Our pastor gave a helpful message today that mirrored my experience this week. He spoke on Psalm 119:25-32. He had two main points; 1. A desperate soul in prayer, 2. A determined soul in prayer.
The Psalmist is weary, he feels laid low in the dust. But he chooses to pray and to meditate on God’s wonders and on his word, his decrees, his law, his truth. By the time he gets to the eighth verse of this stanza, he is running because the word has set his heart free.
Earlier in the week I felt low, discouraged, even depressed. I’m not one of those eternally joyful, happy people. I’m more melancholic. Down through the years God has taught me that when in such a state I should turn to the Word, so he can speak to me words of comfort and uplift.
Somehow, he reminded me again about the uplifting power of the word. I sat down and read through the whole of First Peter. And slowly God spoke—through the word about having received the new birth “into a living hope…into an inheritance that can never perish…kept in heaven for you” And about “imperishable seed through the living and enduring word of God.”
And on and on I read Peter’s epistle, full of so much truth and comfort. God spoke through the living and enduring word of God! God changed my attitude. And he has done that innumerable times during my 70 years as a Christian. God speaks to us today—through the Word. We must be people of the Word. We must be daily in the Word. Remember, like the Psalmists, we are often waylaid by our own natures.
Because of warnings about a big storm, we had stayed home. Interestingly, after listening to our church online we almost accidentally tuned in to a discussion between John Lennox and Dr James Tour. Their subject focussed mainly on the way God speaks to us through the Bible. They gave many illustrations from their own lives and that of Bakht Singh and others. Look it up on UTube.
Country Inspiration 