I Trust Because He Is Still Good

“I Trust Because He Is Still Good”

Psalm 13:5-6 NLT

But I trust in your unfailing love.  I will rejoice because you have rescued me.  I will sing to the Lord because he is good to me.

Lord, I know You are good.  You have always been so good to me, no matter what is going on in life.  Some days, though Lord, I wake up and the stress just mounts up and hits me like a freight train and I’ve so overwhelmed by all the duties and responsibilities of what I need to do.  I know You are good, but I struggle many days Lord with all the challenges that continue to surround me.  I know You are good, but many days I’m just keeping my head above water in trusting You as I have so many unanswered questions about life and circumstances.

Father, I will continue to trust in Your unfailing love because I do believe that You are working in ways that I cannot see or even feel at the moment.  I trust in You because I know You are working and providing.  No matter how challenging life becomes, I still trust in You and will keep my hope in You.

Father, I pray for people who read this and are finding themselves asking so many questions and not getting answers.  I pray for peace for them and ask that You will give us all comfort like we’ve never had before.  In the midst of all that continues to happen in this world and the pain we continue to hear about, please help us to remember that You are in control. 

Father, I want to simply pray that You would continue to teach us to trust in You, even when we cannot understand and are overwhelmed with life.  Amen.

He Is So Good, So Ready, And So Full

“He is So Good, So Ready and So Full”

Psalm 86:5 NLT

O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help.

As I read this passage the other day, it filled me with hope and assurance just knowing that no matter what I’m experiencing or dealing with, God is so good to me and ready to forgive my sins and is so full of love for me.  It sounds simple, but if you really take a moment to let those words sink in, it’s really profound.  He is so good to us.  He is so ready to forgive us.  He is so full of unfailing love to us. 

All we need to do is ask for His help and He is ready to lavish this love upon us.  We all know He is good, that He forgives and that He is unconditional in His love for us, but sometimes just how a passage is written and what we are experiencing, it’s just what we need to hear to bring us comfort. 

I don’t know about you, but there are so many things in life right now that I’m just tired of dealing with and sick of experiencing.  I wake up each day thanking God for another new day and opportunity to live for Him, but I also go through my day with so many thoughts of how I wish things would get better in different ways with life.  I think we have all felt this way for a long time.  We may never get to a normal way of life again, but perhaps a new normal. 

My heart has been breaking as I have heard of different people experiencing loss and hard times.  There are some days and times when I just have to focus on and remember that God is so good, so ready to forgive me and is full of unfailing love for me.  It brings life back into perspective.  It helps me focus on what is really important and not focus on all the negative things in life. 

I hope and pray that no matter what you might be experiencing, never forget how good He is, how ready He is to forgive and how His unfailing love is just waiting for us as we come to Him to ask for help and guidance. 

I remember the words of a praise song I learned so many years ago and want to close with those.  “For You are good, for You are good, for You are good to me!”

Get Rid Of It

“Get Rid Of It”

Ephesians 4:31-32 NLT

Get rid of all bitterness, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior.  Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

We have all had situations in life where we’ve had to say “Get rid of it!” when we found something that needed to get tossed.  Maybe it’s some moldy food that went unnoticed or got buried in our fridge for a while.  Maybe it’s a trash can that has something very rotten in it and the moment we open it, we can’t even describe the smell!  Maybe it’s a dead rodent that we start smelling somewhere in the house and we finally find it and are ready to be rid of the foul smell. 

We could go on and on describing situations in which we find something repulsive or just something that needs tossed and we raise our voices a bit and say, “Get rid of it!”.  There’s nothing good that’s going to come out of keeping these things and we know the only solution is to throw it away so that we can clean the bad smell up or just a mess that has gotten out of hand.  We have all been there and done that to some degree. 

None of us wants to keep foul smelling things anywhere or keep a terrible mess around to continue building.  We may let the messed build up for a while, but there comes a time when we have to do something and take action.  Most of us would agree that we gotten get rid of things that smell terrible or look horrible.  These things do not make life easier, but they make it worse and much harder to move forward.

Just like these bad things, we’ve got things in our spiritual lives that we also need to get rid of.  We so often hold on to bitterness, anger, harsh words, slander and evil behavior.  We let these things fester and they do no good in our lives.  We are clearly called to love each other and show grace and forgiveness to one another.  All of us know that we have treated people we love and care about in these ways.  We know people that we have treated poorly and, in a sense, it’s causing some smelly situations when God looks down on us.  It’s smelly to Him, but often we don’t think twice about it.  He wants us to get rid of these things and be full of love for each other.  I know, much easier said than done depending on different circumstances and situations. 

I challenge all of us to find things in our lives that we need to get rid of.  Find areas and broken relationships in which we are holding on to the bitterness, anger, hard words, slander and evil behavior.  We need to pray through this and ask God to give us a heart of forgiveness and show love instead. 

Get rid of it and be filled with God’s love instead.