MY STRENGTH AND MY SONG

 MY STRENGTH AND MY SONG

The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation:  Psalms 118:14

My Lord has taught me through my multifarious experiences that I have no strength outside my Lord, as He continually strengthens and fortifies me in all my situations. 

In my lonely nights, as I am tossed around on my bed, and when I am unable to sing a comforting song to myself, He reminds me to sing about all that He has done for me. He helps me to sing about Him and His sweetness. 

When I am stuck and find no way forward, He comes to me and shows me a way out of my situations. He holds my hands and takes me out of the snares and the hindrances. He opens new doors for me when the world around shuts my way way forward. He leads and guides me. 

When I feel all alone and when I am forsaken, isolated, insulated and left in the lurk, He comes to hold me tight in His hands and holds me close to His chest and wipe my tears. He comforts me and gives me new promises to claim.  

In my lonely moments, He is my Friend to talk to me and to fill my heart with His presence. He sings with me His 'sweet songs of salvation'. He gives me His joy and peace and makes me jubilant because of the consciousness that He is with me and will never leave me an orphan. 

He gives me courage to face all my dark and cloudy circumstances and situations. He fills me with confidence in Him and fills me with His glory. He continuously fills me with His Holy Word. 

  

He helps me to run my race by looking unto Him every moment of my life (Hebrews 12:1-2). He shows me His pathways where I can see His footprints and helps me to place my feet on His footprints to run to my destination. Its amazing that He is my running-mate and my travel companion. Its a jubilant experience to run with Him, walk with Him and move with Him. 

In Him, I am safe, secure, strong and sustained! In Him, I am unmovable and I stand strong on Him the Rock of Ages! 

Prayer for Today

"Lord Jesus! Please help me to realize how trustworthy You are for all my needs and situations. I want to experience Your presence all my life and in all my circumstances no matter how cumbersome it is. Please help me to draw upon Your strength to live on all days of my life. Amen! 

SEEK AND CALL

 Seek and Call 

Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Isaiah 55:6

Our forgetfulness and carelessness make us not to seek the Lord while there is still time and opportunity. 

Somehow, somewhere, we slowly drift from our first love to the Lord. Our flesh and intellectual mind and over-dependence on wealth, position, education, power, privileges and prominence in the world deter us from loving and wanting the Lord more and more. It negatively impacts our prayer life. We start thinking that we can live without His help much. We camouflage our life behind our religiosity and traditions. 

When we follow such a self-oriented lifestyle, it so happens that we fall into trouble and desperately feel the need for the Lord, it might be too late. We would have unnecessarily suffered a lot and lost the opportunity to get settled in life. Our foolishness to seek after the Lord at the right time causes a lot of misery and heartache for us. We must realize that all of these frustrations can be avoided if only we keep seeking and searching after our Lord at the right time. We must realize that when we call, answers will come from the Lord at the right time. Seeking and calling are our responsibility and answering is His prerogative.

Let's understand that 'Today is the day of acceptance. Today is the day of God's favor" (2 Corinthians 6:2). 

So lets call on the Lord and knock at His door with passion, and earnestly knock and seek for His favors. 

Prayer for Today

"O God! Please open my eyes to see your nearness in my most distressing moments and seek and find Your presence and power, and depend on You for my every need. Amen!"

THE REFINING POT AND THE FURNACE

 The Refining Pot and the Furnace

The Refining Pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, and a man is valued by what others say about him: Proverbs 27:21

Unless the silver and the gold are ready to endure to the greatest extent, it won't be fully and perfectly purified. During the process, the metals might be crying out for a release from the fire and begging aloud for taking it out of the process. This the experience of the child of God in this life. 

But the Divine Goldsmith "mercilessly" keeps it there because He knows when to stop. He keeps guaranteeing the metal to remain there for a few more minutes. He will say: "Son/Daughter, I am holding you tight in my crucified hands. You will remain here for just the time required to be graciously purified. Take your hands off and be silent and know that I am the God of Grace (Psalms 46:10)". 

The refining pot and the furnace as God's plan to purify us so that the best in us will come out. We might go through devastating gossip, lies and distortions and misinterpretations and tarnishing and crucifixion which are too much to bear for the child of God. It might be loss of health and even livelihood. Even the best of friends and kin might turn their faces away and remain as if they have never known us. 

Sometimes the truth never comes out during our lifetime. But there will be a time when the truth will come out, at least at the Bema. Then we will rejoice. Our Lord will wipe our tears and pat our back and fill our hands with rewards. 

So today let's not get "excited" about the "scheming praises" and devastating criticisms. Let's  go to our "Heavenly Appeal Court" for ultimate justice and for endurance to remain on course. Let's look at our crucified, rejected, persecuted, forsaken and forgotten Lord and His experience of fire and get inspiration. Let's go after Him rather than looking up to the "higher mountains around" (Psalms 121:1) and get discouraged. Our help comes from our beloved Lord. He will never leave us nor forsake us.

Prayer for Today

"Lord Jesus! Give me grace and patience today to go through tough and painful experiences that you allow me in this life so that I will humbly submit to Your hands to mold me to be like Your image. Please help me not to get discouraged or impatient. Help me to wait for Your time to shape me for Your glory. Amen"