notes to self | in all your ways acknowledge Him

Hi all,

It's been a long time since I posted. Life has been busy, and whilst I've still had things to share, they've more been personal revelations for me, that I've scribbled down somewhere and never quite gotten round to sharing. I'd like to share them as I think they can bless for you too, so that's what I'm posting today, notes to self



If I've decided to trust God with my life, then I should be able to trust Him with every aspect of it; the really big things, but also and maybe especially the small things.

'In all your ways acknowledge (include) Him'

- Proverbs 3.6


So when I choose to do my own thing, knowing God has said to do otherwise, what I'm essentially saying is that I don't trust God with every aspect, and that I know better.

And a lot of the time maybe this is subconscious. We just do things the way we always do them...but there is gold to be found in asking God for His opinion, His knowledge and understanding are far greater than ours.

Personal: Trusting God

Life is fairly testing at the moment...awesome but testing. I'm finishing my current job at the end of July with the plan to start studying mid-August. It's a huge step for several reasons because:

1. I have quit my job not yet knowing if I have been accepted onto the course I plan to do.
2. I am supposed to hear back about the course this week but haven't heard anything.
3. Living arrangements whilst I study are foggy to say the least.

All that being what it is, I know that I know that I know that God has a plan for my life and I am in it right at this moment. I know He has everything figured out and it will all work out for my good because that is what He promises.

Now...as I'm sure many of you know, trusting God when you can't see how things are going to come together can be rather difficult. We are so used to relying on what we see or what we know that we find it difficult to envision things coming together, but thank God, He both sees and knows more than we do.

This morning as doubts crept in I encouraged myself in God and asked Him to strengthen my faith. Immediately after praying the song Oceans (below) dropped into my heart and I just started singing it. It reminded me that despite the darkness of the great unknown and all that it holds that I cannot see, I can still see Jesus, and He knows and sees everything.

Faith

I'm reading through Hebrews at the moment and just hit Hebrews 11 which has to be probably my favourite chapter in the whole bible (I say probably because there are so many awesome chapters that that is likely inaccurate!).

Hebrews 11 begins with an amazing explanation of what faith is...

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11.1)

It is a beautiful verse even before you grasp all that it means...but I'll do my best to explain.

Faith comes from trust, and trust comes from knowing someone really well.

Think about it like this...you wouldn't tell your secrets to just anyone. You would wait to get to know someone, see them actively demonstrate an ability to keep schtum when it comes to important information, and then when you'd seen it enough times, you would entrust them with your secret, having faith that they will keep their word to you and not tell anyone.

It's the same in faith with God. God is personal; as in He knows us inside and out and wants us to know Him and have a relationship with Him and be ourselves with Him. As with any relationship, it takes time to build up that kind of familiarity and trust and such a deep friendship only comes from spending time with Him; reading His word (the bible) and talking to Him (prayer) and hearing what others who know Him personally have to say about Him and what He's done in their lives (the testimonies of other Christians). The more you hear and see of Him the more you trust Him!

That's what Hebrews 11 is all about. It's about what happens when you take the leap of faith and get to know God and trust Him with your heart and hopes and future. Hebrews 11 is all about the amazing miracles that happened when people took the step of faith to trust God.

The thing about a relationship with God is that the faith it produces is extraordinary. It starts small. Maybe you trust God with something you feel you have no real control over anyway, like friends at a new school...and then when God blesses you with good friends you trust Him with something bigger, and so on until you're trusting God with everything, you put all your eggs in His hand and wait to see what He does with them.

What makes trusting God even better than just empty hope is the fact that in a world where nothing is certain - people are corrupt, sickness and death are everywhere, wars and famines abound everywhere - God is certain.

He is the same yesterday today and forever (Hebrews 13.8). He never leaves us (Deuteronomy 31.6). He always holds our hands (Psalm 37.24). He has good plans for us (Jeremiah 29.11). He is not a man that He could lie (Numbers 23.19). He promises that even though we see trouble in this life He has overcome and we are with Him (John 16.33).

So our hope for the future isn't an empty one. It's not this empty wish we have that maybe if we are good people, or maybe if we work hard,or maybe if we are lucky, maybe everything will work out.

The hope we have anchors us because it is certain. It is rooted in something, in someone; Jesus Christ; the author and finisher of our faith, the Saviour, the Messiah, the King, God's final word, Emmanuel - God with us!

Faith in God and His word saved the human race when the earth flooded, faith in God and His word led Abraham into the promise land, faith in God and His word gave the Israelites Jericho and that isn't even all of it, there is so much more!

Faith requires nothing more than trusting God. You don't have to be sure of yourself, you just have to be sure of Him.

If I'd moved to this country just because it's nice, the moment it got tough (a week in) I would have packed up and gone back home. BUT because I knew without a shadow of doubt that Stockholm was where God wanted me right now, even after three months of unemployment, I knew I'd made the right decision and I was in the right place.

Our feelings and emotions are about as certain and sure as on-time buses or hospital waiting times...they aren't at all!!! But God is certain. You know that if He says He'll do something He will for sure do it, and not only will He do it, He'll do it better than you could have ever imagined, over and above your expectation (Isaiah 55.9, Ephesians 3.20).

Such is the God of the bible. If you put your life in His hands, He will do far better things with it than you EVER could have.

"Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass." Psalm 37.5

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Jeremiah 17.7 and Psalm 125.1

Yesterday the sermon in church was about hearing God; whether or not we understand Him to still be speaking today and if so how. There were many ways; the bible itself, things around us, a confidence 'I just know', other people, sometimes even an audible voice.

Anyway, as I go through this somewhat trialling time in my own life, I felt God drop the phrase 'but the man who trusts in the Lord is like...' in my head.

I googled it, the following two verses came up:

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, And whose hope is the Lord." - Jeremiah 17.7
"Those who trust in the Lord Are like Mount Zion, Which cannot be moved, but abides forever." - Psalm 125.1

My hope is in Him who cannot be shaken, therefore no matter my circumstance, I will hope and trust in Him alone.

The earth may shake, my world might change, my circumstances will always change... but He will never change. The same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13.8).

♫ Jesus, You're my firm foundation, I know I can stand secure...♫

1 Corinthians 1.25

"Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

Wiser, higher, stronger, greater, better.

But even more than that;

Wisest, highest, strongest, greatest, best.

There's a verse I love in the bible (one of many!). In the verse, God (speaking through Isaiah) says this; "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55.9)

On a personal level, I'm in a kind of wilderness at the moment. I'm in London, when I was hoping to be making tracks to Stockholm. I'm a little lost because I'm not a one hundred percent sure what I'm doing here right now. I'm in an Internship, which I am thoroughly enjoying, but it's in London, not Stockholm.

I'd be lying if I said that I was sure about what I'm doing or where I think I'll be in the next year. God has a way of surprising us and taking our plans and turning them on their heads. So I don't know.

However, one thing that has always comforted me, is the knowledge that all the stuff I don't know, God knows. And I trust God. I believe that His wisdom, planning, foresight and provision are far better than mine will or could ever be. And I believe that He has a plan for my life and that it's a good one (Jeremiah 26.11).

I can't remember if I've ever shared this here, but something that struck me when I read the story of Noah in the Old Testament was the fact that there was only one window in that ark, which in a boat of such size, filled with that many animals, would have made it difficult to see what was going on outside.

Now, whilst Noah knew how long it would rain for, he didn't know how long he'd be on the waves for, and he didn't really have that much of an insight into what was going on around him. But he did know that God was with him, and had put him in the ark in a place of safety, to preserve him despite what was taking place around Him.

God's done the same for me. He's got a plan for me, and even amidst the change going on around me, I know I'm where I am now for divine purpose (because God has organised it for a reason of eternal (everlasting) significance) and that He's with me and will never leave me (Matthew 28.20b)

It might not make sense to me, but it makes sense to God, and with wisdom like His, what more do I need?

“Come to a land that I will show you…” – The Story of Genesis 12.1

Put yourself in Abraham’s position. You are happily married, comfortable, surrounded by much loved family and friends, in a land full of all that you could ever need. And then God tells you to take your wife, and your brother’s son, and move away. But He doesn't tell you where to.

Would you move?

So many times I’ve read that story in the Old Testament without batting an eyelid or giving a second’s thought to how Abraham must have felt.

I wonder how long he thought about it before he went. If it was me, I’d take a pretty long time to decide. How could I uproot my life and family without being one hundred percent sure that where God was taking me would be better than where I was already?

The simple answer is that there was no way I could be one hundred percent sure.

And Abraham couldn’t have been either.

Sure, God made him rich and took care of him, but all of that came after he had taken up the invitation.

Later on in the Old Testament, when Moses had the tiresome task of leading the Israelites out of Egypt and into the promise land, there was an interval of time when the Israelites were stuck in the wilderness, living off whatever God gave each day.

And only after that did they get into the promise land.

In both cases, the parties involved had no choice but to put their trust and faith in God, and it is this idea that incites the fear of God in me.

Why? Because I realise that what was required of the characters in those Old Testament stories is exactly what God requires of us.

When God took Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan, He wasn’t just moving him geographically; He was moving Him spiritually too. Abraham had to be taken away from the earthly way of life and into a spiritual one, and on the way He had to learn to trust God.

When God took the Israelites out of Egypt and into the promise land, He wasn’t just moving them geographically either, He was moving them spiritually too. He was taking them out of Egypt and the slave lifestyle they had become accustomed to, and into a new way of life: His way. And on the way, they too like Abraham had to learn to trust Him.

In my weaker moments; when I’m tired, lonely, hungry and irritated, and feeling tempted to do things the way that the world does them, I’m reminded of God and Abraham. God’s way is better. His way is truth and life (John 14.6). The way of the ungodly is darkness (Proverbs 4.19). And whilst the way of the world may seem easier when I’m in those weaker moments, I need to be like Abraham, who, though unsure of where he was going, knew that he was with God and as a result went willingly.

May God give me the strength and grace to be like Abraham.

From the very first day that we become Christians God begins to pull us further and further away from what we know, i.e. the worldly way of doing things. It can be a struggle, especially in those moments when falling back into the ‘natural’ way of doing things seems so much neater. What we really need to do is trust God that His way of doing things is better. As He takes us away from the earthly way of doing things into the Godly way of doing things it can feel a little bit confusing; after all, why leave what you know for what you don’t?

GOD. Whilst He is so far from anything ‘normal’ to us, we can rest in the knowledge that;

He is all powerful. He is Good. He is Love. (Genesis 17.1/Job 36.22, Luke 18.19/Mark 10.18, 1 John 4.8/1 John 4.16)

These three statements are enough to persuade me. I’d rather have my life in the hands of someone who can do something about it than my own. So maybe right now I can’t see all that God has lined up for the future, or certain areas of my life, but knowing that He is God, I know that whatever He has planned, it’s the best thing for me. So I’m not going to worry or fret, but I’m going to trust God and do things His way.

So now when I am unsure of what’s coming next or how to cope with situations, I pray like this;

Lord, I choose to trust in You. You are all powerful. You are Good. You are Love. Yours are the hands I put my life in. I trust that in all things You are sovereign. I trust that You have the best plan for my life. Help me not to fret or worry, but to believe that You have everything under control. Amen.