The desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:3-4

³ Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Many feel Christianity is merely a list of do's and don'ts. That we're goody goodies that never have any fun. If we go beyond what we want and actually look at the instructions of God we will see that His instructions are there to protect us. What the world calls "fun" has so many consequences that we will be protected from if we only obey.

⁴ Take delight in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

This verse may sound like a health and wealth gospel. We do what God wants and he will give us what we want.

However this verse tells us to delight in the LORD. That means getting to know him and his ways. The how, what, why and when of the LORD. The way we do this is through his word. As we read his word we will be transformed (Romans 12:2) and our desires will be more in line with what God desires. 2 Peter 1:3-4

Then as any parent who see his children obeying and growing in the way they were taught, God will open the stores of heaven and give us our desires because our desires have become his and for his glory.

Praying the scriptures.

This is a lesson I learned a long time ago. In fact I used to have a "Pocket Prayers" book that contained many of the prayer offered up in scripture. All I had to do was change the names to someone I know and love. In doing so I knew that I was praying with the Lord's will because I was praying scripture.

Today's devotional was Ephesians 3:14-21. Each of us has parents, siblings, children or loved ones that could use this prayer. Imagine if each believer were to pray this for the ones we love. Let's breakdown the wealth of information in this short passage.

Prayer that their faith would be strengthened.

¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

Prayer for love and unity.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people,

Prayer that they will grown in the knowledge of God.

to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

An offering of worship to God.

²⁰ Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

I have prayed this for my family. Consider praying this scripture for someone in your life.

Faith.

2 Corinthians 5:7 "For we live by faith, not by sight."

This builds upon my previous post today. I can praise the LORD because I have faith that his plan is best for me. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but by faith I accept that God will be there before me.

I will praise the LORD.

I will more than likely lose my job next Thursday. After 18 1/2 years of a steady pay check, I don't know where the money is going to come from. Yeah, there is unemployment, but that is not a permanent solution. Wednesday these verses were provided in my daily devotional.

Habakkuk 3:17-19

17 Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. 19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights. For the director of music. On my stringed instruments.

In the time these words were written, figs, grapes, olives, sheep and cattle were food and wealth. The writer commits to praising God even if everything he owns fails.

That's where I am right now. Because of poor fiscal planning, I'm about a month away from total financial collapse. Yet I am choosing to praise the Lord.

He is not up in heaven wringing his hands wondering what to do next with me. He knows exactly what I am going through and how he is going to bring me through this trial. Even if poverty is to be my future God has a plan for me. It's not easy giving up my dreams, but my dreams were not His dreams. I did not include Him in my plans. Now he has my attention.

I'm reminded of the words of the apostle Paul in Philippians 4:12 "I know what what it is to be in need, I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."

I believe that secret is knowing that God is control. God has a plan. God will get you through. And knowing with a heart felt trust and not an intellectual head knowledge.

Praise God.

Don't waste the trial you are in.

I had a good talk with my friend Chris, yesterday. Unemployment is looming on the 30th so that will be the 3rd life changing experience since March. I'm not so much worried, but I have said, "I want the world to stop. I want to get off." Chris said something to the effect of "Praise God. It's hard, but you have to remember to praise God."

My Monday email includes a devotional from John Piper. He is a pastor and an incredible speaker. In 2006 he had cancer. As he was preparing for surgery he wrote about not wasting your cancer. As I read it today I could not help but see correlations between what he was saying and what I've been going through. I've adapted his devo to fit any situation by exchanging the word Cancer with Trial. The verses and research are all his. Enjoy!

1. You will waste your trial if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.
God foresees developments becoming hard, he can stop it or not. If he does not, he has a purpose. Since he is infinitely wise, it is right to call this purpose a design. Satan is real and causes many pleasures and pains. But he is not ultimate. So when he strikes Job with boils (Job 2:7), Job attributes it ultimately to God (2:10) and the inspired writer agrees: "They . . . comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him" (Job 42:11). If you don't believe your trial is designed for you by God, you will waste it.
2. You will waste your trial if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13). "There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel" (Numbers 23:23). "The LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly" (Psalm 84:11).
3. You will waste your trial if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.
The design of God in your trial is not to train you in the rationalistic, human calculation of odds. The world gets comfort from their odds. Not Christians. Some count their chariots (percentages of survival) and some count their horses (side effects of treatment), but we trust in the name of the LORD our God (Psalm 20:7). God's design is clear from 2 Corinthians 1:9, "We felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead." The aim of God in your trial (among a thousand other good things) is to knock props out from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on him.
4. You will waste your trial if you think that "success" means fixing it rather than cherishing Christ.
Satan's and God's designs in your trial are not the same. Satan designs to destroy your love for Christ. God designs to deepen your love for Christ. Trials only win if you fail to cherish Christ. God's design is to wean you off the breast of the world and feast you on the sufficiency of Christ. It is meant to help you say and feel, "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." And to know that therefore, "To live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 3:8; 1:21).
5. You will waste your trial if you spend too much time reading about it and not enough time reading about God.
It is not wrong to know about your trial. Ignorance is not a virtue. But the lure to know more and more and the lack of zeal to know God more and more is symptomatic of unbelief. Trials are meant to waken us to the reality of God. It is meant to put feeling and force behind the command, "Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD" (Hosea 6:3). It is meant to waken us to the truth of Daniel 11:32, "The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action." It is meant to make unshakable, indestructible oak trees out of us: "His delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers" (Psalm 1:2). What a waste of our trial if we read day and night in self-help books and not about God.
6. You will waste your trial if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection.
When Epaphroditus brought the gifts to Paul sent by the Philippian church he became ill and almost died. Paul tells the Philippians, "He has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill" (Philippians 2:26-27). What an amazing response! It does not say they were distressed that he was ill, but that he was distressed because they heard he was ill. That is the kind of heart God is aiming to create: a deeply affectionate, caring heart for people. Don't waste your trial by retreating into yourself.
7. You will waste your trial if you grieve as those who have no hope.
Paul used this phrase in relation to those whose loved ones had died: "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13). There is a grief at death. Even for the believer who dies, there is temporary loss—loss of body, and loss of loved ones here, and loss of earthly ministry. But the grief is different—it is permeated with hope. "We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8). Don't waste your trial grieving as those who don't have this hope.
8. You will waste your trial if you treat sin as casually as before.
Are your besetting sins as attractive as they were before you started this trial? If so you are wasting it. Trials are designed to destroy the appetite for sin. Pride, greed, lust, hatred, unforgiveness, impatience, laziness, procrastination—all these are the adversaries that trials are meant to attack. All these things are worse enemies than the trial you currently face. Let the presence of eternity make the sins of time look as futile as they really are. "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?" (Luke 9:25).
9. You will waste your trial if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.
Christians are never anywhere by divine accident. There are reasons for why we wind up where we do. Consider what Jesus said about painful, unplanned circumstances: "They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness" (Luke 21:12 -13). So it is with trials. This will be an opportunity to bear witness. Christ is infinitely worthy. Here is a golden opportunity to show that he is worth more than life. Don't waste it.
Remember you are not left alone. You will have the help you need. "My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19).

God is still in control.

Just when I think I've come to the end of the difficulties I've been facing I received a WARN notice from my employer today. The soon-to-be new owners will be deciding who stays and who goes. If I do not receive a job offer by the 6/21, I will be laid off on 6/25. I admit to being shocked and a bit scared last night and if I dwell on it I can get worked up.

God is STILL in control.

I Surrender All

I'm Still Yours