You see that's what the enemy, Satan, does. He's been doing this from back in the day of Moses. He hits you so hard to distract you that you sought of lose focus. I mean it's like you know God is there, you know He hasn't left you but yet your so overwhelmed that it's almost like you end up being under your struggle versus being on top of it. In Exodus 5 when Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh to tell them the word of the Lord "Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the dessert (basically worshipping and making sacrifices to God)." Pharoah instead told them - "Get back to your work". Pharoah then gave the order to no longer supply the people with the straw they needed to complete their work but yet expected them to now find their own straw and yet have the same production level. He said make their work harder so they keep working and pay no attention to lies. The lies he was referring to was the word of the Lord coming forth. So basically Pharaoh was going to keep them so busy that they would not be able to worship, pray and thus hear from God. Sounds like what we struggle with today. Our days are so busy between work and everything else that praying and being silent before God is something we "fit in". Yep, that's where I found myself this week and it's for this reason that I found myself in such a stressful place. Thank you Lord for revealing that to me. I also thank one of my Piusites for sharing a devotional with me last night that helped me to see that too (thanks Meris - iron sharpens iron). The scripture for the devotional was "Honor and majesty are [found] in His presence; strength and joy are [found] in His sanctuary" (I Chronicles 16:27, AMP)Okay so now I'm back on track. Basically strength and joy come from being in His presence.
Woke up this morning and did my devotional first alone then with my daughter. Went to my deck to start playing with my dog because even in that God said He was going to show me something. Hmm, God can speak to you through anything. So my dog is so happy that I'm spending time with him and he loves to fetch. He's so excited about playing and I hear the Lord say to me, that's how excited I get when you spend time with me too. Wow, the Lord actually delights in me. Now I knew that but to hear the Lord put it that way just blew me away. Psalm 18:19, 37:23 speaks of the Lord delighting in us. The Lord then reminded me that my dog depends on me for everything because I'm his master. He depends on me for food, water, shelter, companionship, care and comfort when he's sick, and he obeys me because he puts his total trust in me as his master. The Lord reminded me that He is my Lord, my master and as such I too depend on Him for all things so why do I sometimes try to do things on my own ability. Thank you Lord for revelation. Well He didn't stop revealing things there. I now start to clean up my garden and pull out some weeds. As I'm pulling out some weeds some have not grown deep roots so they are easy to pull out while others have deep roots that have actually intertwined with the roots of other weeds so I have to DIG DEEP to pull out those weeds. Again the Lord speaks and says to me that in us as Christians, we sometimes allow things to come and suffocate the true fruit that God wants to bring forth in us. Sometimes we get so caught up with the things around us that our fruit lays barren and we don't even realize that we are working on some old fruit and God wants new fruit to grow but the weeds in our lives are not allowing the new fruit to come forth. I don't know about you but I want some new fruit so I pray that God remove those weeds in my life that are not allowing the new fruit to come forth. Okay, then he takes me to another part of my garden where last year I saw what I thought was a plant growing. I'm new to this gardening stuff so I didn't know it was actually a weed. Well needless to say this weed has like spread over almost a quarter of my garden. I'm using my little shovel to try and pull out the weed but I had to go get the big bronco shovel for this weed. Even with the bigger shovel it's a real struggle. I mean I'm putting some strength into taking this sucker out and then my dog comes over and puts his ball in the garden for me to throw it. Ha, God says, and you see my child, that's a distraction and Satan is always busy trying to distract you from the work that you need to do and the work that needs to be done in you. Wow, thank you Lord. Okay, so it took a long time to get this weed out my garden because it had really spread. God said, you see you didn't give up, that took a lot of work to get that out of your garden but you continue to dig deep and get it out and the deeper you dug the more you cultivated the soil. Hmm, so there are things in our lives that are sometimes buried deep within us and we live with it but yet God wants to take it out of us if we just let Him do so. When He does, it may be a painful process (long suffering) oh but the beauty of it all when it's all done. Just picture a before and after picture of a garden full of weeds and what it looks like after the weeds have been pulled out and the mulch put down. God doesn't want those weeds in our lives but sometimes we fall into these Christian ruts and we just keep living with these weeds in our lives. Okay, so there's more, yes it was a busy morning. Now I go over to another garden and I notice this weed and now this one is a problem because this one has actually embedded into one of my perennial plants. It's intertwined so much that to get to it's roots I would actually end up having to pull out my perennial which has been in my garden for over 13 years. This looks like an impossible task but God says nothing is impossible for him. No matter how bad the thing may seem, no matter how bad your "weed" may be, how embedded in you it is, no matter how deep it may be nothing is impossible to God. Have you allowed God to do some pruning in your life lately (Johns 15:2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.)
Let's pray:
Father God in the mighty and awesome name of Jesus I thank you Lord that you love us so much that you actually delight in us when our ways are pleasing to you. I thank you Lord that you desire to bring out the best in us and that you never give up on us nor forsake us. I thank you Lord that because of what you did on the cross for us, the battle is not ours but it belongs to you and we already have the victory. I thank you Lord that no matter how dark the circumstances, how deep the waters you oh Lord will deliver us from them all according to your word. Lord God we put our trust in you and ask that you deliver us from all weeds, prune us Lord that we may bear new fruit in the mighty and awesome name of our precious Jesus.