these things and so much more.

And, every now and then, I think we should stop and just tell Him so.

Until next time…

Be blessed

It’s Not The Thing…It’s the Best Thing

It’s Not The Thing…It’s the Best Thing

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Back before the pandemic, our group ministered at a local rehabilitation center. The clergy who spoke gave a demonstration using a heavy backpack to illustrate how we walk around weighted down by all of our burdens when Jesus is walking right beside us trying to “lift” those burdens from our shoulders. It was powerful. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that’s the case…then a demonstration is worth 100,000!

We get so used to trying to handle things ourselves, that we don’t know how to rest in God. And here’s the thing…resting in God doesn’t mean that we will never be anxious, or nervous, or afraid. It means that when we do begin to feel those things we can “cast our cares” on Him, and allow Him to carry our burdens. But, a lot of us feel that we are not being good stewards when we do that. Surely, we must not be managing our lives well, because we shouldn’t still have so many burdens. And besides that…it just doesn’t seem right to put our problems on someone else. But, it’s not a bad thing to put our burdens on God…it’s the best thing.

We can’t keep going through this life alone. Sometimes, as Christians, we make these man-made rules that we can’t even maintain, and it keeps us in a place of defeat. We keep trying to make God like one of our friends. And if your friends are anything like mine…sometimes they are all in, and let’s face it…sometimes they’re not. 

We think that putting all of our cares on God is like “copping out,” or getting God to do the things that we should be doing ourselves, but that’s not how it is with God. He actually wants us to bring our burdens to Him. He knows that we need Him, and He loves us enough to wait for us to figure it out.

In Psalm 34:19 it says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” So, why are we struggling through trying to do something we were never meant to do? 

The best thing we can do is to let God be God in our lives, and to trust Him with all of our “stuff.”  Then all we have to do is remember that He who holds the plan…holds our hand.

And nothing will ever change that.

Until next time…

Be blessed.