Lord

How Much Can YOU Handle?

~ Good Grief! by Shelley Brandon ~ Leave a comment

Held by Natalie Grant

Daily Devotions April 3, 2012

Ephesians 6:10-18

10 God is strong, and he wants you strong. So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way. This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.

13-18Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.

 

I’ve got a few pet peeves.  Probably more than a few truth be told.  One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone says, “God will never give me more than I can handle.”  Says who?  It’s not in the Bible anywhere, so who decided that God will never give us more than we can handle?

 

There are people all over the world lying in hospital beds that are facing more than they can handle.  There are millions of people dying from the unsafe water sources they must rely on.  There are more people alive right now that are dealing with more than they can handle than the total population combined just a generation or two ago.

 

Try telling an abused child that God will never give you more than you handle.  Tell a mother whose baby just died that God will never give her more than she can handle and I bet she won’t give you a smile back.

 

The promise of God is not that we will never be given more than we can handle.  Watching my beloved husband die one day at a time for 365 days from terminal brain cancer was more than I could handle…. Alone.

 

God’s promise is that He will help us handle whatever life gives us.  Ephesians 6:13 tells us exactly what life will give us.  “13Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own.”

The enemy spends endless energy trying to give us more than we can handle and his greatest desire is that we blame God when we get too much.  “Why did God do this to me?”  God didn’t do it to you.  The enemy is doing it to you so you will turn your back on the one true God.  We are also told what to do when life gives us too much.  We are to be prepared, we are to, “Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life.”

 

Where are we to find these tools?  “God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare.”  The Bible is where we find the strength God is offering to us to make it through this earthly life.  Life is hard, God is good.

 

Dearest Lord, Thank you for the weapons that You offer to us for our battles in this life.  We ask that you nudge us every day to spend time in Your word that we may learn how to apply Your armor and be prepared to enter the battle.  In Jesus’ name…. Amen

Stop, Look, and Rejoice in the Day

~ Good Grief! by Shelley Brandon ~ Leave a comment

Psalm 118:1,5-9, 22-29

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!
His faithful love endures forever.

5 In my distress I prayed to the Lord,
and the Lord answered me and set me free.
6 The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear.
What can mere people do to me?
7 Yes, the Lord is for me; he will help me.
I will look in triumph at those who hate me.
8 It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in people.
9 It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in princes.

22 The stone that the builders rejected
has now become the cornerstone.
23 This is the Lord’s doing,
and it is wonderful to see.
24 This is the day the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
 25 Please, Lord, please save us.
Please, Lord, please give us success.
26 Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
We bless you from the house of the Lord.
27 The Lord is God, shining upon us.
Take the sacrifice and bind it with cords on the altar.
28 You are my God, and I will praise you!
You are my God, and I will exalt you!

29 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!
His faithful love endures forever.

 

Yesterday morning was one of those mornings when all I could do was marvel at God’s day as it was unfolding before me.  I was driving to see my bestest of all best buds.  The drive takes about 20 minutes.  This was a crisp January morning; cold but strangely void of snow.  The sleeping countryside shimmered beneath a fresh veil of morning frost.  A full moon was still suspended in the early morning sky, shining brighter as the sun approached the eastern horizon, reluctant to relinquish her hold on the night.  As the morning dawn began to give way to sunlight I could see a light fog hugging the curves of the landscape dancing with the low clouds of smoke drifting about from the wood furnaces hard at work in the farm houses I passed.  With each moment the sun advanced turning the sky everywhere that beautiful pale blue and soft blush pink that beckons us to start the day.  Still the moon shone brightly, clinging to western horizon, just above the tree line.  The country highway I drove was a quiet one so I was able to drive slower than I usually would to soak in as much of this beauty as I could, knowing this gift would soon disappear as the minute hand marched forward into the day.  Even the cows lazing about seemed a lovely gift on this morning, almost as if they were encouraging me to slow down and fill my soul with this incredible morning.

This is the day that the Lord has made.  I’m afraid to say that I don’t normally take the time to enjoy the beauty of the Michigan countryside surrounding the tiny town that I live in.  I’m always much too busy with the busyness of doing nothing it seems, to even notice the beauty in the places I take for granted.  I’m so very grateful that I did not do that yesterday.  The memory of that beautiful morning hangs in the art gallery of my mind as an exceptionally precious gift.

This is the day that the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it!!!

 

His Love Endures Forever ~ Chris Tomlin

You want me to go where???

~ Good Grief! by Shelley Brandon ~ 1 Comment

Isaiah 6

Isaiah’s Commission

 1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3And they were calling to one another:

   “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
   the whole earth is full of his glory.”

 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

 5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”

 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

   And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”Isaiah 6

How easy would it be for us to say, “Here I am Lord, send me!”, when faced with magnificence that Isaiah saw in his vision?  I think I would be much like Arnold Horschach from Welcome Back Kotter.   “OOH, OOH, OOH!  I’ll go, I’ll do it! Send me!!!”  Just the thought of such holiness brings waves of longing and contentedness and wonder.  Looking around at the broken world around us, who among us wouldn’t desire to gaze on the glory of the Lord?

And yet it is this broken world around us that claims the gaze of God.  It is this world that He desires us to go out into on His behalf, shining His radiance to the ones He loves.  But whom is it that God loves?  Whom are we to love on His behalf.  Surely not the homeless man who sleeps in the trees at the park each night and searches for pop cans during the day to buy enough alcohol to keep him numb during the long frigid winter nights.  God would not want us to love the young woman who walks the streets looking for her next “job”, oblivious to her beauty and worth in the Lord’s sight.  Would He really ask us to help the fatherless boy who walks alone, head down and paints incredible works of art on the side of the buildings while his mom works three jobs.  His artwork is just graffiti after all, not potential.

We can come up with a million reasons why we should just stay to ourselves.  Money, time, safety, “that job belongs to someone else, God didn’t wire me that way.”  “I’m too shy, I wouldn’t know what to say.”  Yes, these are my reasons.  It’s so easy to say, “God, send me!”, and yet when He says GO, I say, “Ummmmmmmm, I didn’t really mean that exactly Lord, could you just send me somewhere else?  Maybe somewhere not quite so …  real.  OK?”  But where we live is real.

Start with a smile.  Progress to a “Hello”.  Maybe even, “How are you?” and then wait for a real answer.  Pray for them, then ask to pray with them.  Pack a lunch for the homeless guy.  Look the young woman in the eyes and smile.  Show her that you truly see her.  Maybe bring the young man some paints and paper.  Service to God doesn’t have to be hard.  It doesn’t take much to show people that you care about them.

Heavenly Father, we long to see your glory.  Remind us that we do see you everywhere we are, everywhere we look.  We see you in the world that Jesus came to serve.  Help us to see that the places Jesus walked are the same places we are to walk.  Among the broken, the poor, the hopeless.  It’s grungy work, but we are grungy people too.  Our mission is here and now.  Forgive us Lord, for wanting to walk away instead of walk toward your world.  In Jesus’ name, Amen

Mercy in Me