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This Week’s Devotional Topic
GOD IS IN CONTROL
God is in control. He is all knowing and omnipotent. He allows certain things and creates and makes other things happen. There are a lot of things I don’t understand or know why but I have faith in Him.
Psalms 37:23 The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the LORD holds them by the hand. Once I was young, and now I am old. Yet I have never seen the godly abandoned or their children begging for bread.
We must give God the glory He so richly and accurately deserves.
We often wonder why. Why something happens or didn’t happen. As we know, God answers prayer. His answer might not match what we expect or desire and His timing of the answer may be different than we wanted. When the Call To Worship computer used in our recording studio crashed we lost a few items of information that had to be recreated. We were disappointed but found that doing the research to rebuild that data was a blessing. And when our IT engineer and I reached one point in the process where it was just plain a brick wall, a ‘catch twenty-two’. We could not find any way that we could get to where we needed to be. That was a very hard day. Then that night, God allowed me to remember a source for the answer. I shared that with our technician the next day and we were able to move forward. For me, that was a vivid example of the fact that God used that experience to grow my faith in Him, my prayers were answered, I didn’t take glory in my ability to figure it out but God clearly intervened. It was his Spirit that brought those things to my remembrance. He gets the glory. Those types of events in our lives are ‘divine intervention’. You have heard me use this phrase before, those are “God’s fingerprints”. Things that we can’t explain any other way than that God stepped in and we could look back to see that God was involved there.
There are times that He will direct us to move. Occasionally it will involve moving us by just changing our thoughts, other times He will work things out requiring us to move and actually relocate. About thirty years ago, my family was at a crossroad in life. We knew that we needed to move due to a job change. God made it dramatically clear where we should go. I look back now, many years later and can’t imagine what our lives would have been like had we not sought the Lord’s direction and followed Him. All five of our children grew up here, found their spouse and have been blessed with children of their own. Like they say, looking back is 20/20 vision. God was in control. While in our back yard, thinking about God’s direction, His control over our location, I noticed one of our potted plants that was just a few inches out of range of the sprinkler system. I moved it and realized how that we are like that plant. Sometimes we need to move so that we can receive His refreshing water. So that we can receive nourishment that we would not have received otherwise.
When it comes to resting in the fact that God is in control and you are wrestling with decisions and choices to make, then think about this reality, God always gives his best to those who leave the choice with him. When you lack wisdom, ask. You have not because you ask not.
I don’t know why He directs as He does but this one thing I do know, that God loves me more than I can imagine and I trust, have faith that my heavenly Father knows best.
Romans 8:28,29 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Verse 28 proclaims that it’s all good. Don’t leave out verse 29 that explains why and how it is all good. All these things conform us to the image of Christ. Because God is all knowing, he predestined us to be conformed to the image of His son.
Psalms 34:8 O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
Jeremiah 17:7 “…blessed are those who trust in the LORD and have made the LORD their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.”
I am confident that God is “large and in charge” of all that touches my life. I can rest in that fact and rejoice in His love. I pray that you have that peace to.
This week’s Scripture:
Psalms 37:23; Romans 8:28,29; Psalms 34:8 and Jeremiah 17:7
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