The past
week has been incredibly busy with our youth group kids out of school for
spring break and Billy came home from boot camp and we added a new addition to
the family, an 8-week-old Yorkie puppy named Jasper. I wanted to post this last
week, but my days got away from me so here are the thoughts that I had from our
bible study.
Our thoughts will shape our lives. The way that you think
about any given situation will enable your response to that situation. If you
get disappointed, angry, offended, or anxious, that emotion will consume your
thoughts until it shows out in your life in some way. I remember the old
saying, “if you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all”. That sounded like great advice, but can we
really live by that? Jesus tells us in
Matt 12:34 that “out of the mouth, the heart speaks” so this is telling us that
whatever we are thinking or dwelling on in our thought life is what is going to
eventually come out of our mouths and show up in our lives. When time is spent
during the day thinking about the anger, disappointment, offense or anxiety, we
are not present for what may be going on right in front of us. Not only do we
miss out on the present, we are setting ourselves up for a bad outcome in the
future.
In our bible
study last week, we talked about King David from 1 Samuel. God had anointed
David to be king but first he had to serve the current king, Saul. David did
great things in his service to Saul and the people loved him. All of this made
Saul jealous, so he continuously tried to kill David. In 1 Samuel 10, David is
running from Saul and he is captured by his enemy, the Philistines. He was
afraid, so he acted like a madman in front of their king and they let him go. David
was able to make a quick decision and was successful in everything that he did
because he knew that God was with him.
Some of the Psalms were written by David and when you read
them, it is easy to see that David was writing all his feelings down on paper. This
may be the first documented case of journaling. Psalm 34 & 56 were written
by David during the time I referenced here. In these Psalms, David wrote these
words:
“The Angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and
rescues them”. “When I am afraid, I will
put my trust in You. In God, whose word I praise, in God, I have put my trust;
I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?”
We can see that David knows that he has God on his side because
out of his heart, his mouth spoke. Couldn’t we all use this kind of knowledge
when going through our day? I believe this is the message that God wants to
convey to the world today. We do have the God of the universe on our side and He
wants to help us. God tells us in His word that He has a divine protection for
us and our part in all of this is to believe it. We will feel fear at times, so when we feel
that fear it is time to place our trust in God and to believe what His word
says about our protection. When we are in a difficult situation, we can place
our trust and focus on God and He will give us wisdom to help us in our time of
need. Our thoughts are where we can have victory, or we can be defeated. Don’t
let your thoughts defeat you. Get yourself a promise from God’s word that will
fit your circumstances and meditate on it today. God just wants us to trust Him
and the only way to do that is to know what He says He will do and believe it.
2 Peter 1:2-4 tells us this truth:
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God
and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything
pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him
who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to
us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in
the world by lust.
