Your Moment at the Well
The Lord’s insight. Don’t be weakened by the things that shake you.
John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
2 Corinthians 4:8: “We are hard pressed on every side yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but in in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed.”
Sometimes, harvesters will use a machine to gently shake an almond, cheery or some other fruit tree to cause the fruit to fall to the ground. The machines are calibrated so that the shaking is strong enough to dislodge the fruit but not so strong that it will injure the tree.
Fruit trees have something of value that we want. We will shake those trees because it’s the easiest way to harvest fruit. Shaking the tree may seem harmful or hurtful and we can be sure the tree doesn’t like it. But the harvesters are not harming or hurting the tree. They are helping the tree.
If the tree didn’t drop its ripe fruit, the fruit would rot right there on the tree. And in many cases, when fruit rots on the tree it impacts the amount of fruit the tree may produce next time. Fruit is meant to grow and to fall. This is what keeps the tree healthy.
In much the same way, the Lord will sometimes gently shake each of us so that we will grow and be healthy. We must produce and drop the fruit of our lives. The challenge for us is to recognize when it is the Lord who is shaking us to make us better or when it is the work of the world trying to make us fail because we see shaking as harmful to us.
John 14:7 reminds us that the troubles that come our way should not trouble us because the Lord has given us the gift of peace. Peace is not the absence of trouble. Peace is the presence of the assurance of your growth in any circumstance. When the Lord gives us peace, we are assured that no matter what shakes our lives, we will be ok because He wants us to grow and to produce more each day.
2 Corinthians 4:8 is our encouragement. It tells us that circumstances may come at us hard, but we will not be crushed. When things shake our lives, we are not thrown into despair because troubles do not make us fearful. We may be persecuted but instead of being left to ourselves, we are always brought closer to the Lord. We know the Lord will never forsake or leave us for someone or something else.
As the Lord transformed water into wine, He can do more and better for you. David reminds himself and the Lord of something like this in Psalm 30:11. He said, “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have taken off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness”. The Lord shook David and reminded him that he had more to be joyful about than to be saddened by.
When we are shaken by life and by our circumstances, many of us will come to react with fear and despair. We do not grow and produce the fruit of our faith the Lords wants us to produce. The world is happy with us when we live this way. But the Lord wants different and better for us.
If we are willing, when things shake us, we can use those things to grow beyond our weaknesses so that we produce the fruit of our faith. Fruit that does not fall to earth or that does not fall into the hands of the Lord is of no value. Eventually the fruit we produce and keep will rot our lives as we try to preserve our lives.
Let’s learn to appreciate when the world is shaking our lives with negative circumstances and when the Lord shakes our lives to get us to grow and to produce more fruit. You don’t have to go around happy about your trials, but with the Lord, you can say to your trials “you may shake me, but you will not break me.”
Don’t allow the things that trouble you make you learn to live a troubled life. Never to allow hard things to make you hard. Never allow difficult things to make you difficult. Never allow things that challenge your joy to make you live a joyless life.
Don’t allow your troubles to trouble you. Don’t allow your heart to be troubled; let your life of peace in the Lord and dependence on the Lord bring trouble to the things that come to shake you.
Live a Delivered Life.
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