DEVOTIONAL STORIES
|
I was reading some of my old social media posts recently, from back when I had first started on my journey to be a full-time writer. Feeling the need for some encouragement, I knew that if I could read some of my “Let’s do this” posts, I would recall how beautifully the journey had begun. I was also hoping for some strength to keep going. I'd had my share of doubts and failures, and I needed a reminder to not give up. Here is one of my posts, not far removed from the very beginning of my new adventure. “I think I'm finding out a little of what Noah got when he started building the ark. It's the same reaction I'm getting almost every time I tell someone I know that I've left a full-time job to stay at home and be a full-time writer. It's been the ‘Oh, wow’ answer, but the forced smile and the ‘I think you're absolutely crazy and you're going to fail’ tone in the voice. (I used to watch Lie to Me, folks. I can read facial expressions!) Not very encouraging, to say the least. But God's got this. I know in my heart this is what He told me to do. My encouraging word to myself, and to anyone else who is following God on a path that appears to be making no sense at all--follow Him anyway! Trust Him anyway! Refuse to stop building your ark. Because you know what? One of these days, if you haven't given up, it's going to rain.” It’s going to rain. I didn’t know until I was an adult that it had never rained on the earth before that time. Genesis 2 tells us that the earth’s water came from its springs, so the rain that began to fall once Noah’s ark-building days were completed would have been quite an unusual surprise. And that is what I still long for God to do in my life, so I can encourage others to let Him do the same in theirs. I want to be His unusual surprise, evidence that He is still doing a new thing, creating something from nothing. And what must I do? “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:18-19). Pray and prepare.  I must forget the things of the past, and prepare for the future. I must not look at what I have behind me--the failures, the doubts, the questions--and wonder what God could possibly make from them. I must look at what I have inside me--the salvation, the righteousness, the gifts--and anticipate that God can do the impossible with them. So, I will pray for “rain,” even if it’s something I can’t yet imagine, because I’ve never seen it before. I will pray, and I will prepare. Can you see it? God is about to do a new thing! Are you preparing for rain in your life, too? ©2014 Wendi Miller Find Source Information KEEP READINGComments are closed.
|
