Rescue me from my dark thoughts!

May 26, 2022

Maria God's goodness, God's love, God's presence, God's Promises, God's Purpose, God's voice, God's Word, Psalm 143, Union with Christ , , , , , 1 Comment

These days I seem to be hungry and desperate for only what the psalms can feed me. I’ve been waking up with a heaviness.  At the moment, nothing comes to mind. But when I start to read the appointed psalm, I realize how dry and desperate I feel.  God’s words soothe me. I linger over certain verses, taking the time to look up how the Hebrew is worded, and what the words actually mean.

On Tuesday, the Holy Spirit used Psalm 143 to calm my anxious heart.  I wrote in my journal, personalizing the psalmist’s own words as a plea to God.

Verse 7: Answer me quickly, O Lord! My spirit fails!
Father – I feel depressed. I need you. I don’t know what’s wrong. Help me!


Verse 8a: Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

I DO trust you. So, please, DO show me what to do, what to think, the way out of my oppressive thoughts.  I can’t think of anyone else I can go to without fear of judgment.  I even cancelled my appointment with a counselor I’ve used. Human help, even from good friends, can’t give me what I need, what I crave.

Verse 8b: Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord!
    I have fled to you for refuge.

Oh – I forgot, I DO have enemies.  Satan is the oppressor of my soul. Thank you for reminding me that you alone are a safe place, someone who always welcomes me because you love me. May I show your worth by coming first to you.


Verse 10a – Teach me to do your will, for you are my God!

Here’s where my Spanish translation helped me.  One word for teach in Spanish can mean both teach and show.  Isn’t an effective teacher one who doesn’t just talk, but works alongside a student demonstrating how to do something?  The same with God’s training.  We all need a master to whom we are apprenticed.

Father – I see that since you are my God, you also have your plans for my life.  Since I belong to you, you expect me to follow YOUR way towards YOUR goals.  Thank you for that reminder, since I’m prone to go my own way, intent on achieving my own goals, independent of you.   But I can’t go YOUR way or even remember to follow you, unless you help me, breaking into my little ‘Me World’.


Verse 10b: Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground!

Again, I checked out the term for ‘good’.  Hebrew’s broad definition includes: ‘kind, happy, cheerful’.  Well, THAT brightened my mood to read that when I ask for God’s help in learning (and desiring) to do his will, his spirit permanently implanted in me will instruct me.  My lessons will be happy lessons for this teacher is kind and cheerful.  He obviously likes his job!

Verse 11: For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life!
    In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble!

Father – thank you for this word ‘trouble’.  It covers all sorts of distresses, fears and problems. You have made yourself to be my go-to-rescue source for any and all things that bother me!


 Verse 12: And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies, and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul,
    for I am your servant.

What a relief to know that yes, while I have real enemies who are hostile and evil (think Satan and all his dark side servants), I need not fear for you WILL eliminate them. That is a promise.  And why? Simply because I belong to you. I am your servant as well as your child and Jesus’ little sister.  Belonging to your family brings untold of blessings.

Thank you, Father!

And so, you can see, dear fellow pilgrim, how precious God’s psalms are to me.  Each a chest of treasures.  Which psalm has God used recently to encourage you?

What you focus on tends to dominate

April 15, 2021

Maria God's presence, Psalm 16, Psalm 21 , , , 1 Comment

Have you found this to be true? What we pay attention to grows bigger, more significant? I’ve experienced that both with sound and sight.  When Mike was in the market for a Saab way back in the 80s, I couldn’t picture what one looked like. But as soon as he pointed out several, I started spotting them easily.  Similarly, when he helped me identify a particular bird by its call, I immediately grew aware of how many there were.

This principle of focus and attention applies to our problems and broken situations as well. What I listen or watch out for grabs the spot light.  But do you and I really want to fill our minds with what’s wrong?  We don’t have to deny reality, but as believers, God’s reality is the canvass upon which we live out these temporary circumstances.  They are not the only facts of life. More significant is His planned provision.  I want to keep watch for His help, His guidance, His grace. They are just as real as the suffering.

To that end, some of the psalms have helped me calibrate my focus this week.

**

I have set the LORD always before me…….I shall not be shaken. Psalm 16: 8 ESV

That’s my problem!  Verse 8 flashed like a strobe light, helping me see I did not have God front and center in my thoughts.

Little things niggled away at any peace as soon as I awoke. I rehearsed temporary things like worries about my weight, a busy Sunday afternoon, now that I’d accepted a spur-of-the-moment lunch invitation for after church, options for the summer, what to choose for birthday gifts coming up in May.  All of them hung around the edges of my mind when the morning alarm startled me awake.

On top of those pesky problems buzzing in my head, one of the cats had missed the litter box and there was pee on the baseboard.  Like I said, little things.  Collectively these thoughts dominated my mental space, causing me to feel, ‘rocked’ and grumpy.

When I sat down to immerse myself in His word, God ‘spoke’.  Psalm 16 made me ashamed of my peevishness. Because I hadn’t started my morning looking at Him, the world rushed in. What a sad way to greet the day and our Father, by ignoring Him.

You have given him his heart’s desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. Psalm 21:2 ESV

Can you articulate your one heart’s desire?  The question sobers. When I started writing in my journal, nothing circumstantial came to my mind. Neither money, stuff, adventures, changes in house or town called me. Even the idea of travel.  Sure, I can fantasize about living in Switzerland, but anything here on earth that I could name as a heart’s desire will vanish pretty soon anyway.  I don’t want to waste my one desire on something that won’t last.

I pondered further. What would I ask for that both changes my life now and forever?  I read on in the Psalm.  Then I saw it in verse 6: you make him glad with the joy of your presence, followed by verse 7: ….for the king trusts in the LORD

That’s what I want! I immediately wrote down and prayed, “Father, cause me to exercise firm and complete reliance on You so to be cheerfully content in any circumstance!”

The good news is that God WANTS to do just that. He wants us to enjoy His closeness.

How do we ‘get’ close to God? The only way I know how to feel close to someone is to talk and listen to them constantly.

Face the facts…pray…work and trust God!

September 20, 2020

Maria courage, Encouragement, Fear, God's presence, Haggai 2, Hebrews 13 , , , Leave a comment

Haggai 2:3 Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Is not this in your sight as nothing in comparison to that? Yet now be strong, alert, and courageous, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; be strong, alert, and courageous, O Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, alert, and courageous, all you people of the land, says the Lord, and work! For I am with you, says the Lord of Hosts. (Amp)

Facts are never a problem for God. Rather, He, the Creator of these ‘facts’ calls us to face circumstances and name them.

But He doesn’t leave us alone in the midst of our overwhelming situation to stew in our ‘not-enoughness’. Not up to the assigned task? That is how He has planned this moment, for the Lord of the Angel Armies is WITH us. He assures us that He will provide what we lack, making up for our God-designed deficits. Ever our Father, He pushes us forward, gently but firmly, TOWARD the situation that scares us.

Last Tuesday at the local pregnancy resource center here in Huntsville, I faced the facts. Nothing as scary as what the returning Hebrew exiles were up against, (the book of Ezra details this ‘adventure’) but unsettling enough for me to ask Mike and my friend Joyce to pray!

Every Tuesday morning, I meet with women who believe they are pregnant and turn to us for verification and assistance. They also want to find out how we can help them during their pregnancy. My role as an intake counselor is to meet with them, listen and learn what they are facing, administer the ‘pee test’, discuss our cost-free services, share something of the Gospel and to pray with them.

My husband Mike always asks God urgently to provide for me throughout my morning shift because of the gravity of these one-on-ones. All of us who volunteer and work at the center recognize that the life of the baby is sometimes in jeopardy because of the possibility of abortion. Even more important, these appointments can be occasions where questions of the eternal destination of the gal (and her partner) arise. With so much at stake, these 45 minutes or so ALWAYS feel weighty and I depend on God entirely for His direction – what to say and how.

Nine months before I left teaching Middle School French full time, I started working on my Spanish. My motivation? – a planned student trip to France and Spain the following summer. That never happened because we moved to Huntsville, changing my life dramatically. But already hooked on Spanish, I continued my language-learning journey in order to be more useful to God in a volunteer capacity here.

A data geek, I track everything about my personal Second Language Acquisition process. It’s been 27.5 months since June 2018 when I began from scratch. I employ the same method I used to teach French, that is acquiring the language through input, not via grammar or explicit learning. Starting first with simple videos and podcasts, I now read in Spanish and have some weekly conversations (language exchanges). I am at the intermediate level. The ‘problem’ is: I know what it FEELS like to be fluent in French. I can’t help but compare my skill levels. I call my level: Broken Spanish. A Mexican colleague has assessed my speaking as ‘adequate’.

Obviously just where God wants me, forcing me to depend on Him!

Back to ‘facing the facts’ this past week. Arriving at the center, I knew that all 3 of my appointments for the morning were going to be with Hispanic gals. A first for me!

No point informing God: ‘I wish my proficiency level were more advanced!’ He knows because I remind Him often. Daily, I plug on, continuing my Spanish journey, through comprehensible input (my goal is 3 hours with Spanish a day).

So, this past Tuesday, I JUST KNEW that His will for me that morning was to move ahead with my meager ability, trusting Him to make it enough.

Of course, He came through. No, I didn’t suddenly experience a jump in proficiency. My Spanish STILL felt broken and IN-adequate. But it was enough. The Holy Spirit made up what I lacked. The gals helped me as well. (They spoke NO English and two of them from Guatemala were illiterate as well – how scared THEY must feel, far from home!) And I served ‘my clients’ well enough, I think.

I didn’t get to ‘share the Gospel’ in the full sense that I am able to with English-speaking clients. With my limited Spanish it was enough for me to get through the content of their pregnancy status and services and set them up for a follow-up ultrasound appointment. BUT……I wasn’t at all afraid to pray in Spanish. For a year now, I’ve been enjoying my morning time in God’s Word using a Spanish study Bible. (Thank you, Michael!) I have acquired much of the Spanish specialized vocabulary that goes with talking about God.

But get this! I would have been thankful enough, just making it through the appointments without serious misunderstandings. But God gave me MORE.

For the first time, walking to my car at the end of my shift, for the VERY first time, I FELT upbeat about my Spanish. Serving here at the pregnancy center, using my limited Spanish is a GOOD challenge, a ‘meaty’ dig-your- teeth-into kind of worthy goal. Maybe this will turn out to be a ‘turning the corner’ marker in my quest for Spanish proficiency.

More importantly, I learned, yet again: daunting circumstances are no obstacle for the LORD.

With this ‘language high’ so vivid in my mind, this morning’s reading in Haggai struck me as a needed pep talk from God to these 5th-century BC folks (as well as an encouragement to me!) Under the Holy Spirit’s power, the prophet Haggai speaks pointedly FIRST to the elderly returned exiles from Babylon. They are the ones who likely remembered the much larger dimensions of Solomon’s Temple as youngsters in Jerusalem before it was destroyed and they were taken captive. God, through the prophet speaks to:

(Haggai 2:2) ‘….. Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to……’ the returnees who chose to journey and undertake the rebuilding of the Temple:

  • saying in effect…..Yes….this is going to be a smaller temple…and these rebuilding conditions are very, very difficult and dangerous BUT…
  • and the LORD cites those wonder-filled reasons above NOT to be discouraged.

So, it is with me, and with you, with Christians everywhere. God has created us on purpose NOT to be up to the tasks He assigns. That’s the whole point, don’t you think? Each time He comes through, our faith and awe deepen and He gets the glory. My habitual fear of failure and occasional balking alert me to my mis-guided assumption that completing this assignment, this Mission Impossible, is up to me. Yes, I need to face the facts, but I also need to focus more on the Truth. That God is my ever-present Helper. Hebrews 13:6

How to offer specific hope to someone today

October 27, 2019

Maria 1 Corinthians 15, 2 Corinthians 3, Confidence, Encouragement, God's presence, God's Promises, Grace, Hope, Psalm 31, Uncategorized , , , , 1 Comment

Something Caleb Kaltenbach wrote a while back for Christianity Today came up in my prayer feed yesterday morning.  Mike and I use Prayermate to collect and ‘feed’ us prayers each day.  I had cobbled together some of Kaltenbach’s thoughts on the futility and sin of worry and composed them into a prayer for myself.  What caught my attention yesterday morning, praying again through these truths was the possibility of offering REAL hope to someone I might encounter in the next few hours.

Kaltenbach wrote: “What is the hope I can offer a fellow believer?”

He then answered: “God has already created and planned tomorrow…… “

Now that is real hope.  No matter how fraught with problems tomorrow turns out to be, knowing that God has planned every event of the day IS a relief.

But we need more.  The thought of something awful can still be fear-inducing, even if it IS part of God’s plan.

Here is the ‘more’ I must have to let go of fear. Caleb finishes his thought: “…..and He will walk with you into it.”  God promises to be present in the perplexing, the unexpected, the difficult, and yes, the AWFUL.

“Okay, ” you or the  recipient of this encouragement might respond, “Where can I go in God’s Word to SEE that this is so, that God actually teaches both His sovereign control AND His presence?”

I had to know for myself what foundation had already been laid for this claim.  With a few minutes of reflection, this is what came to mind. One of my favorite promises is from Psalm 31:15: My times are in your hands….

You know me well enough by now, if you’ve read this blog, that I love looking up the Hebrew/Greek or Aramaic meaning of our English translations.

From BlueLetterBible.com the English term TIMES is translated from the Hebrew ETH.  However, in Hebrew ETH means so much more:

  • events, ‘nows’, experiences, happy and calamitous seasons

Conclusion?  EVERY occurrence is in God’s hands.  THAT fact is enough for the Psalmist to continue:

Psalm 31:15: My times are in your hands, (so) deliver me from the hands of my enemies and those who persecute me.

I wrote that down and continued looking for more Biblical support.

A few moments later, I ran across 2 Cor 3:5 where Paul writes: My sufficiency is from God. 

Right before that verse Paul pens, “We have confidence through Christ toward God”.

What was the basis of Paul’s confidence? A phrase from his first letter to believers in Corinth points to the reason for Paul’s happy reliance on God: “but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor 15:10)

So, pulling this together for myself and because I want to be ready to offer it as an encouragement to someone else, here is how I am tucking Caleb’s exhortation into my mind for ready access:

Let’s suppose we listen to a co-worker or talk with a friend today and they have a heavy heart. We can listen and then say:

This is what helps me in times of suffering or difficulty:

  1. God has already planned your tomorrow and He will be walking WITH you through it.
  2. He promises that all your times and events are in His hands, not necessarily to prevent a suffering but to rescue and deliver you IN each situation.
  3. You don’t need to look at your insufficiency and feel afraid because, as Paul learned, Christ’s grace toward us IS sufficient for the day.

Sounds VERY good, but does it ‘work’?  Does this offer true encouragement, a life-line when discouragement hits?

I soon found out.  I left this blog post to sit until today, Sunday, when I planned to edit it.

And yesterday afternoon, the disabling spirit of discouragement attacked.  After wallowing a bit, I remembered ‘how to offer some one HOPE’!!!!

It turns out that the first person God planned for me to encourage was me.  I lay in bed talking to myself last night and was able to fall asleep.  Then, this morning, even though I woke up feeling VERY unspiritual, I again talked to myself and turned to the reading for today and prayed:

Holy Spirit, this is Your word. It is alive and full of power.  Feed me. Encourage me.  Let me see marvel-worthy things.

And He did. By grace.

The hope we offer others, I’m seeing, is best tested on ourselves.  I know intellectually that one reason we suffer is to be able to hold out God’s comfort to others, that comfort that we receive from Him.  I tend to be able to see God’s good hand AFTERwards. Hindsight IS valuable if we remember it.

 

 

 

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