GOD CAN DO IT

Why my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed

within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet

praise him, my Savior and my God.

(Psalm 42:11, NIV)

The title of this post is actually the title of a very encouraging message preached by Pastor Anthony George of First Baptist Atlanta. It was one of many "responses" I received in the days following a Dear God letter I wrote telling Him about my frustrations over the setbacks that seem to be attached to all my blessings, and asking Him to help me rest in Him and trust Him more instead of giving way to discouragement.

Some of those "responses" were in the form of messages in my devotionals that seemed  to speak straight to my heart:

* STOP letting your problems and situations rule over you! You are an overcomer through Jesus and His Holy Spirit who lives in you. 

* If you have put your faith in the Lord, you don't have to worry about life's necessities. God himself has assumed responsibility for your food and clothing and all of your needs (Matthew 6:25-34).

* An easy life masks your need for God. Coming face to face with impossible situations beyond your ability to handle is the best place to encounter God in His glory and power. Cry out to him and let Him fight for you.

* Trust God and don't be afraid.  Trials and adversities are part of living in a fallen world. View them as exercises designed to develop your trust muscles. 

* Fear is one of Satan's favorite weapons. Resist him in the name of Jesus, and He will slink away from you (James 4:7).

The final "response," and one that seemed to reiterate all the others, even adding an exclamation point at the end, is one I had never considered before and that i am still pondering. It was part of a testimony Pastor George was sharing in his sermon (linked at the top of this post), of a friend who is a single dad of a special needs son.

The dad had been telling Pastor George that the statement many well meaning people use to encourage you when you are struggling through a hard time--God will never put more on you than you can handle--is a lie. God does put more on you than you can handle, but He never puts more on you than He can handle, and He is the God for whom nothing is impossible and whose Holy Spirit lives inside of you. 

When you are burdened with things you cannot bear, cry out to God for help and remember that Jesus is the one carrying the load. 

The cry of desperation is what God responds to best, because when you get to the end of your rope, that's when you realize that you're trusting God completely, and that though there's  nothing you can do in your own strength, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you (Philippians 4:13). 

WISH I HAD A PICTURE

Stay alert! Watch out for your great 

enemy, the devil. He prowls around 

like a roaring lion, looking for

someone to devour.  

(1 Peter 5:8, NLT)

 There are many things I wish I had pictures of, like the cute little fluffy birds perched on my balcony railing this morning, or the slippery mess of a box Amazon left outside my door the other day.

Back to the other day. A day at the tail end of a very exasperating week when very little had been accomplished, and my "bucket" was quickly filling up with drop after drop of increasing frustration. I was feeling overwhelmed and frazzled by computer issues, unwanted interruptions, not being able to get a response from customer support to my many requests for help with the software I had purchased from them that was not functioning and that was preventing me from being able to do my work, and the return of the lanternflies that I had been so happy seemed to be gone this summer.

When I went out to water the wildflowers on my balcony and spotted a lanternfly sitting on the leaf of one of them, it felt as though Satan was having a field day pushing my buttons and thumbing his nose at me while getting a good laugh at my expense.

Could anything else go wrong? The last drop fell into the bucket when I opened my door to retrieve a box Amazon had delivered, and it was so slippery I could barely turn it over to open it. How I wish I had thought to take a picture of that.

In the box was a jug of detergent, the cap of which had somehow managed to get unscrewed, and its soapy contents had spilled out, filling the box and pouring out of it. Great gobs of slippery soap were all over my doormat and the hallway carpet in front of my door. I can't even start to imagine how the delivery person was even able to get the box all the way from the truck through the courtyard, to my building, and up the stairs to my second- floor apartment.

That's when I was struck by how ludicrous this string of events that I had allowed to rattle me had been, and now I was the one getting the last laugh at the absurdity of it all.