Though You Have Many Troubles, I Will Deliver You from Them All

Again this week we feature material from The Promises of God ©1998 by Discipleship Publications International. This week’s post is an excerpt from a chapter by my good friend, Steve Brown, who  now makes his home in McAllen, Texas.

A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all…

                                                                                                                                Psalm 34:19

Like Tanya Tucker used to sing, “It’s never any trouble for me to find some kind of trouble.”

I think of Victor, a twenty-two-year-old college student who recently died from cancer. He was a disciple. He loved God. He was fruitful—reaching out and converting his neighbor. And all the while cancer ravaged his body. Then there is Karen, who became a disciple a few years ago. Like many, she hoped that her husband, who was actually reached out to before she was, would also become a Christian. He didn’t. Instead, their marriage ended in divorce and she has been a single mom with four small children to raise alone. Then there is my own case: Forty years old with four kids and working in the ministry. Without warning, I went from being an active, athletic man (well, that’s what my wife says) to being crippled and paralyzed on one side with multiple sclerosis—no more road races with my sons, or one-on-one basketball, or any other sports with them.

God's Delight

This past weekend Sheila and I had the honor of spending time with the Jackson Church in Jackson, Mississippi. While there, I was reminded of a passage from Psalms that has long been a favorite of mine:

His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man;
 the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love. Psalm 147:10-11

Of course, you would expect me to like this passage since my legs haven’t worked much for the last fifteen or twenty years. I am just glad that is not counted against me! But the passage is about much more than legs. It is telling us that man’s ways are not God’s ways. God is not impressed with the things men are normally impressed with. God does not look at things the same way we do.

In All Things God Will Work for Good

Again this week we feature an excerpt from The Promises of God ©1998 by Discipleship Publications International. This week’s post is from a chapter by Henry Kriete who  lives in British Columbia.

                          And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  Romans 8:28

Life can overwhelm us sometimes. Tragedy can overtake us. Disappointments and failures and misunderstandings can wreak havoc with our best plans and most cherished dreams. Friends suffer, and loved ones die. Diseases rip us apart, and trusted partners fail us. We are overlooked for promotions, slandered, forgotten, neglected and even abused. Maybe we can’t bear children. A spouse is unfaithful. God forbid, we are asked to pick up and move. Perhaps we are betrayed—if not for thirty pieces of silver, at least with a kiss. And not to mention our own sin—against others and God—time and time again. “All things” is a lot of things.

Change Your...Listening

Sometimes we need a mind change to overcome a challenging circumstance like an illness or a loss. Sometimes we need a mind change to overcome an obstacle that could stop a good work. But very often we need a mind change because our minds are not as much like that of Jesus as they need to be.

Today in the assembly, the preacher read from James: “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…” (James 1:19). The preacher gave some good examples of how we should apply this, and then I thought about some other ways that this passage needs to change our minds.

God's Discipline Produces a Harvest

 Again this week we feature an excerpt from The Promises of God ©1998 by Discipleship Publications International. This week’s post is from a chapter by Barbara Porter, women's leader in the South Florida church.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11)

[In the opening of the chapter Barbara described a very challenging time she and husband, John, went through in dealing with medical problems developed by their children. Then she writes what follows.]

I remember wrestling with Psalm 119 many times and meditating on verses 75-76, “I know, O Lord, that your laws are righteous, and in faithfulness you have afflicted me. May your unfailing love be my comfort…”.  Although we could not cling to any particular medicine or treatment, we could most assuredly trust that God was allowing us to undergo this trial. It was all happening, not in spite of God’s faithfulness, but because of God’s faithfulness. Nevertheless, it was difficult to “feel” God’s unfailing love and comfort. We literally had to decide to believe what the Bible teaches and trust in the very nature of God, that he is love. We had to remember that this discipline would produce a harvest of righteousness and peace if we allowed ourselves to be trained by it.