Double For Your Trouble

I’ve been away for a few days without real internet access. I could check emails a bit, but nothing else because I was visiting with my mother and she has a dial up connection so I couldn’t write any posts or do much of anything online. It was a real vacation in that way that I used to have vacations – I still had my cell phone and I could check emails, but that was it. In years gone by I wouldn’t have had a cell phone or been able to check emails, so that’s a little bit of technology that’s crept into my life on a daily basis that crept into my vacation, but in a way I was glad to have just that little bit and no more – without my cell phone and email I would have felt a bit cut off from the world which can be good I suppose, but I’ve gotten so used to having my cell phone and checking my emails that just having that little bit helped me feel at ease without feeling like I was tied to the world. I couldn’t check emails all day either – I had to wait until late at night when the phone wouldn’t be likely to ring. That was nice too – there are a few people who have been writing me emails that have been causing a bit of stress, so it’s been good to be able to just breathe and let it all go.

God tells us to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10), and He tells us that the battle is not ours but His (2 Chronicles 21-29). When I looked up the passage “Be still and know that I am God,” I found a link to an article titled after the verse by Jason Jackson on the Christian Courier website, https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1245-be-still-and-know-that-i-am-god. I had been feeling very weak yesterday – tired from my trip and not getting enough rest for the past week, and I had to get up early to teach a class after arriving home late the night before and the temperature has been in the 90’s for several days. I was walking around in the heat with my heavy bags of supplies all day, and it was a long day. I'd received several of the emails that really made me feel let down – some of them upset me and they all disappointed me. I was feeling weak and disheartened, and as if the promises that God has made to me are not really true. I was feeling like I’d heard something that I wanted to hear, not something that He had said, that I’d made a mistake or I’d messed something up and that was why things are so dark and difficult right now. I felt like I had somehow failed. But in the class I was teaching yesterday, a woman said out of the blue, “You know God says to be still and know that He is God. He tells us the battle is His not ours,” and I carried that in my spirit all through the rest of the long hot summer day.

When I looked up the verse and I saw the article by Jason Jackson, I was overcome by the mercy and love of God. He had heard me and He was answering the cry of my heart. Jason Jackson writes, “What does it mean when God’s own are commanded to ‘be still’? The injunction is not given to restrict the mobility of God’s people. The duty represents a spiritual disposition that ought to characterize those to whom God’s unfailing promises have been given. The word translated ‘be still’ comes from the Hebrew term raphah. This word is found in various forms in the Old Testament, with different shades of meaning. It refers to that which is slack, or to let drop, or in some instances, to be disheartened or weak. When used of a person (as opposed to some inanimate object) it often has a negative connotation. Interestingly, ‘be weak’ is here commanded. In other contexts, those who let their hands drop from work are condemned. Those who are disheartened are commanded to take courage.” He goes on to say, “This spiritual calm that God commands does not come from a lack of troubles; it derives from a steady, deep reflection on the ways God has intervened in history on behalf of His people. (cf. Romans 15:4). So as your world crumbles around you, the call from scripture is: don’t flinch in faith in God. Stand still – not because of a self-made confidence, not because you are the most composed person in the face of disaster, not because you’ve ‘seen it all.’ Be still because of what you know about God.” There is my feeling of being disheartened and weak – and there is the Lord telling me that it’s all right that I feel that way because it is in that place where I can be still and know that He is God.

When I looked up the verse, “The battle is not yours but the Lord’s,” I found another article on the Expository Files website by Jon W. Quinn, http://www.bible.ca/ef/expository-2-chronicles-20-1-29.htm. It’s a beautiful article, but one sentence stood out to me above all of the rest, “God would have given them whatever they needed to win the victory if only they had believed.” Then I found another sermon from Ronnie Mcneill on Sermon Central, http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-battle-is-not-yours-but-the-lords-ronnie-mcneill-sermon-on-trust-132406.asp and in that beautiful sermon another line stood out, “God will give you double for your trouble.” Not only will He give us whatever we need to win the victory, but He’ll give us double for our trouble if we trust Him at His word that He will do what He has promised.

All day long today when I was talking to Him and saying how tired I was, how despondent, how much I just wanted out of all these situations that are causing me such pain and stress and grief, all day long as I asked Him why He had led me to this place that seems such a wilderness place, all day long as I asked Him if I had done something wrong, if I hadn’t really heard Him right, if there was something I was missing, if there was something I should be doing differently, if there was something about me that wasn’t right, all day long as I walked in weakness and despondency, He answered me over and over that I had heard Him, that everything was going to be just fine and more than fine, that when the breakthrough joy came I’d be wondering why I’d doubted, and feeling like a fool for having doubted Him, that yes I heard Him and no I wasn’t wrong, and that yes and yes and amen. All day long He kept saying, “Do you trust me?” And of course I do, but I just didn’t understand.

“Be still and know that I am God,” he told me at around noon yesterday, and then it came back again when I started to write this post. Be still, be human, be weak, be unable to understand. Because just as long as you believe, even in your weakness and your despondency, you will know without a shadow of a doubt that He is God and you will be able to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord (Exodus 14:13-14). And after all is said and done, He will give you double for your trouble, a double portion of blessing for the trial that you faced.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan