pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!


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Take Refuge, Be Blessed

The psalmist cries out to God and God hears his prayers.  God always hears our prayers.  The response of the psalmist is to extol, praise, and glorify the Lord.  We certainly do this when we receive the answer we want.  A little child whose parent buys them that piece of candy in the check-out aisle does this as well.

The psalmist reminds us that God hears, delivers, and saves.  God always hears our prayers.  Our prayers never fall on deaf ears.  God also always delivers.  This is not to say God fixes all things.  Maybe He does ‘fix’ it.  Or maybe He delivers whatever it is we need in that moment or situation: patience, strength, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, love…  He does not leave us alone.  Sometimes God saves us from hurt and pain; sometimes He is saves is in the midst of it just when we need Him most.  The angels camp around those who fear the Lord.

The psalmist reminds us to taste and see that the Lord is good.  We easily taste and see this when He rescues us from the pain or suffering or fear.  It is a sweet and pleasing experience.  We also do this when we look back on something we endured and we see how the Lord was there in the midst of it with us.  We thank Him as we realize we would not have made it through on our own.

The psalmist reminds us that we are blessed when we take refuge in the Lord.  Whether it is to find help or whether it is to find rest, the result is the same: we are blessed.  Be blessed today!

Scripture reference: Psalm 34: 1-8


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Strength and Refuge

God is often seen as our strength and our refuge.  We sometimes pray most ardently when life has taken a turn for the worse and when we feel we have nowhere else to turn.  And yes, He  hears our prayers.  Psalm 16:2 reads, “You are my Lord; apart from You I have no good thing.”  It is important to remember His blessings as we struggle or wrestle with His answer to our prayer.

At times when all is well in our lives, we can drift away from God and come to rely and trust more in ourselves and our own abilities.  We can also look to other things or people as well.  Whether it is self or medical technology or some other earthly power, we are looking to a false idol.  Verse 4 reads, “The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods.”  It is not that God is punishing us for turning to something else for our strength and refuge, it is that we lose that contentment from God being our strength and refuge – during the good and the bad times.  It is just that in the bad times we notice the lacking more.

God is our strength and refuge.  The psalmist assures us that God assigns us our cup and portion and that God keeps us secure.  We are also reminded that in Him we have a ‘delightful inheritance’.  Psalm 20:4 reads, “May God give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.”  May the desire of our hearts be to live fully with God as our strength and refuge!