Do We Forget God?

“But watch out! Be very careful never to forget what you have seen God doing for you. May his miracles have a deep and permanent effect upon your lives! Tell your children and your grandchildren about the glorious miracles he did.” (Deuteronomy 4:9) TLB

Earlier this week I read an article in our local newspaper that really made my heart sad for two different reasons. It was about a young man that grew up in our city here in Canada who had a dual citizenship so decided he was going to enlist in the Marines in the US after 9/11 happened.
He never got in the Marines so ended up in the Army and of course in Iraq. He has been so traumatized by his tour in Iraq that he now has been diagnosed with PTSD. This is the first thing that makes me sad.
The second thing that really bothers me is that he grew up as a Christian even went to a Christian school and since experiencing all the horrifying things that he did, he has basically turned his back on organized religion. He says he is agnostic which I am sure his parents find very upsetting as they tried their best to teach him the ways of God. I totally understand that he is confused greatly and has been traumatized by what he endured in war, yet he doesn’t seem to understand that it was God who kept him alive for His purpose. I am praying for this young man that he will be able to receive the help that he needs spiritually and emotionally. It grieves my heart to see these young men and women suffering from all the trauma they dealt with in a war. My precious nephew who is in the Canadian military did two tours in Afghanistan and he is dealing with the after effects of all the trauma he went through as well as being blown up by IEDs. This man was taught as a little boy all about God as well. My dear mother made sure of that as she felt his parents weren’t doing the job, so he knows, yet he claims to be agnostic! What is it that goes on in these wars to make these men doubt God? I know with him, as well as the other young guy, they saw so much horror. Their buddies being blown up and of course things they don’t even talk about. He really questioned about God after his first tour as he could not understand why God would let this happen. Why does God get the blame for all the bad things that happen? God is good and only good comes from him. It is the evil of man that causes these wars and the devastation that comes with it.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17 ESV)

God kept him alive when he was in the thick of gunfire and patrolling out in the wide open desert. All because I prayed and had other people praying for him as I am sure the parents of this other young man did as well. The interesting part about my nephew, is when he was doing his last tour to Afghanistan, he was the Sergeant in charge of his company of soldiers leading them into combat. Before he left, I was asking him the names of each and every troop he was leading and he sat down with me and gave me every name. He knew why I was asking, he knew I would be praying for them. I had prayed for him on his first tour and told him so. They all came back without any significant injuries so God was watching over him every step of the way. These dear young men do not seem to realize that it was God and only God that brought them through.
My prayer is that someone will come into their lives that can show them how much God loves them, that He has laid His hand upon them and hedged them behind and before. God’s word and truth is in there so I am asking the Holy Spirit to bring it to their remembrance. This should not be with these young people who were willing to lay down their lives for our freedom. To see them aimlessly wandering around their country with no job and no place to call home breaks my heart. God has not forgotten them, they are His creation but they have to ask or invite Him into our circumstances before He will be able to do anything for them. Unfortunately, they turn to drugs or alcohol to numb the pain. He is standing by just waiting as He loves these young people so much and hates to see them suffering like they are. Let us pray for our troops who have served and are still serving. They are a special group of people, very special and they deserve far better treatment than they receive.

“He will not allow your foot to slip or to be moved; He Who keeps you will not slumber. [I Sam. 2:9; Ps. 127:1; Prov. 3:23, 26; Isa. 27:3.] The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand [the side not carrying a shield]. [Isa. 25:4.] The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. [Ps. 91:5; Isa. 49:10; Rev. 7:16.] The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.” [Deut. 28:6; Prov. 2:8; 3:6.] (Psalm 121:3, 5-8 AMP)

These verses became very important to me for my nephew. I prayed them over him every day as to me they were quite appropriate for men patrolling on foot in the desert where IEDs were everywhere!

Oh How He Loves Us!

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7, 8 ESV)

It is now two and half weeks without coffee and I don’t even miss it! God is so amazing and willing to help us whenever we ask. You have to understand, I had a love affair with coffee and when I tell people who know me, that I am not drinking it anymore, they are amazed! Our daughter works at Starbucks and a good friend of mine works at another store so I could get coffee whenever I wanted. I am in awe at how I feel so much better and guess what? The aches and pains are almost gone! I certainly do not have any in my fingers anymore which I am very excited about.
However, I knew this was going to be a struggle with me and my flesh as I so enjoyed my coffee first thing in the morning. I did what I heard a great preacher tell he did when he decided he was going to stop drinking coffee. I prayed and asked God for His help as I certainly could not do this on my own. I also asked for no withdrawal from caffeine such as headaches. Well, He did exactly as I asked and I have never had a headache – not one! There was something that I did not know and did not pray for, was muscle cramps. For the first week and a half, around my knees would get so sore by evening, that I would be limping around the house. I could not figure out what was happening until one day I was reading on a website that muscle cramps can be a withdrawal symptom from caffeine! Those symptoms have disappeared which I am most grateful for.
I used to drink coffee to help me get through the day which I believe most of the population of North America does. The more I am learning, the more I believe that my adrenal glands have not been functioning properly as I would just drag through most of the day and need the pick up from the coffee to help me get by. One of the things I was dreading the most about giving up coffee was the afternoon slump. Well, I have been speaking to my adrenal glands and commanding them to function properly so I don’t have that slump in the afternoon. Guess what, I don’t have that anymore either! God is so good to us when we trust Him and do what He is nudging us to do. He created us, so He knows what our bodies need and each one of us is different. Mine happened to be no coffee.

“Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you.” (Psalms 37:5 NLT)

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How God Works In Us

When I was a young kid, there used to be a preacher that came to my home town to speak now and then and one of his favorite lines was “Be sure your sin will find you out.” How true is that one?
I had no idea it was actually in the Bible until I started searching and sure enough it is part of a verse in Numbers!

“But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord; and be sure your sin will find you out.” (Numbers 32:23 AMP)

You have heard my story about unsetting the motorcycle and the angels of mercy coming to help me. Unfortunately, the story does not end there! You see, my husband cleans and polishes every vehicle we own so he is quite particular in how he keeps everything. However, he does have a habit of getting upset when things get scratched, dented etc., so here I am thinking, “Wow, I got away with that one. There are no marks on the motorcycle.” Except, I forgot about the trailer!
He comes out from the shop, gets on the motorcycle and we drive away. I am thinking, “How in the world am I going to tell him what just happened without him getting mad at me? As there are no marks on the bike, maybe I don’t have to even mention the whole thing.” What voice am I listening to?? Certainly not God! We continue on our tour, stopping here and there to take pictures and after doing this for a couple of hours, I am walking back to the motorcycle and all of a sudden I look down and there is a scruff mark on the trailer. As the trailer is black it is very conspicuous! Still, I am not saying a word. I have decided when we stop at the motel for the evening, I will tell him then. We finally get to our destination for the evening (many hours later) and what does my dear husband decide to do once we had everything unpacked? He is going to wash the motorcycle and of course the trailer! Now, it is time for me to be honest and take my punishment!
He is washing the bike and I am standing there, still wondering how I am going to ‘fess up, knowing that I have to and trying to get up the nerve to do so. As he is finishing up the bike and heading for the trailer, I blurted out my story. What was even more amazing, he was not upset with me! You have to understand this is a pattern that we have been dealing with for many years, but God is refining him! Guess what? he is refining me too as it is not only his dyfunk, but mine as well. You see, when I was a child growing up, my Mom was a drama queen and everything was a BIG deal!
However, my dear Father was just opposite so when I broke something (like a window) and figured I would get in trouble from my Mom, I would run and tell my Dad first. I knew then, if he didn’t say anything, which he never did, then she couldn’t! Isn’t that just like God? We can run to Him when we get in trouble and he does not condemn us, just loves us. He is such an amazing father as He loves us so much, that He will not leave us in our mess, but work to change us so we come out better than before! It is like Joyce Meyer says, “I am certainly not where I should be, but definitely not where I used to be!”

“Better yet, redouble your efforts. Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13 MSG)

God is good

“O taste and see that the Lord [our God] is good! Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who trusts and takes refuge in Him.” (Psalm 34:8 AMP)

God is a good God and He loves us all unconditionally. This may not seem all that important to you, but when I heard that, I was very excited. You see although I accepted Jesus as a young child, I grew up in a lot of religion. My image of God was as long as I was doing good, He was happy with me, if I wasn’t, then He was not so pleased. That was the perception I had of my mother which many years later, like God, I found out was totally wrong! My Dad showed God’s love everywhere he went to everyone he saw, so I was kind of mixed up in my perception of God. Because of this warped perception, I gave up on living a godly life as I figured I could never achieve that. Well, without the help of the Holy Spirit, we certainly cannot! Therefore, I walked away from all the religion and lived on my own (I thought) for quite a few years! Of course, God never gives up and never lets us go no matter how far we try to run. I had never given up on Him, just the religion and the holiness that I felt I could never attain. When you hear God getting blamed for all the bad things that happen, you are quite confused as a child as God has no bad in Him.

“The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).” (John 10:10 AMP)
I heard this summed up at a Benny Hinn crusade quite a few years ago and it sure helped me in realizing that God is good all the time. Benny said after preaching for a few minutes, “God is good, the devil is bad. You choose.” I wish you could have seen all the people that rushed forward to accept Jesus that night!

Now, many years later, I know God is good and does not bring the bad things that happen in life to come to pass. You see, when I was 26 years old, I had just given birth 20 days before to our beautiful daughter when my husband suddenly passed away. That certainly got my attention and I started to call on God in my desperation and of course He was there even when I had not been faithful to Him. That started me on a journey that took many years of refining to get me to where I am today. Certainly have not attained but definitely not where I used to be!
In the worst of circumstances, God is always there working behind the scenes providing all that is needed to make it through that day! I have seen His goodness in all my life but especially over the past 32 years since I had to walk through that valley. He has brought me out and put a new song in my heart. Oh, He is my best friend as He never leaves us or forsakes us!
I so love the Psalms and when I read these verses many years ago, I knew that is exactly what He did for me! I was in a deep, dark pit of despair and He reached down and pulled me out. How can I not praise Him for His goodness?

“I WAITED patiently and expectantly for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up out of a horrible pit [a pit of tumult and of destruction], out of the miry clay (froth and slime), and set my feet upon a rock, steadying my steps and establishing my goings. And He has put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many shall see and fear (revere and worship) and put their trust and confident reliance in the Lord. [Ps. 5:11.] Many, O Lord my God, are the wonderful works which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; no one can compare with You! If I should declare and speak of them, they are too many to be numbered.” (Psalm 40:1-3, 5 AMP)