Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man whom You discipline and instruct, O Lord, and teach out of Your law, that You may give him power to keep himself calm in the days of adversity....
– Psalm 94:12-13
According to Exodus 13:17, When Pharaoh let the people go, God led them not by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was nearer (emphasis added). There was a shorter route, but God took the Israelites the long, hard way on purpose because they were not ready for the battles they would face. He continued to work with them during forty years of wandering, waiting for them to get to the point where they could praise Him in their adversity.
God will continue dealing with us until we learn how to stay peaceful in the storm. Nothing shows our spiritual maturity more than staying calm when our circumstances are not calm. Stability is a sign of maturity, and the more mature we are, the more God can trust us with His power and blessings.
Power Thought: I have the power of God to remain calm in adversity.
God’s Schedule or Ours?
by Dr. Paul Chappell
“And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.”
Luke 19:11
George Matheson experienced great hardship in his life. He showed enormous academic promise as a young man and was preparing for the ministry when he lost his eyesight. His fiancée was unwilling to marry a man who was blind and broke their engagement. Matheson never married, but he faithfully pastored for many years in Scotland and preached for Queen Victoria when she visited her castle at Balmoral. Today he is best remembered for a poem he wrote on the day of his sister’s wedding which we know as the hymn “O Love that Will Not Let Me Go.”
Matheson wrote, “We commonly associate patience with lying down. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Yet there is a patience that I believe to be harder—the patience that can run. To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength; but I know of something that implies a strength greater still: it is the power to work under stress; to have a great weight at your heart and still run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily tasks. It is a Christ-like thing! The hardest thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in the sickbed but in the street.”
One of the main reasons that many people rejected Jesus as the Messiah was that He had not come to establish an immediate earthly kingdom. They had no interest in waiting for the timing that God had ordained—they wanted deliverance immediately. Too often we fail to submit our will to God’s timing for our lives.
Luke 19:11
George Matheson experienced great hardship in his life. He showed enormous academic promise as a young man and was preparing for the ministry when he lost his eyesight. His fiancée was unwilling to marry a man who was blind and broke their engagement. Matheson never married, but he faithfully pastored for many years in Scotland and preached for Queen Victoria when she visited her castle at Balmoral. Today he is best remembered for a poem he wrote on the day of his sister’s wedding which we know as the hymn “O Love that Will Not Let Me Go.”
Matheson wrote, “We commonly associate patience with lying down. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Yet there is a patience that I believe to be harder—the patience that can run. To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength; but I know of something that implies a strength greater still: it is the power to work under stress; to have a great weight at your heart and still run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily tasks. It is a Christ-like thing! The hardest thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in the sickbed but in the street.”
One of the main reasons that many people rejected Jesus as the Messiah was that He had not come to establish an immediate earthly kingdom. They had no interest in waiting for the timing that God had ordained—they wanted deliverance immediately. Too often we fail to submit our will to God’s timing for our lives.
Today’s Growth Principle:
When we are impatient, we are declaring that we think we know how our lives should go better than God does.
Calm in Adversity
by Joyce Meyer - posted August 27, 2016Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man whom You discipline and instruct, O Lord, and teach out of Your law, that You may give him power to keep himself calm in the days of adversity....
– Psalm 94:12-13
According to Exodus 13:17, When Pharaoh let the people go, God led them not by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was nearer (emphasis added). There was a shorter route, but God took the Israelites the long, hard way on purpose because they were not ready for the battles they would face. He continued to work with them during forty years of wandering, waiting for them to get to the point where they could praise Him in their adversity.
God will continue dealing with us until we learn how to stay peaceful in the storm. Nothing shows our spiritual maturity more than staying calm when our circumstances are not calm. Stability is a sign of maturity, and the more mature we are, the more God can trust us with His power and blessings.
Power Thought: I have the power of God to remain calm in adversity.
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