"My Name 'Jehovah' Was Not Known To Them"

There are several things that have happened within the last year, as well as the last 24 hours, that have caused my heart to continually repeat, "I trust You Lord." I can't think of how many times I have said, with a somewhat self-righteous attitude, "Of COURSE I trust the Lord! Though all men forsake Him, I won't. He is Christ, the Son of the living God. Where else could I go? Only You, Lord, have the words of eternal life!" On and on the list could read of things I've said so easily when life was only slightly tumultuous. Days of temporary trials with ample recovery time. But I personally believe these are the days where "rubber will meet the road" for us all. What do we truly know and believe about our God?

In Ex.6:3, God spoke to Moses and told him that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were limited in their understanding of Who God was. They knew Him by the name "God Almighty (El Shaddai)" but they did not know Him by the name "Jehovah (the Self-Existent One)." There was an aspect of God's character that was going to be revealed to the generation Moses was with, which was entirely unknown to those who walked with God before them.

Changes in times and seasons can push us into a need to know God in a new way. When yesterday's understanding does not meet the need that we face today. When I was first saved, my earthly father passed away soon after from prostate cancer. There was a false sense of security I had by having a dad to fall back on if I needed something...even though our relationship was not very good. It was the week of his funeral when I began to pray for the Lord to show me He was my Abba Father. After many years of singleness and a brief, yet horrendous failed marriage, I began to cry out for the Lord to show me how He was my True Husband. I knew it in my head and learned the scriptures in Bible study...but I needed to KNOW Him as my Beloved Husband in a very real sense. I have found Him to be a faithful Deliverer, Redeemer, Great Physician, Shepherd, Shield, Rock, Friend, and so on...as He has allowed me to confront trials, obstacles and circumstances that precipitated my prayers to know Him better.

As I awoke this morning, I was overwhelmed with grief from being unable to reach my mother in KY who is in the midst of this treacherous ice storm. She's never been through one before and was not prepared ahead of time. Her heat, garage door, computer, etc. all depend upon electricity which will be out for a long time. While I watched her local news on the internet, they announced they were operating on a generator and were going to shut down. Even the cell phone towers out. The south is not prepared for snow and ice like the north is. The roads are now impassable with emergency crews unable to help anyone themselves. She is alone with no family close by.

"Rubber meets the road." What do I believe and know about God?

I believe He is an "ever present help in time of need." I believe He is able to reach anyone at anytime without limitations, barriers or impassable obstacles. I believe He is there with her supplying His grace and power and will work all of this out for the good. It's only the details I don't know yet. There is no hindsight....but with God, it's always 20/20 vision. He is El Roi..."the God Who Sees". I know Him by that name from past experience.

But I admit, I am looking forward to growing in my understanding of His name in an even deeper more personal way. Circumstances are pushing me to pray for more of Him. My heart echoes, "I trust You, Lord...with all my heart."

Sherri Youngward's "Scripture Songs" CD

Isa 40:8 The grass withers, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

Do you ever wake up earlier than you'd like because your mind's alarm clock has betrayed you? It happened the other day. The "snooze" button of my thoughts was broken, so I surrendered and grabbed some coffee, Grandma Rose's blanket, my hot neck wrap and started to pray. It didn't take long for me to discover that my vocabulary went on vacation and left my heart with no words to give to God. So thankful He understands my groans and heavy sighs (Rom.8:26).

I reached over to the radio knowing my new favorite CD was waiting to be played and turned the volume way down low. The words of Psalm 1 began to flow from Sherri's new "Scripture Songs" CD and the heaviness in my heart began to lift. The next song was from 1 Cor.13, then 1 John 4, Psalm 23, Philippians 4, and on the songs went...each with their own unique melody and tempo...but comfortingly familiar. What better words could be memorized in song than pure scripture?

The final song is named "Heaven" with the first four verses of Revelation 21 sung like you are halfway there, peering over the edge of this earthly realm to our glorious destination. It's where I launched off into prayer with the Lord finding the vocabulary of my heart had arrived through the music. This is what Sherri writes about the last song:

Years ago, my friend Debbi asked me to come sing to a woman who was in her last moments on earth. I sang at the foot of her bed, and Debbi climbed up and softly read Scriptures to her about heaven. Though the frail woman could not use words, her countenance spoke clearly. This song is for those who might wish to climb up next to a loved one and speak softly to them about heaven. Or maybe you are the one who needs to remember—that God will wipe away every tear...

Sherri is another one of my close friends and if there's one thing I know about her, everything she has and is wants to bless God and point people to Jesus. She's poured her heart into this project (along with some others like Danny Donnelly) while using life-giving lyrics. I've placed a direct link to her website if you click on the CD above.

Jehovah-Rapha: The Lord That Heals You

Of all of the names that the Lord refers to Himself by, Jehovah-Rapha, or the Lord Who heals, is one that Satan has certainly done all he can to twist, distort and cause confusion with. As a young girl, I often traveled with my well-meaning but misguided father to packed out church services with so-called "faith healers." Why those men never go to hospitals where the sick are, rather than making hurting people come to them, always puzzled me. But I digress... The fact is, God heals sometimes and other times He says, "My grace is sufficient for Thee." There are those moments He seems to cut through crowds to physically touch one person while the rest look on with a deep longing for the same kind of touch. Gods ways...that's not what I could possibly explain. I'll just share a very personal experience where God chose to heal in a special way.

My neck was first injured when I lived in Chicago and a young man (strung out on drugs) jumped and beat me when I was around 20. Therapy was not possible and the Dr.'s prognosis was life-long pain and future arthritis. In my early 30's, I was playing volleyball and dove for a spike landing on my neck - this time, herniating a disc. For more than a year, I spent several occasions bed-ridden in pain until it finally ruptured and caused me to undergo surgery. Then in my 40's, I got miraculously pregnant and had a very chunky, tall baby which aggravates my neck to extremes at times.

Last June, with a one-year old busy girl that was not walking (didn't happen until 16 months), my neck went completely out of place. I felt it disobediently slide to one side and pain shot up my head and down my arm. The only way I got the slightest amount of relief for the next few days, was to cock my head to one side and look at everything a bit...tilted. Very hard to have a baby...a non-walking, need-to-be-picked-up baby...at this time. I continued to pray remembering that the Lord gave me the verse Deut. 33:25b "...as thy days, so shall thy strength be" when I was pregnant.

Finally one morning, the pain woke me up out of sleep and I went out to the living room to pray. My head was pounding so hard it made me nauseous. I had a Lidocaine patch on that was not helping and I took pain medication that didn't take one of the many knives away that seemed to be stabbing my neck. After about 10 minutes, I could no longer sit and laid down on my side. Like a rocket, as my shoulder put pressure into my spine and neck, the pain went through my head, down my back and arms and I cried out loud "JESUS, help me!" Just as quickly, right into my thoughts the Lord answered "Lay still and don't move. Relax and trust Me." I didn't move and my entire body was as tense as...oh, a mouse at a Cat Convention I suppose. I had to force myself to make my muscles relax and let go while they longed to spasm. The more I let go, the greater the direct pressure on the area of pain, the more tears began to stream down my face and then..."Pop, pop, pop."

My neck completed popped back into place. The knives fled and I sat up at once. I started to praise and thank the Lord when I heard Him speak to me again, "Shannon, there are times in life, not just physically, where I see you are hurting, wounded, or something is out of alignment and causing much pain. You may try to numb the wounds with your own patches on the situation. You may try and medicate in your own ways to take away some of the pain. You may learn how to partially function with the ache by leaning on your own understanding, but you will look at life through a tilted, limited view. Because I am the Lord that heals you, trust Me when I put pressure directly on that area of pain and want you to let go. It may hurt more at first as you face it, but I have eternity in mind with love in My heart. I Am also the One Who has promised to make the crooked places straight(Isa.45:2)."

It wasn't about my neck. He heals us...physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially...in every area. There IS a balm in Gilead (Jer.8) and His name is Jehovah-Rapha. God bless you...may we learn to trust Him more.

Do You Know His Name?

I just wrote a letter last night to someone which included the statement "We do not have a foundation of trust with one another". I needed to write someone back who does not know me personally and has had a rough background, so the potential for misunderstanding was definite. I'm sure that every one of us has had our trust broken by another person at some point in our lives. Many of us have had it repeatedly broken to the point where we may be tempted to not give that gift to another person. Trust seems to have an umbilical cord straight to our hearts...when it's broken, our hearts are broken.

Psalm 9:10 "And those who know Your name will put their trust in You; For You, LORD (Jehovah), have not forsaken those who seek You."

Don't you love this verse? It is plump with promises and an echoing exhortation. For the person who has learned through personal experience the reality of the Lord's name, they will find a safe and secure place for their trust. All others may...and will...fail us and break our hearts, but the Lord never fails us.

In a time where the news proclaims every day, a story about another leader who has failed, deceived, stolen, lied, or broken multitudes of people's trust through self-serving motives and greed, we have a Lord that we can 100% trust. The KEY is knowing His name. As most of you know, our God has many names, so in future blog posts, I am going to briefly reflect on some of the names of Jehovah. To write about all of the names of God would take eons and Jesus will have taken us home by then. I also won't pull you through some deep Bible study, but hope to take a fresh gaze on Who our Lord is through His name with by-products of trust and greater love. Have a wonderful Sunday!

Eternally Inseparable

While attempting to subdue my belligerent hair this morning, I rehearsed a catalog of things to say to a friend who is walking through a very dark trial right now. Every one of them seemed trite, insincere and foolish in contrast to her suffering. As I began to pray, the Lord reminded me of my conversations with Mary the last couple of months of her life.

She had an entire gamut of things said to her by well-meaning people, but they had no idea what it was like to endure the pain she was in, nor the weight of the darkness that would come upon her at night, nor the sudden reality that she was going to die and leave behind many loved ones, some of whom were still unsaved. Sometimes, with right motives we attempt to put ourselves in someone else's place to empathize and offer encouragement, yet we forget that there will ALWAYS be a limitation to our understanding what they are going through...even if we've gone through something very similar. It's because we are all unique, with different backgrounds, ways we handle pain, thought processes, etc. This is the wonderful thing about Jesus.

He faithfully revealed Himself to Mary in the tenderest and most loving ways while she suffered. In the depths of His love for her, He didn't remove the pain but He gave her the grace to endure. He did not always extinguish the darkness that would blanket her nights, but He gave her the faith to trust Him in the midst of it. When she had overwhelming headaches from the chemotherapy, Jesus showed her He understood head pain when the crown of thorns was pressed deeply into His skull. When every breath was an agonizing effort and her nebulizers and inhalers were not helping, He reminded her that His every breath came through agony on the cross, with a nail through His feet and lungs near collapse.

On and on the revelations of Jesus came because He knew men's words could never meet the needs of His child. I know there are times we suffer when God seems mute. Those times have great and necessary lessons in each of the silent-filled days...but He is a good Father and is able to meet us exactly where we are. I wonder if Jesus' words in John 12:26 had a secondary application: "If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be." As we follow Jesus in heart, when our physical service cannot continue, does He not still call us inseparable? Us with Him and He with us...our Immanuel...never leaving us, forgetting about us, or faltering in speech not knowing what to say. Like it says in 1 Samuel 3:10 "Then Samuel answered, 'Speak Lord, for your servant is listening'."

Ps 139:3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

May His words be yours today and may your ears be open if He speaks. Bless you.

Prayer Quote

“In prayer, I must wrestle like Jacob, thirst like
David, hope like Elijah,
be persistent like Bartimeus, and cry with tears like my blessed Lord.”
- Alexander Smellie

Just wanted to share this with you today. God bless your time with the Lord...

God's Possibilities

Oh, I love Sundays. (Not ice cream...it's too cold.) I love driving to church in the morning, praying with Maddie for the service, the worship and the people who will be there, then pulling into the parking lot shouting "we're here!" while her little hands start clapping in the back seat. Scott and I pray that she develops a heart like David's in Psalm 27:4 "One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple."

I remember praying about this scripture and thinking how marvelous it would be to be able to serve the Lord full-time, yet I never thought He would actually allow me that privilege. Much less, being able to serve alongside my husband...and even less than that, that my husband would be a pastor.

I never knew the plans God had because I was so consciously aware of my own insecurities and limitations, rather than understanding God's capacity and His sufficiency. The past convinced me I was disqualified for any future use...I had no understanding of the true extent of the grace and mercy of God. I wrongly interpreted many of God's "pauses", times of not being used by the Lord noticeably, as indicators of His displeasure, rather than a multitude of other possibilities.

Inadequacy is a requisite in ministry. Incapacity is God's opportunity. Weakness is an invitation for God's strength. Moses' stammering lips and difficulty speaking were a gift, though he perceived it as an obstacle too great for God to use Him as a spokesman. Gideon was hiding for fear of the enemy when God called him "a mighty man of valor." Mary called herself a female slave (handmaid) while heaven proclaimed her the mother of God.

It's good to walk in an awareness of our "smallness" rather than having a pride-filled estimation of ourselves. But don't ever let the past or the present cloud your hope in God's possibilities for the future. Nor view your own physical, emotional, intellectual, financial, or social limitations as mountains too high and obstacles too strong for God to overcome. It's easy to say "yes" to that in our heads...but believe in your heart...our God is limitless in His possibilities and power. His desire is to still get glory from your life and to grow deeper in your relationship with Him...or you would be in heaven with Him today. So may God bless you, keep you, and encourage you today.

Isa 40:4,5a "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed."

2Co 12:9 "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

1Co 1:27-29 "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence."

Sun, Moon and Stars...

I was so blessed to open up my One Year Bible and start at Genesis 1. Isn't it true that we gravitate towards fresh starts and new beginnings? I have to admit, it was time for the Rose Bowl parade and I love our annual family tradition of "oooing and aaahhhing" the floats made with 100% flowers and seeds. My mother-in-law turned me on to it and now high-definition TV makes the details of each float a visual feast. But...I needed quiet time with the Lord. After walking through a darkly canopied, "wilderness" experience these last couple of years, I crave the Lord's Word, His Presence, and His soft voice as never before.

As He promised, He's a faithful rewarder to those who diligently seek Him (Heb.11:6). There, tucked between verses I have read over and over again for years, day one of creation - Gen.1:3 "Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light." It's not until the fourth day that the sun, moon and stars were created.

In our life times, we have only known the sun to be the sole source of day and night, morning and evening. The comfort I found this morning was in the fact that God didn't NEED the sun to provide light, but He created it as a vessel of His glory that is used continually to touch our lives. If the sun were gone, as it was before it was created, God Himself is fully capable of providing light, darkness, day, night, morning and evening. He is All-Sufficient, the Self-Existing One.

He doesn't NEED me to provide food for the birds off our back deck because there is two feet of snow on the ground today. He doesn't NEED me to tell my neighbor that there is a God Who sent His Son Jesus to die for her sins. He doesn't NEED us to give a tithe to the church to help spread the gospel and support His work. He would send food for the birds, speak to my neighbor's heart through some other means and provide finances from a multitude of other sources if I stopped. But He allows us to be a part of His plan in this world and be a recipient of the joy that comes through giving and to actually receive an eternal reward when done for His glory. He has no NEED for vessels of His glory, but I crave to be one...

So if the sun went out today...do we have The Son, the True Light of life? If there is no physician available to help...do we have Jehovah-Rapha, the God that Heals? If there is no way to reach a lost child, parent, neighbor or people...do we have prayer that is an unstoppable vehicle to deliver help from God to whomever may be in need?

I love that He made light, said that it was good, and has only used a small star called the sun to be the secondary provider of light for us. The Word tells us that one star differs from another in glory in 1 Cor.15:41, right?

Daniel 12:3 And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.

Shine on friends...He doesn't need us, but He sure loves to use us!