Again

Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise Him again—my Savior and my God!  Psalm 42:11 NLT

Check out King David in Psalm 42. He writes about feeling like God has forgotten him in the middle of his storm. 

It’s encouraging isn’t it to know that even someone the Bible describes as “a man after God’s heart” struggled with doubts and anxiety. 

David didn’t feel hope. 

Yet he CHOSE hope by deciding to praise God for who He is. Let’s shout praises to God! Sing loud hum softly,  replay all the moments you can recall where God covered you, provided for you. 

Let’s stop fixating on the storms, the fires, the over abundance of information, around us and start fixing our eyes on Jesus. Yes Lord! We see You in the horizon. 

Psalms 105:4-9 Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always. Remember the wonders He has done, His miracles, and the judgments He pronounced, you His servants, the descendants of Abraham, His chosen ones, the children of Jacob. He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth. He remembers His covenant forever, the promise He made, for a thousand generations, the covenant He made with Abraham, the oath He swore to Isaac.

Our world may feel chaotic, but we don’t belong to this world. We are citizens of heaven, we always have a choice to rejoice and a confident hope in our future home when we accept and know Jesus Christ as our risen saviour, He who was crucified and conquering death rose again 3 days later to carry the sins of mankind and bring us into direct relationship with God. 

God’s desire is for intimacy with us, for relationship that feels “at home”. This single intention to be “at home” with those who love and obey Him shows us the motive of God in reaching out to us in Jesus Christ. He desires that we would choose to join His family – an incredible privilege!  He created us, He has given all of humanity through time the free choice of walking with Him or not. 

Lord Jesus, thank You for desiring intimacy with us. We choose to obey Your Spirit’s prompting! We need Your courage and wisdom to do so! Amen.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water, that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. 

Our strength, confidence, inner resources, and capacity to impact the world around us come from a hidden source when we trust in the Lord. Those around us might not see the stream of living water that we depend on, but they can see the evidence of that life in how we live, how we respond to pressure, trauma, circumstances outside of our control, how we forgive and how we walk in humility.