Psalm 36:5 New Living Translation (NLT)
Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.
When I asked the Lord what I must write for my weekly blog post, the answer came through loud and clear – Faithfulness.
In a way, this is a carry on from my previous post ‘Lost your Spark?’, which was a practical look at facing the stresses today as a mom. This account is going to be a little more spiritual.
Here, I am going to delve a little more into the God side of things on our journey through this deniably difficult season.
There is no doubt that we are living in a crazy world. The stress that children are faced with today is said to be equivalent to that which the captives experienced in the concentration camps during the World War. And if that is the level of our children’s stress, imagine the levels of the mommy stress as we desperately try to keep it all together.
The truth and reality of it is that we need to take time out and we to talk about the stuff that we are struggling with. But who we talk to is altogether going to reflect on the outcome.
Time out
Running or walking is always been my great ‘time out’.
This is when I can think and pray and praise all in one ‘session’. Definitely the cheapest and most effective psychology session available. But I would so often pass a couple of moms engaged in an emotionally charged conversation, with arms flailing and voices pitching and I just know that there is going to be no healthy outcome to that conversation. You see, our friends will always support us and make us feel justified in our behavior or our interpretation of our circumstances – after all they are our support team – and we need this. We definitely do!
But sometimes our perspective is not the right perspective.
Talk
We need to check in with someone who has a greater perspective. Someone who will speak ‘life’ rather than ‘death’ over our situation.
I am reading a rather gripping novel at the moment – a Christian novel about spiritual warfare, and this is where I gleaned this nugget of information. ‘The power of life and death is in the tongue.’
It is found in Proverbs 18:21. Here is the ERV version (Easy to Read)
“The tongue can speak words that bring life or death. Those who love to talk must be ready to accept what it brings.”
So lets really think about this. Do we want to let just anyone speak words over our lives? Is it wise to listen to anyone’s advice?
The book of John is my favorite in the whole bible. This is because it was written by someone who had a real love relationship with Jesus. John is described as ‘the disciple that Jesus loved”. Of course Jesus loved all the disciples but he had a special intimacy with John. And the book of John tells us more about the relational side of Jesus than any other book.
And this is how the book of John begins taken from the Expanded Bible for better understanding.
Christ Comes to the World
1 In the beginning [Gen. 1:1] ·there was the Word [the Word already existed; C the Word refers to Christ, God’s revelation of himself]. The Word was ·with [in the presence of; in intimate relationship with] God[C the Father], and the Word was [fully] God. 2 He was ·with [in the presence of; in intimate relationship with] God in the beginning. 3 All things ·were made [were created; came to be] ·by [through] him, and nothing ·was made [came to be] without him [Prov. 8:22–31]. 4 ·In him there was life [or What was made through him was life], and that life was the light of all people. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not ·overpowered [defeated; or understood; comprehended] it.
Jesus is the word, the message.
Jesus is Life
Jesus is Light.
Jesus is Love.
Jesus is Faithful. He is our Faithful Friend. And he most definitely has our best interests and the best interests of our family at heart. He has no ulterior motives. He is incapable of giving an untrue, biased opinion. He is the one that we can trust!
Lets have a look at the dictionary’s description of ‘Faithful’.
- having or showing true and constant support or loyalty
- deserving trust
- keeping promises
Jesus is all of this and so much more.
He wants us to come to him with our issues and our troubles. He wants to be our comforter, our strength and our guide. He satisfies so much more than anyone or anything is this world every could. He is the healer of our heart.
We need to turn to him first and we need to encourage others to turn to Him too.
Imagine how the world would be if we first spoke our troubles to Jesus and then we spoke words of life over our life and the lives of others.
Imagine how the world would be ….
If instead of people saying ‘Our country is falling apart’ they would rather say ‘Lord rebuild our Country.’ ‘Lord bless our Country’
or
if instead of people saying ‘My marriage is falling apart’ they would rather say ‘Lord renew my heart’ ‘Lord bless my marriage’
Imagine how the world would be if more people starting saying positive things like that. We would speak life rather than death over situations. We would speak prayer and blessings over people and circumstances. We would use positive power for good!
And we would get our positive power from spending time with Jesus, the giver of life, the healer of our hearts and the lover of our souls.
Don’t despair. Turn to prayer. You will always find your answers there!
Here are the lyrics of a beautiful song by Kari Jobe. The YouTube clip will be posted on the Lifelovemiracles Facebook page.
YOU STEADY MY HEART
Wish it could be easy
Why is life so messy
Why is pain a part of us
There are days I feel like
Nothing ever goes right
Sometimes it just hurts so much
But You’re here
You’re real
I know, I can trust You
Even when it hurts
Even when it’s hard
Even when it all just falls apart
I will run to You
Cause I know that You are
Lover of my soul
Healer of my scars
You steady my heart (x2)
I’m not gonna worry
I know that You got me
Right inside the palm of your hand
Each and every moment
What’s good and what gets broken
Happens just the way that You plan