TRUST, DELIGHT, COMMIT AND REST

Trust, Delight, Commit and Rest

 

 Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
 Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
 Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.
 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.
 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.                 Psalm 37:3-7 (NKJV)

            We all have our good days and bad days; days when were ready to give in and give up.  Depression can eat you up if you have no one to turn to for help.  You may feel like you’re no good for anyone and they would be better off without you.  You might even have thought about ending it all.

            STOP!  I really do know what you’re going through; I’ve been there.  Many years ago I was that person.  I felt like I had no hope whatsoever.  I hated myself and blamed everything and everybody.  When I was at my lowest point in my life; God came into it.  I wasn’t even looking for him; I didn’t call on his name or even pray for help, but He was there. 

            I don’t have space to write my whole testimony, but I will add a line from a very funny movie, “Pee Wee Herman’s Great Adventure”.  A girl named Dottie was telling him the sad story of her life and he said to her, “I know; I’ve lived it, Dottie.”  It was a very funny line in the show, but in real life, I can say, “I know, I’ve lived it, friend.”

            It’s hard to give encouragement to someone who is going through some ‘stuff’, if you haven’t been through it.  So – let me encourage you.  The grass really is greener on the other side.  There is hope and there is happiness waiting for you.  God is the only reason that I am alive today; not only alive, but happy and filled with joy.  I am walking in the favor of God because of 4 things I will share with you.  These 4 things come from Psalm 37:3-7

            The first thing that happened after I asked Jesus into my heart was reading the Bible and discovering I could TRUST God.  I was at a point in my life that I didn’t trust anyone because I knew they would let me down.  However, God was different.  I began to look back over my life and could see how I came through things I couldn’t have without divine help.  God literally saved me from myself a number of times.  I came to realize that a God who would sacrifice the life of his son for me was a God I could trust; a God who was faithful.  I also knew he had never let me go without; I didn’t always have my wants met, but my needs had always been supplied my whole life.  Praise God!

            The second thing I learned was to ‘DELIGHT in the Lord’; to find joy in my life because of who he was.  I found delight in the fact that God loved me beyond what I could even imagine.  He wanted the very best for me; he wanted me to be happy and to enjoy prosperity and good health.  I read in 3 John 2, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.”   This doesn’t mean that I would never get sick or not always have money, because we live in this world and things happen to both good and bad people.  But this is what God wants for me.

            It also says in that verse that God “will give us the desires of our heart”.  This is probably one of the most misinterpreted scriptures in the Bible.  We need to take in the entire verse because it says “IF” If we give our whole life to God, our desires will be godly things.  If our desires are to be rich or to have our own airplane or to take a cruise or have a big house, we are asking for selfish desires to be fulfilled.  If the desire of our heart is to become a missionary, or to see people set free, or to serve God more, He will give you those things.  It doesn’t mean to delight in our selves, but in Him.  He never fails.

            The third thing I learned was to COMMIT my life to Him.  When I was a new Christian, someone once asked me, “Can’t you talk about anything but God?”  I said, “Sure; let’s talk about Jesus”.  Why wouldn’t I want to talk about him all the time?  “He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps.  He has put a new song in my mouth-- Praise to our God.”   Psalm 40:2-3  

            These changes in my life didn’t all happen suddenly, but gradually as I gave more and more of myself to Him.  I was not financially secure and when I read in the Bible God wanted me to prosper, I realized I needed to let him prosper me and so I began tithing 10% of what money came into our household.  I could hardly believe it when even though our wages didn’t increase, we never ran out of money.  When appliances died, we were able to replace them.  They were not always new, but always supplied our need.  God has blessed us so abundantly that I can’t even count the times. 

            I’m still committed, even after all these years.  I can’t imagine not being committed to my church and to people.  I can’t play the piano for three services a week, like I once did; I don’t teach a Sunday School class like I used to and don’t go to all the retreats and conferences, but I do what I can.  This is what causes me to write these teachings on a blog every week, spending many hours of study.  God called me teach his Word and I will do that somehow because I’m committed.  Being committed to God is not just repeatedly do things like going to church every Sunday, or tithing your ten percent, its because its part of being faithful to God.  After all, He is faithful to me.

            The fourth thing is REST in Him.  What this means is to be ‘patient’.  We live in an ‘instant’ world and we have grown to expect things to happen immediately.  God is not one to be controlled by what people say and do.  He wants us to give our problems and trials to Him and then leave them there, resting in the fact that He will take care of these things in His own time and way. 

            Two or three years ago I had cancer and then broke my shoulder in four places.  I know my children thought I would never get out of my chair again, but I knew God was healing me and I was resting in Him.  He didn’t let me down, but gradually healed me and put me back on my feet.  Last month I went up in a balloon and rode in a helicopter.  I’m pretty proud of doing those things, but I give my heavenly Father the glory for giving me the ability to do it.  I never thought I had the patience, but it took a time of not being able to do anything to learn to ‘rest’ in Him.

            Trust in God, Delight in His ways, Commit your life to Him and Rest in His promises and your life will only get better and better.  The joy of the Lord is my strength and it can be yours if you let it.