Live Delivered

Never allow your sorrows to speak louder than your joy.

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. In your trials, let your sorrows carry you through to your joy.

Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

Exodus 3:7: “And the Lord Said:  I have surely seen the oppression of My people, and have heard their cry, for I know their suffering.”

Romans 5:3-5: “And not only that, but we also glory in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope and hope does not disappoint.”

Life is long and we are told that in our lives we will have trials along the way at times. Why does the Lord tell us this?  Because much but not all of what comes to us in life will be good.  That is because we know that God is good, and He loves us. So, the Lord will bring good things directly to us. He has also given us the ability to make good of what may not be good for us if we choose. He does this because He loves us.

Romans 5 is saying to us that in life we will have many twists and turns. Whether it be our own lives or the lives of people we know and love, life will be remembered by the living.  Just as the death of Christ means the Life of Christ lives in us, Life will always live in some way in the living.

So, whether in life or in death we must learn to use the suffering that will come at us to help us learn to persevere because life is long. We should learn to never allow our sufferings and sorrows to cry out louder the good that we have.

Psalm 38:18 reminds us that the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and He will save those of us who are crushed in spirit. And Exodus 3 helps us to see that in our suffering, no matter what it is, we should never stop crying out in righteous sorrows to the Lord.  He will be close to us; He will hear us; He will see us, and He will move for us.

We can learn to find good in all that life will throw at us in the way we handle suffering. Don’t allow pain and suffering make to make God feel distant from you. He is nearer than you think.

Never allow your sorrows to speak about your joy. You do not have to feel guilty about being joyful even in the middle of your sorrows.  Let joy talk of your suffering.  This way you will be content with what you have, and you can find contentment with what you do not have too.

Never allow suffering to make you take on an attitude of defeat.  Defeat your suffering with an attitude of faith and perseverance and thankfulness and gratefulness.  We may not have all the things we want in life, but then, we always have more in life than what we really need and often more than what others have.

So, whether life is all good to you or you may find that life offers very little good where you are right now, remember, we have the ability to find good and to live in the goodness of life no matter what we face.  What we want but do not have is never a reason for us to allow our sorrows to speak louder than our hope.

Cry out in your needs and in your sorrows and the Lord will hear you. But think about others too. Learn to also to cry out in your fulness and in your joy.  We all have much more than we think.  And there are many who do not have what you have or who have what you are blessed not to have.

When we complain in our sorrows we are unable to appreciate the good that we have or the good others need. You don’t have to be happy with your sorrows but learn to make your sorrows experience your joy.

Live a Delivered Life.

The way out of the evil before you is to put the Lord before all that is against you.

The Lord’s insight. The giant you face may be the path to the freedom you want.

Exodus 14:16: “But lift up your rod and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it.  And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.”

Genesis 17:8-9: “Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me.  If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants.  But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.”

Sometimes, believers can face hardships so daunting that they can feel like they are just a moment from being overcome.  In 2 Corinthians we are reminded that we can be hard pressed on every side but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed”.

Believing believers will face their challenges in an overcoming way.  Exodus 14:16 is saying to the Israelites the challenge before them was the path to take to overcome what was behind them.  Genesis 17:8-9 is saying to the Israelites never to choose to serve the thing that will want you to stop serving the God who Loves you.

Life is tough for us, and it is tougher each day.  But being a believer is what makes tough things just things.  What will overcome those who have no faith will not have an overcoming impact on those who have the faith to believe.

To the Egyptians, the Red Sea meant the Israelites would be their prize.  But to the Israelites, the Red Sea meant they were the prize of God.  The believer and the nonbeliever can face the same thing, but the believer knows they will get through because they are prized by the Lord.

To the Egyptians, the Red Sea meant the Israelites had no path to escape a return to bondage.  But to the Israelites, the Red Sea meant the Egyptians had taken the path to their destruction.  The believer stays on the path to believing even when being pursued by the nonbelieving.

To the Egyptians, the Red Sea showed that the Israelites were not smart enough to escape them. But to the Israelites, the Red Sea revealed the stupidity of the Egyptians in that the foolishness of God is greater than the smarts of man. No matter your situation, you must always follow the direction of the Lord even when it appears to make no sense.

To the Egyptians, the Red Sea was their chance to show the strength of the wrath they intended to put upon the Israelites.  But to the Israelites, the Red Sea was the way God would show the world how the strength of a dependent believing life will overcome all evil.

We are in a decaying time today.  Most everything that is of God is attacked or is being attacked by the foolishness of those who believe more in man than in God.  You may be in a difficult personal situation at the same time as you live in this decaying worldly time.  But now is the time to be humbly strong.

The Way Out of the things that come against us is to look for the Red Sea.  You see, to the believer, the Red Sea is what saves the believer while it is what drowns the unbeliever. The Way Out of the oppression of your giant is to determine to serve the Lord and never the giant that you face.  The way over the mountain before you is to wait for the Lord to move you as He leaves your mountain standing alone.

God is still God no matter what we face. He is beyond the things that can reach and bring to us challenges that might hold us back from the life He wants for us.  The Way Out of what is before you is to put Him before all that is around you.

Live A Delivered Life.

Being foolish at heart will make you foolish at life.

Your Moment at the Well.

The Lord’s insight. Foolishness lives in the heart of man more than in the mind of man.

Psalm 14:1:  The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.

Proverbs 19:3:  The foolishness of a man twists his way and his heart fights against the Lord.

In the book of Luke 12:20, there is the story of a rich man who brags about how he will store up all his possessions so that he may have many years ahead to drink and to be merry.  But then God said to him, “fool, this night your soul will be required of you; then who’s will those things be which you have provided?”

Scripture warns us of two types of foolishness, one that is a condition of the brain and of the mind, and the foolishness that is of the heart or of life. Foolishness that is of the brain is like any other disease we may have.  We may need medical care to help us function in a normal way.

But foolishness that is a condition of the heart is like that which we have in our scriptures today.  It is a voluntary condition of our hearts. People who have brain conditions are few compared to people who are foolish at heart.

Foolishness of the heart is to fight for something you believe in and to fight against something God wants that is contrary to what you want and believe.  When we do this, we live without the benefit of wisdom or of understanding or even of the common sense needed to help us choose and make better decisions about life.

It is important to understand that when you are foolish at heart you will never have the sense to know that you cannot fight against the Lord and win even when you feel like you are fighting for yourself.

Nations have fallen because people foolish at heart have risen to the top to lead them into decay.

Strong established businesses have failed because people who are foolish at heart have risen to the top to lead them to the bottom.

Institutions like marriage, education, and even the idea of man and woman have been shaken to the point of failure because people foolish at heart have risen to expand what these institutions mean to include things that man finds easier to accept.

Even churches have fallen because people who are foolish at heart have tried to make the church look like the people around it rather than being a place where the people around it come to look more like the Lord.

And more importantly, entire people have fallen because people foolish at heart have led them to believe they can live with more freedoms without God than with God.  People who are foolish at heart will lead us to believe God is restrictive, but He wants us to be diverse and inclusive.

It is foolish to think that God is restrictive in any way.  God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. This is not a restrictive characteristic of God.  It is an inclusive loving trait of His.  All of us who long for His grace can find it when we become humble.

It is foolish to believe that the proud can have the grace of God just like anyone else. But the foolish will lead us to think this. So, we will establish in our hearts never to offend the pride of those who are proud of themselves just the way that they are.

Indeed, the fool referenced in Psalm 14 who says in his heart “there is no God”, is corrupt by their own hearts.  They do the work of what is evil, dressed up to look good. But none of them are good because their hearts are turned against the Lord and toward themselves.

Be mindful of the people leading you today. If you and your leaders call on the name of the Lord for wisdom and understanding you can believe their hearts are turned toward the Lord and not for themselves.

Fight against your own foolishness. You must obey your earthly authorities, but you do not have to have the hearts of your earthly authorities if they are foolish in heart.  God is gracious to give us all a place to belong.  The foolish man does not have to create a place for those they believe are forgotten.  God has not forgotten anyone.

Live A Delivered Life.

The Lord blesses you so that you are a blessing in the places where you live, work, and play.

The Lord’s insight. The Lord blesses you so that your mere presence around others is a blessing to others.

Lamentations 3:22-23. “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed.  Because His compassions do not fail.  They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.”

2 Corinthians 5:17. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

God told Abraham in Genesis 12:3 that He would make Abraham a great nation and that He would bless Abraham.  He also told Abraham He would make even his name great and that he (Abraham) would be a blessing to others wherever he went.

When we look at all we know about Abraham, I see this one thing clearly.  He understood that he could not be a blessing when he held onto all the blessings God gave him.  Abraham didn’t walk around saying he was blessed to be a blessing.  Abraham walked around understanding that being blessed by the Lord meant he would be a blessing of the Lord in the lives of others.

In a way, on that faithful day when Abraham agreed to God’s request to leave his family and go to a place and land, he knew nothing of, Abraham was saying, I must leave the old and so that I can find the new.  Abraham was for us an example of what it means for us to leave our old selves and find new life in Christ.

We also know this about Abraham.  When he moved forward with God, he did not look back at his past.  He looked ahead to all that was before him.  Abraham did not wake up and do the things he did yesterday.  He woke up doing things he had never done before.

How is this so?  Well, because Abraham woke up every day being a new person, living out a new life, doing new things with God at his side.  He did not fret about what he didn’t know.  He did not worry about what came against him.  He did not question where he was because he focused on where he was going with God.

Abraham probably thought if anyone is as close to God as he was, he had to be a new creation.  Old things had to die so that new things could come. Every day Abraham lived a blessed life with God. And his life with God was a blessing to others wherever he went.

Abraham knew that no matter what he faced in his new life, he would be ok.  Because he had the mercies of God round about him.  He had the never-failing compassion of God showered upon him. And this was new to him each day.  So, he knew he would never be overcome by anything that he wasn’t prepared to overcome.

Just like with Abraham and God, With the Lord, we must let go of the old to provide a way for the new.  We cannot be a blessing when we hang onto the life and the blessing we received yesterday.  So, why don’t you ask yourself, are you a blessing?

Is your life, lived where it is lived, a blessing in the environment where you are?  Is your life an addition to what is there, or does it take from what is there?  Does your life make things better or does it make things?  Do others value you being around them more than they feel like you make no difference in their lives?

When you are a blessing, like Abraham, others will know the Lord is good to you because you wait for and respond to Him more than to people.  They will know that you live waiting for something great that they should learn to wait for. They will know that you live fulfilled and filled with hope that is in the Lord more than by seeking something that is of the world.

When you are a blessing, you do not need to do anything but be there for those who are looking for a blessing from the Lord.  When you are a blessing, others will see in you the faithfulness of the Lord and how great it is and how it blesses all those lucky enough to be around you today.

Are you a blessing?  Why or why not?

Live A Delivered Life.

Jesus has left each of us His own Will to give us the best of Himself.

The Lord’s insight. The Lord has an eternal Will and testament for each of us.

John 13:36. “Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward.”

John 14:19. “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me.  Because I live, you will live also.”

Recently I have been preparing my Last Will and Testament for my family.  Now, don’t worry.  I am in good health, so I am thinking now is the time to express how I want the things of mine to be handled after I am gone.  The process has made me realize that Jesus has an eternal Will and Testament for each of us.

In the days leading up to His death, Jesus knew He had to encourage the believers that things would be ok for them.  He wanted all believers then and now to know that His death would not be a loss for them but a gain for everyone who believed in Him.

He gave up His life so we could have His life.  He let go of His life, but He did not let go of us. So, He wants us to know He would not leave us orphans; He would not leave us without comfort; He would not leave us without hope.

While He lived, Jesus wanted all believers to know He had prepared a way for them to live in eternity with Him.  And just like many of us who want to make going on without us easier for those we leave behind, Jesus has ordained a few things that will make it easier for us to keep living to be with Him.

In John 14:3 Jesus tells us that in God’s house there are many mansions.  He says He is going to prepare a place for us so that we will have a place to live when we come to Him and the Father. He has prepared a mansion for you.

In John 14:15 Jesus tells us He has left the Holy Spirit with us so that we can be taught about Him and about God. He left each of us a teacher and a helper so that we can learn to walk and live the way He wants us to live.

In John 14:21 Jesus left for us His promise that He will Love us and make Himself known to us.  Even though He will no longer walk the earth with us, He tells us He will not be hard for us to find.

In John 14:23 Jesus tells us He will make His home with us. Perhaps the most amazing thing He leaves with us is the promise to make His home at our own life address.  Let’s make sure we have room in our inn for Him.

In John 14:27 Jesus knew we would be anxious and worry just like the disciples did before He was crucified.  So, He promised to leave us with peace.  His type of peace is that which helps us to live strong in the face of uncertainty.  His peace will show us to be children of God. 

These things and many others, He has left for each of us in His eternal Will and Testament. These are things that belong to every believer because these are the things that Jesus has given us.  With my personal Will, I am trying to help my family live with what was mine after I am gone.

With The Lord’s Will, He helps us to live with what is His while He is living. His Will is His way of saying to us He will never let go of us – not for one moment. You have a mansion waiting for you.  Where He is now you cannot go but don’t worry.  He has come to live with you until you are ready to go live with Him.

Live A Delivered Life.

No matter what may come my way, with the Lord I will always say, it is well with my soul.

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. The Lord sees your problems. He hears your cry.

2 Kings 4:26: “Please run now to meet her, and say to her, ‘Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child?” And she answered, “It is well.”

Psalm 116:1: “I Love the Lord, because He has heard my cry and my supplications.”

In 2 Kings 4, Elijah was sending word asking the Lady he was staying with, is everything ok?  As I thought about this scripture an old hymn came to mind, “It Is Well with My Soul.” But in my view, things were not well.  Her little boy had died.

The story behind the hymn is much like the story of this lady. Horatio Spafford, who wrote the hymn, held onto hope and faith though his four-year-old son had died and then his four daughters were killed when their ship sank while crossing the Atlantic. As he traveled to meet his grieving wife, he wrote the lyrics to the hymn.

“When peace like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say it is well, it is well, with my soul.”  He was saying, I have some major problems but with You Lord, “I am ok.”

When your troubles seem to be more than you can stand, can you say, “I have some problems but I am ok?”

Because to us our needs can be pressing. We want answers to questions we don’t need to ask. We sometimes cry out to God asking why it is taking Him so long to act. He is God, so we want an immediate solution to our problems.

We probably think that peace is the absence of difficulties. But that is not the way it is with God.  Peace is always available to us, especially in the middle of our troubles. He wants us to know “it is well” no matter what it may be.

It is in our peace that we find the Lord. We know that God hears us when we cry. Psalm 116 is saying to us we should love the Lord because He is very attentive to our situations.  And if He hears us in our troubles, He will direct us in our troubles. He is always at work, working things out for us.

The lady in 2 Kings 4 and Horatio Spafford were steadfast in knowing grief could not have their peace. Even in the middle of their sorrows, they knew things were well. They knew God was working things out for them, so they found the peace of mind to answer their troubles by saying “no matter what comes up against me, it is well for me.”

God told Moses He had heard the cry of His people in Egypt.  He was sending Moses to deliver them from the bondage they had endured for so many years. Jesus healed a lady who had a blood disease for 17 years.  He healed a man who was blind and deaf from birth.

When your time comes and troubles surround you in every way, remember that while the Lord is working things out for you, your response to your troubles is to say, “it is well.” This is not to deny that troubles will come our way, but it is to say troubles will not change our way.

You may have a sickness that lingers. You may have a broken relationship that is difficult to fix. You may need a job so you can take care of the people you love. Whatever the situation is for you, give the situation over to the Lord. Then give your soul a good kick to remind yourself, it is well.

And as you wait for Him to work things out for you, tell Him “It is well with my soul.” Because you know He has heard your cry, you know He will work things out for you in His time.

No matter what may come my way. No matter the length of time it stays. My soul will wait and cry out in faith. It is well, it is well, it is well with my soul.

Live A Delivered Life.

The Lord will find you when you search for Him with all your heart.

The Lord’s insight. I will find you when you seek Me.

Jeramiah 29:13: “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

James 4:8: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”

Now I don’t know much about the things people consider gods.  But I know this about our God.  He is the ONLY living God. Anything else that would call itself a god or that we would refer to as a god is dead.  Nothing that is dead can be drawn to that which is alive.

We should find comfort in knowing that our God is alive. And He acts to be close to us while we are here on earth.  He does not sit by just waiting for us to come to Him. He is not sitting in the last place that we left Him waiting for us to come back to Him.

The idols or other gods we serve have meaning only because we give them meaning.  We do not need our gods or our idols to sustain our lives.  They live only because we allow them to live in our own lives. But our God is alive apart from us but just for us.

He gives us our meaning.  If He does not live, we cannot live.  He does not sit on our mantels.  He does not exist in our workmanship.  He is never far from us even though we may feel far from Him.  Why is this so?

Well, because the Lord is drawn to us through our needs for Him. We move towards Him anytime we recognize in our hearts that we need Him.  You can be laying on your sickbed but when you recognize you need the Lord, He moves towards you.

It is by design that God does not make it hard for us to find Him.  The Lord lives in the heart of our search for Him.  This is why we can always find Him nearer than we think. When we get close to God, He comes close to us.

Jeremiah 29:13 is saying to us when we realize God is waiting for us to look for Him, we will find Him. We don’t need to hang onto something that represents Him.  He is not in the cross around your neck.  He is not in the painting over your fireplace.  He is in the middle of the heart the one who is looking for Him.

So, we don’t need to place Him in a place where we can hang onto Him because He lives within us in a place where He can hang on to us.  He lives in our hearts. The Lord keeps things simple for us.  If we draw ourselves as close to Him as we can, He will come closer to us.

We are moved to act because of our needs.  The Lord is moved to act because of our needs.  Don’t keep your needs to yourself.  Whatever it is that you need today, put it in the front seat of your car and head towards the Lord.  He is drawn to you when you do this.

And if you do this, you will find Him.  Right there in your heart.  Perhaps we should see it this way.  Instead of having a cross around our necks to remind us of His love, we should know that He has a cross with our names on it around His neck to remind Himself of His love for us.

Because He lives, He is always aware when we seek Him.  When we seek Him, this is the time that He will seek us. When you seek Him, He will find you.  He is drawn to our lives by His Love for our needs.

Live A Delivered Life.

Don’t just receive His promises, learn to live in His promises

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. There is no circumstance that can stop what the Lord promises.

Joshua 21:45 “Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel.  All came to pass.”

2 Corinthians 1:20 “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.”

God made a covenant with Abraham, Issac and Jacob.  He told them He would give their offsprings a land in the middle of nothing flowing with everything good.  It was a land He promised.  We call it the promised land. Abraham, Issac and Jacob died before their children received the promise. They died knowing the promise was coming.

Eventually Joshua led the Israelites into the Promised Land. And after the land had been divided among them they were reminded, “Not a Word failed of anything God promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  All came to pass.” They were standing in the middle of a promise delivered.

The Israelites received the promise God swore to give their fathers.  Abraham, Isaac and Jacob never had a land they called their nation. But nothing could keep God from giving the Israelites what He had promised their fathers to give them.

It should be noted that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lived with God wherever He led them because He was their land and He was their home. God gave them life with Him that they gladly accepted.  God gave their children land that they gladly accepted.

But the children of the fathers didn’t live like the fathers of the promise.  They did not obey God.  They came to live on their land for themselves much like all the other people who had no promise because they did not know God.  The children allowed their circumstances and their desires to drive how they lived.

Just like the land wasn’t enough to cause the people then to live for God, many of us are that way today. We gladly accept the promises of the Lord, but we continue to live for ourselves. God knew we would be this way, so He gave us the promise of a Savior, Jesus Christ.  And like times of old, all came to pass.

Joshua reminded the people that all the things God had said about them came to pass.  Jesus wants us to both enjoy the promise as we live in the promise. He wants to make us children to Him again.  There is nothing that can keep Him from delivering on this promise.  All has come to pass.

Jesus knows that many of us still want to live like those around us.  He knew for many of us it would take more than land to soften our hardness or to harden our weakness or to transform everything about us so we can live in Him with Him as our promise.

Jesus knew land couldn’t do for us what it would take a Man to do. 2 Corinthians 1:20 is saying to us, every promise God makes to us is assured in the Life of Jesus. Don’t worry about your circumstances.  Think about your life.  Jesus can soften what is hard in life; He can cool what is hot in life; He can transform what should be changed in life.  All will come to pass.

God does not make promises He does not keep. God does not make promises He cannot keep. We don’t need a land today. We don’t need to look like our neighbor today. We need the Lord Jesus.  He is the promise God made to you and to me and to everyone who will believe.

You may have lived for many years without Him. You may have lived for many years with Him, but not in Him.  But know this, all that God has said about you and your need for a savior has already come to pass.  Make sure you are not living on promised land without the Promised Life.

When you accept this promise, you won’t want to live like others.  Others will want to live and receive what you have received. All will come to pass.

Live A Delivered Life.

Our lives will follow our thinking

The Lord’s insight. Our carnal circumstances should lead us to eternal thoughts and actions.

Philippians 3:20 “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Philippians 4:11 “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.”

430 years the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt.  Conventional thinking tells us that God had to give them time to grow in number from just being a family to becoming a nation. You may have wondered what was God doing for them in all that time of oppression?

I know I have wondered why didn’t God do something about the Egyptian oppression even if the Israelites had to be there to grow?  Being a slave is bad because you are denied freedom of humanity.  But living the life of a slave makes being a slave even worse because you are denied the dignity of humanity.

I guess wondering about what God is doing is about the same as asking Him what He is doing.  Here is what came to me because of my wondering.  The Lord does not want us here on earth living heavenly lives in a carnal way. Life is going to bring us some good and life is going to bring us some challenges that can be used to find more good.  But life is not going to be all good.

Our carnal circumstances should lead us to want and to desire more eternal thoughts and actions.  Our eternal thoughts and actions would lead us to respond to and to live out our carnal circumstances in a better way. God was teaching the Israelites to secure some of the goodness of His kingdom by the way they lived before Him in the tough times in Egypt.

I believe in many ways it’s similar or the same for us today. The Lord teaches us to live eternally in our circumstances so that our circumstances will be changed by the way we live.  The Lord teaches us to live eternally before others so that others will be influenced by seeing eternal living here on earth.

Philippians 3:20 is telling us that we are citizens of heaven.  And being citizens we must live like citizens. When we visit another country, we must respect the laws, customs and ways of that country.  But we are not citizens of that country. How we live in our bondage is different from how the people of the world live in bondage.

Do we want to be free of hurt, pain, bondage, mistreatment and things like this?  Yes we do and we want this for all people.  But while we do not beg to have hardships, Philippians 4:11 reminds us to be content in whatever state is before us.  Hardships are a part of life.

Contentment will keep you from allowing your circumstances to make you live like getting out of your circumstances is all you want.  Contentment is what helps you to learn to face all your challenges with an eternal thought that leads to a more eternal action.

The Israelites were waiting on God.  The Lord is waiting on us. He does not want it to take 430 years for us to learn this.  He is waiting on us to start living heavenly eternal lives today right here in our carnal circumstances.  So, listen to Him. If you want more good to happen in your life, learn to live with a more eternal perspective.  That is the good that life can do nothing about but to watch and to behold and to respect.

Live A Delivered Life.

When its your turn to listen, you will have to stop talking so that you can hear.

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. Learn to recognize when it is your turn to listen.

Job 38:1-3, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:  Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?  Now prepare yourself like a man, I will question you and you shall answer Me.”

Psalm 119:11, “Your Word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.”

Sometimes the Lord has to show us how little we know before we realize how little we have learned. One of the ways He does this is by teaching us to recognize when it is our turn to listen.  Listening leads to learning.

Job lost his family and everything else that he had. He and his three friends were talking among themselves about why this misfortune happened to him. Talking didn’t give them the answers they sought.

But as they talked, God was listening to them and waiting for His turn to talk. If the Lord does not speak before He listens, perhaps we ought to do the same thing. Psalm 119-11 encourages listening.  When we store the Word of God into our lives, the Word speaks to us so that we learn to listen before we speak.

When I consider the world today, too many of us want to talk but few of us want to listen. We have much to say but we speak with little knowledge. We reject great advice and counsel because we prefer to give advice and counsel.

God finally questioned Job, not about what happened to him, but about what Job and his friends were saying. Job didn’t miss hearing God’s voice because he knew it was his turn to listen. You will not recognize when it is your turn to listen when you keep your mouth open.

We cannot solve many of the problems we face because we do not learn to listen. The Lord will ask you to listen so that you know more.  He wants you to listen so that what you speak comes from a place of knowledge and not of nonsense.

Where were you before you were you? What were you doing before you did anything at all? Where does the wind go when it stops blowing? What does the wind look like?  Can you describe how it looks? If you want answers you must learn to listen for knowledge.

When you miss your turn to listen you miss your turn to grow. I hate that I didn’t listen more to my parents and to the adults around me.  I thought that I knew as much or more than they did. But I was wrong. I thought they were old fashioned and old thinking.

The fact that our parents had to use an encyclopedia to research what they didn’t know didn’t make them unknowledgeable.  It made them smart. Our parents hid the Word of God in their hearts, so they learned to listen. The Word speaks to us about us.  If we don’t listen, we can’t hear.

Today we have google to do our research for us.  This doesn’t make us smart.  It makes us lazy and unknowledgeable. We hide our own words in our hearts so we can speak to others about others.

The Lord will listen to you. He will wait for His turn to speak in your life. You will know it is your turn to listen when all you hear is yourself speaking. When it is your turn to listen, stop talking and wait to hear. Then you will learn to grow from what you hear. That will give you something special you can talk about that.

Live a Delivered Life.