His Answers

read this article. about turning to God in times of famine...about seeking Him for solutions. so encouraging.  and reminds me how I feel in life many times.

Sometimes everything is going wrong. and I try to fix it-- and then when I can't fix it, I give up. And then so many times everything is going right and I'm scared to enjoy it because everything will fall apart.

Sometimes things are going great and then rough times hit...even small annoyances.  This author talks about the difficulties of moving after marriage, being told she had fertility issues, struggling to make friends and get her business going again in a new area.  But every small dissapointment adds up.

She learned really quickly that you have to hand it over to the Lord.  So she did....  and when she gave the issues to Him to fix, she started making friends, her business picked up, and she discovered she was pregnant.

Now, this isn't how life works out all the time. Handing things over doesn't mean our problems are always fixed or that they are fixed in our timing or in our way. BUT, it does mean we are trusting the Lord with the issues so He will sustain us and bring redemption, growth and blessing.  I'd be curious to know what issues the author still has - because I am sure she would tell us that surrendering issues to the Lord is still a daily struggle.

However, I think its no coincidence that when she started accepting her circumstances and trusting the Lord to work the problems out (instead of just her fighting for improvement), thats when she saw improvements.  The Lord had plans all along, but he just wanted to bring her to the end of herself so she knew HE brought the solutions, not she, her husband, her boss, her doctor...but the LORD alone had answers.

My favorite portion of the article is when she describes going to the doctor expecting to find out something was wrong with her (after she had surrendered her struggles to the Lord) and instead she was informed she was pregnant. She states that the fertility drugs (her solution) still lie in the drawer unopened (and certainly the Lord could've used fertility drugs to bring her a child, but the point is that was her solution and He had his own solution!)

What a tangible example of the Lord answering with better answers than our own.  In my own life, there are many things I'm trying to make happen -- improvements in my job and relationships and personal appearance and goals etc etc.  I will keep trying hard at all these things, but I want to do a better job at surrendering all of these issues to the Lord.  He can cause change and improvement in a better way than I can.  Maybe in a few months, I will look back and see my own versions of "unopened fertility drugs" because the Lord provided in ways I hadn't imagined.  And, maybe, the answers won't come as quickly as they did for the author, but at the end of the day, His provision and answers will still proove to be best.

So, what issues are you trying to fix on your own? Family issues? Relationships? Job troubles? Kid issues? Financial stress?  While reading self help books, making budgets, having big talks and arguments with loved ones, applying for new jobs, putting in extra hours, etc, have you surrendered the issues to the Lord?  I encourage you to do so, the Lord has better solutions than the ones you have, and surrendering your struggles to Him is freeing.

Faith

from Ozzie C today in My Utmost for His highest....I love how he ALWAYS hits the nail on the head.

We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, it may be so in the initial stages; but we do not earn anything by faith, faith brings us into right relationship with God and gives God His opportunity. God has frequently to knock the bottom board out of your experience if you are a saint in order to get you into contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of sentimental enjoyment of His blessings. Your earlier life of faith was narrow and intense, settled around a little sun-spot of experience that had as much of sense as of faith in it, full of light and sweetness; then God withdrew His conscious blessings in order to teach you to walk by faith. You are worth far more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight and thrilling testimony.

Faith by its very nature must be tried, and the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character has to be cleared in our own minds. Faith in its actual working out has to go through spells of unsyllabled isolation. Never confound the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, much that we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith in the Bible is faith in God against everything that contradicts Him – I will remain true to God’s character whatever He may do. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” – this is the most sublime utterance of faith in the whole of the Bible.