Gifts from God

Today is my birthday, and I smiled after my quiet time this morning because the Lord knows me so well. First He gave me a happy present from Psalm 71, verse three (the first half):

Be to me a rock of refuge,
to which I may continually come. . .

The word that I liked and that made me smile was "continually". I sometimes feel that I am running back to the Lord with the same problems/feelings over and over and over. And I am. But that's okay, because now I have express permission to "continually" come.

Secondly, the Lord gave me a "whack" with Proverbs 29:11:

A fool gives full vent to [her] spirit,
but a wise [woman] quietly holds it back

Over the weekend I had some moments of giving full vent to my spirit which ended up in conflict and hurt and . . .yuck. God just gave me my next memory verse. Somehow correction straight from the Holy Spirit is the easiest to receive.

So, thank you to the Lord for BOTH of my birthday presents, both the happy and the hard.

It Rests on God

Reading through Psalm 62 this morning, and I am grateful for a God Who knows exactly what I need to hear and when I need to hear it. Verses 5-7:

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God.

It's so easy to put our hope in something or someone other than the Lord: Success, money, security, growth, friends, family, relationships. But my only true hope is in God. He is my security and my safe place.

I also find great comfort that my salvation and my glory rest on God, and not on me. Not on my faith or my works or my obedience, but on God. This morning is a time when I know without at doubt that my only glory comes from God and it not from me, and I am grateful that He is the one in charge. I don't have to be strong or know what I am doing--He has it covered!

Waiting PATIENTLY

The title of this blog continues to haunt me. . . I am discovering these days that there is a difference between waiting and waiting patiently. Maybe at the beginning of the process, there is virtue simply in the waiting, but now, when I have been waiting for some things for a very long time, it seems that more is required. I'm reading a really good book right now by Priscilla Shirer, called "One in a Million", which is about the Israelites and their wilderness experience, and about how we should handle our own wilderness experience.

The Israelites have lots of trouble with complaining. So do I. From p. 115 in "One in a Million":

The spirit of complaint is born out of an unwillingness to trust God with today. Like the Israelites, it means that you are spending your time looking back toward Egypt or wishing for the future, all the while missing what God is doing right now. . . It takes what God is doing in your life and smashes it into a thousand wasted pieces.

Me waiting on God and complaining the whole time about how hard it is and how I hate to wait is negating any value whatsoever in the actual waiting. As much as I hate to wait (and, yes, I really do), I hate more that I may be undoing any witness or any character growth that the Lord might hope to do through me or in me because I am choosing not to wait quietly or patiently. If I must wait, I at least would like it to be for a purpose and to God's glory.

I read in Psalm 50:14-15 today words which dovetail nicely with these thoughts:

"Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and perform your vows to the Most High,
and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."

When I am tempted to complain or whine, I need to offer thanksgiving instead--which is the sacrifice part. I don't FEEL like giving thanks, but that is when I need to choose to thank the Lord for His love and His presence in my life, and to call out to Him rather than to whine to everyone else.

And I think everyone else might be kind of happy about this plan as well!