Be Strong And Take Heart

I was talking to one of my groups today, letting them know that I was taking a vacation next week. I’m not going anywhere, just taking the time because I need to “use it or lose it” and because I need to for myself. It’s been such a stressful year, almost since the very beginning, and it hasn’t let up except for when I allow the Lord to speak to my heart. Sometimes I’ve been so stressed out and miserable that it’s been hard to even hear Him – and He’s been faithfully talking as loud as He possibly can, it’s just been me that’s been having a hard time listening.

In Psalm 27:1, David wrote, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” That is from the King James version, and it is beautiful and powerful, and when I looked it up, I found another one from the NET Bible that brings it into a statement instead of a question, “The Lord delivers and vindicates me! I fear no one! The Lord protects my life! I am afraid of no one!” and the Aramaic Plain English Bible has this, “Lord Jehovah, my light and my salvation, of whom shall I be afraid? Lord Jehovah is the strength of my life; by whom am I shaken?”

I was talking to a friend about what I know in my heart that God wants for us. He wants us never to fear and never to be shaken, He wants us to know who He is and that we are His and that He will not allow anyone or anything that is evil to triumph over us. When the enemy wants to shake us, he’ll bring everything he has that he knows will cause stress and doubt and worry. “But when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of God raises a standard against him.” (Isaiah 59:19) It is in just those moments when we are feeling like there is no way we can win this battle that the Lord comes in and shows us that we don’t have to on our own strength. All we have to do is stand on the Rock that is Jesus and watch the glory of the Lord deliver and vindicate us.

There are a few people I know who have been dealing with similar issues as I have. And there are people who the Lord has sent to me to tell me they’ve dealt with them in the past and that He always came through. And then there are people who just say something, a word that they are sharing and they may not even know why. They certainly don’t know my story, and yet they speak to it clearly. Someone did that tonight – we were talking about where he came from and the ministry he worked with, and then he said to me, “If you are walking in the light, everything will be revealed that is of darkness. It will be revealed through your light.” He was talking about something completely unrelated to me, and yet I knew that was a word for me because someone who has been dealing with some similar issues had just said almost the same thing. I started my day with those words and ended them that way, and I know that’s what God wants me to know.

On my way into the city this morning the Lord gave me Gideon when I opened my Bible on the train – the coward who the Angel of the Lord calls a mighty warrior and a mighty warrior is what he becomes. It is not by our own power or strength or wisdom – it is completely in God’s hands – and when we know that and we can allow ourselves to trust Him, we’ll see just how faithful He is. In fact, I’ll go a step further and say that He’ll be faithful no matter what – it’s when we can trust Him that we can have perfect peace as we wait on Him.

Psalm 27 ends this way, “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” (verses 13-14) The words here are so important – don’t just wait for Him, be strong and take heart while you are waiting, and know that you will see His goodness.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan