Psalm 56:3-4 “But in the day that I'm afraid, I lay all my fears before you and trust in you with all my heart. What harm could a man bring to me? With God on my side, I will not be afraid of what comes.” Today's episode talks about how important it is to trust God in all things. He doesn't want us just to trust Him in crisis but also in calm times. In this episode, I also talk about how I have learned to listen to the Lord and how I have incorporated it into my daily life. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Be Bold & Trust (Be Bold Series)
Psalm 56:3-4 “But in the day that I'm afraid, I lay all my fears before you and trust in you with all my heart. What harm could a man bring to me? With God on my side, I will not be afraid of what comes.”
Today, I decided to read from the Jesus Calling Devotional. I have not done that in a while; I am unsure why. For those of you who don’t know, this is a devotional book written as if God is speaking to you each day. It is really good and often says exactly what you need to hear for that day. Today’s spoke right to me. It reminded me how important it is to trust God in all times with all things. It is just as important to trust Him with the small things as it is to trust Him with the big things. I will read today’s devotional for you, as I think it will speak to you just as much as it spoke to me.
“TRUST ME with every fiber of your being! What I can accomplish in and through you is proportional to how much you depend on me. One aspect of this is the degree to which you trust me in a crisis or major decision. Some people fail miserably here, while others are at their best in tough times. Another aspect is even more telling: the consistency of your trust in me. People who rely on me in the midst of adversity may forget about me when life is flowing smoothly. Difficult times can jolt you into awareness of your need for me, whereas smooth sailing can lull you into a stupor of self-sufficiency.
I care as much about your tiny trust-steps through daily life as about your daily dramatic leaps of faith. You may think that no one else notices, but the One who is always beside you sees everything — and rejoices. Consistently trusting in me is vital to flourishing in my presence.”
Do you see what I mean when I say it often says exactly what you need to hear for the day? I love that it is written as if God is saying it directly to you. This is truly how God talks to us. I am not sure how many of you listening have taken the time to sit and listen to what God has to say to you. If you have not, give it a try today. God wants to talk to each one of us, and yet the world around us is so noisy it is hard to hear him. However, if we sit down and take the time to listen, we will hear what He wants to tell us. This can take time and also practice. The more time you spend trying to hear God talking to you, the more clearly you will hear Him. The more you will begin to recognize what He sounds like to you.
I have a journal, and I try to write in it as often as possible. In 2020, I changed the way I write in my prayer journal. I used just to write God about my day and what was going on in my life. I still do this, but I don’t just do this. Now, I try to stop and take the time to listen to what God has to say back to me. This has been amazing. I have spent a lot of time listening and have given the Lord time to speak into my life, and it has been life-changing. You would be surprised what the Lord wants to say to you if you only gave Him the time to say it. He is so gentle and affirming.
Sometimes, we think we wouldn’t want to hear what the Lord has to say because we feel we aren’t doing a very good job, and He probably wouldn’t have anything nice to say to us. This is not true. That is what the enemy wants you to think so that you don’t stop and give the Lord time to speak love, light, and truth into your life. When you give Him the time and you listen, you will be surprised at how nicely He talks to you. You will be surprised at how much He loves you. Even in our brokenness, even in our sin, He still speaks so much love to us. It is truly amazing.
This is why I started ending each episode with the Word from the Lord that He gave to our prayer group. The more we all start hearing the way He talks to us, the more we will start to recognize it when we hear Him talking in our own lives. Here is what I do when I write to the Lord. I write Him a letter, and then I ask Him to answer me using my pen, and then I start to write a letter back to myself. I don’t question what comes to mind; I don’t overthink it; I write everything that comes to mind. Does that mean that everything I write down is from the Lord? No, probably not. However, I asked Him to answer me, and when we ask, He answers, so I trust that what I am writing down is from Him.
After you are done writing it down, you can re-read it and see what you wrote and how it makes you feel. If you wrote anything down that makes you feel bad, shameful, or guilty, that is probably not from the Lord. That is not how He talks to us. Sometimes, He will convict us of something if we are doing something wrong. However, He doesn’t use shame and guilt to do it. God does not condemn us. He lovingly points us in another direction and then gives us the strength to go in another direction. Anything you are not sure of, you can take to discernment. You can ask the Lord to clarify; you can ask the Lord to explain more, and you can always go deeper with what you got in the letter. If you do this often enough, you will recognize patterns. You will see that He tends to say the same things repeatedly because we tend not to listen. Yet, He keeps saying them until we do listen.
The verse above says, “But in the day that I'm afraid, I lay all my fears before you and trust in you with all my heart. What harm could a man bring to me? With God on my side, I will not be afraid of what comes.” This is a good verse for today because I know many people are staring down some pretty big fears. Whether they are worried about losing their job, getting sick, or finding a new job, it is all scary. Several people I know are sick and worried they won’t be healed. It can be very scary to think you will have to live with this illness for the rest of your life. This is why today’s verse is so important.
The verse says, "I lay all my fears before you and trust you with all my heart.” I hope we are all doing this. I hope that when something scary comes our way, our first instinct is to turn it over to the Lord. Give Him our cares, and He will help us carry them. He will even carry them for us if we can be brave enough to let go and let Him carry them for us. Often, we want to pick them back up again. But if we can fully let go, He will take care of them for us. If we can trust Him to do this, our worries and cares become so much lighter.
My favorite part of the devotional from Jesus Calling is, “Another aspect is even more telling: the consistency of your trust in me.” I also love, “I care as much about your tiny trust-steps through daily life as about your daily dramatic leaps of faith.” These both remind us that although it is important to trust the Lord when things are going wrong in our lives, it is just as important to trust Him when things are calm and there isn’t a crisis. Do we do this? Do we trust that God cares for all things or just the big things? When things are going well, do we still turn to the Lord, or do we try to fix those things on our own?
I think this devotional gives us something to think about this weekend, especially going into the new year. What could we be doing differently? Do we need to be more consistent with our trust in the Lord? What are those tiny trust-steps in our daily life that God is talking about? What if you took 20 minutes sometime today or this weekend and sat down and asked God these questions and then wrote down whatever you think you hear Him say back to you?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to trust you. We want to trust you not only with the big things but the small things, too. Please show us how; please guide us. Help us learn how to take those tiny trust-steps into our daily lives. Lord, we ask that you help us hear your voice in our head. We ask you to open our spiritual ears to hear you more. Lord, I ask you for a special blessing for each person as they enter this new Year. I ask that you bless them and their families. I ask that you bless their jobs, their ministries, whatever it is they do. I ask for you to help them enter this new year with renewed hope and love. We love you so much, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name. Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. The theme for mentoring this month is “I am made new.” It is important that we all know that we are not who we once were. We are not just a sum of our mistakes. We are made new in Christ. I pray you will join us this month and learn about how you are made new! I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow! Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day!
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in August 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “My children, I have given you freedom, but you must accept it. Do not keep telling yourself I am not worthy. I, your Lord, have died on the cross for you, so you are worthy.”