God, You are Faithful!

This morning, God used a simple message from church to reach my heart. Today we were talking about God as the Lord of Hosts. We started off with several obscure passages but ended up with the well-known story of David and Goliath in I Samuel 17. A lot of times when it comes to the more "popular" stories in the Bible, I tune out because in my pride I think that God can't possibly have anything new to teach me. Today God showed me how very wrong and prideful I am to think such a thing.

One of my biggest struggles right now is my finances. Every time a new semester rolls around, I go through a cycle of worry and prayer, asking God to provide for me. I have a hard time trusting him and believing that he will, despite the fact that he has provided for me countless times in the past. I worry about paying for books, tuition, and supplies for art for weeks. Time and time again, he always blows my worries away with a laugh and shows me that he is there for me.

Today we read these verses that caught my attention:

You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of host... This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand!

I Samuel 17: 45-46ish

David is talking to a freakishly huge giant with big muscles, and even bigger weapons. Goliath could have squashed him like a bug, but here he is standing up to him and telling him off. The people on the sidelines must have thought he was insane! And yet he wasn't. Why? Because he understood something that Goliath didn't. Victory is not determined by the size of your enemies, but by the size of your allies. God was on his side! When the armies of the living God stand up behind you, there is no way that you can fail. Romans 8:31-32 sums it up by saying,

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

God, the creator of the universe and sustainer of all things, the one who sent his own son to die a brutal death on a cross just so that I could have the opportunity to have a relationship with him, is taking care of me. THAT is the God that I serve. He can and he will provide for me, excedingly and abundantly beyond all that I could ever ask for or imagine (Eph. 3:20).

Hold on Tight

My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. (Exodus 33:14)

All we have to do is hold on tight. God's got us, we just have to trust in him. Waves might seem really big to us, but to him they're nothing. Let him pick you up and lift you over them.

Psalm 62:1-2

"My soul finds rest in God alone, my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken."
Wow. This is heavy stuff. NEVER be shaken. Not by anything? My soul finds rest only in God and nothing else?
Sometimes on days like today when I am buried up to my neck in work (now I am participating in what many have fondly called break time), when I am stressed because of the many tasks I have committed to, and when it seems like I will never have enough time to complete all of them, it seems like my only rest will come when it's all over. But is that really true? After this is over, something else will inevitably come up.
I doubt that there will be a lot of times in my life that I am not busy. SO it stands to reason that I will absolutely go stark raving mad if I wait until these times come to find rest and peace!!!
Finding peace doesn't necessarily have to be about getting away from noise and craziness and responsibility and going on vacation. Yes, sometimes that can be peaceful. But true, lasting peace comes when we are standing in the midst of every possible thing that life has to throw at us and we say,"Ok, God. You're in charge. I put my trust in you."
And boy is that a heck of a lot harder to do than to say. Even as I write this I'm still thinking in the back of my mind of all of the things that I have to get done. It's a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute, moment-by-moment task to give up control. It's not a one time thing!
But it has to be done. Because if I choose to put my trust in my own abilities to accomplish the tasks given to me, then I will have put my trust in something that is only temporary and doomed to failure.
My soul finds rest in God alone, not in myself.