Hurry up and wait

[David]

I am a very woordy person and I know I shouldn’t be and I understand that I don’t know it all so anything I say is just my way of encouragement so pardon me that way when I offer up my thoughts while I call out for help. Maybe our fight is the same and you want a Brother or Sister in that fight? As I continue to learn I’m gonna open up, the people who know me know this and for the other people also I just ask for prayers of Grace, Wisdom, and Patience. I’ve learned that words have weight and when I’m trying to help someone with this much love behind it my words need to be gentle because they may be strong enough to slay a demon but they need to be gentle to the person. I love prayer because talking this way is the same way I pray so the two should reflect.

I keep getting rang like a bell and I’m feeling a great pressure to lean into my faith but I don’t know how. I pray hard, like face down palms up ugly crying and I know if I just practice patience, be still and silent I will bring my Family together, my body healed and He will make use of any talent He gave me for His Will. I’m not great at anything but I am blessed with Faith, Family and talent so what do I do, because I must because it’s His Will! LOL I’ll lock eyeballs to the Sun till I see it if that’s what I gotta do! I’ll speak plainly but I will… When He say’s you can do all things what do you do? I’ve read it and heard it a thousand times now in so many different ways. A perfectly still lake is what I can paint, a chant with a cadence in my mind that can go with any rhythm or in silence so motionless I can’t hear the beating of my own axe against my shield. I imagine infinite stillnesses wrapped in a peace so perfect only His fingertip could ripple it. And boom a connection, this is Spiritual Warfare.

I wanna challenge my faith and do more for my Family but I think look at all I’ve done, look at what I built and destroyed. I wanna say “A Ha! I got myself!” I am a breaker! I know I can be more than what I am and I get a lot of pressure from God, myself, and other people both directly and indirectly. When I feel like I got a lot to say I get torn, help or be silent. I feel like I can help people but it’s just one of those things that fall into my patterns of failures. I already see Jesus working. I see Family reconnecting, I hear stories about people healing, I’ve been making great personal progress, my faith is stronger, my house is cleaner and my food is better so what then? Do I be still, and patient or am I supposed to pick up my bed? What then? How so and in what way? How much of this pressure is from God and how much of it is from me? Do I sit in the pressure or do I jump out of the pressure cooker? Is this a pressure cooker or am I sitting in a crock pot? What then? And then I beat myself with it.

My heart rejoices for my Wife to do well and continues to do so and Praise God for it because His work can be seen in hers. She’s an amazing person, sometimes overly generous with her time but that’s how committed she is, her professional drive is admirable. She knows how all these important business details pull huge projects together to flow. Super smart and beyond with creativity and ingenuity. A super hard worker, and all that drives me because that’s something that attracted us to each other and In every moment I gotta be everything she needs me to be and I want her to give her the best and the only thing stopping any kind of attainable level is me. I have jet fuel coming out of my pours right now LOL. but all I can think to do is pray. I’m just enjoying watching God move, kids grow up, that doesn’t mean I’m giving up because success isn’t based on standards I can think of.

I am content with what God has done and is still doing but the need is still there to have a way to bring money into the house and put my talents to use. I’ve done everything from (currently homemaker), washing cars, food services, factory work, security positions, sales, banking, artist, musician, homemaker, etc… Point is, I shouldn’t allow negative thoughts to rule over me because I know the devil is a lie and I want to do something good with whatever I got but I don’t know what to do but I’m trying to figure it out. All I can think to focus is God and Family and my personal growth because in those things I have a lot of work to do. That means paying attention, eating better, exercising, study, pray and practice because while I am expecting myself to be something more than that right now I don’t know what that means but what I can do is praise God for an abundance of inspiration and pray for urgency in the stillness, peace on the battlefields of depression and Praise God for the power of Prayer!

I have a lot of scars and each one burns and I have to say having people see me through like this is super uncomfortable but I know that talking about my weaknesses will help me heal or see something I am missing in myself and maybe help someone like me. I always hear (and have said) artists are the worst critics of themselves but I think it’s a normal human condition and a blessing but in it I notice I can ruin my own mood and shut down any good thought. How I view the people in my life need to reflect how I feel about them with authenticity and consistency and not with the fear of losing them or offending them which goes to my neighbors, my friends, and Family. This is a lot, thanks for reading and pray for me and my Family please.

[Sal53]

Hi David,

Thanks for sharing. I can see how you love words. So do I!

You are clearly writing from your heart, with passion and poetry, so maybe God can use your way with words for his glory.

Since the Covid lockdowns began in early 2020, I have begun to write more seriously. I have found it helpful to discipline myself to shorter pieces. which means selecting only some of the multitude of ideas that go round in my head, and reserving others for another time. So, I ask myself what am I trying to say here ? Is there a clear theme ? Then I try and say it, as clearly as I can. This doesn’t stop me from using some of the many visual ideas or anecdotes that come to me, to illustrate my theme.Then I try and sum up what I have said, to make sure that I have not wandered off piste.

For almost a year now I have been sending my written devotionals to a small group of friends. Recently I have been encouraged to record them for YouTube, so now I have a YouTube channel: Drawn From The Word. It’s in its infancy and I am still learning, so there’s room for improvement in both production and presentation. I believe God is calling me to get the message out there. I’m not expecting to have a massive following, but if only a few people are helped and encouraged as I share what God is teaching me, it’s worth the effort !

Time is short, we may not always have the freedom to share God’s word. We need to encourage one another, to build one another up for the fight we face each day, so please, carry on writing !

Here’s a link to my recently started YouTube Channel, in case you want to listen to (and read) some of what I have written. All of these videos are from my early devotionals.

5. A Measure Of Disorder ©Sarah Cunnington @Drawn-From-The-Word - YouTube

But I’m going to be even more presumptuous now, and paste the text of one of the next devotionals due to be recorded.

10. How Long, O Lord?

How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?

Psalm 13:1-2

Sometimes we find ourselves in impossible situations which drag on, and on. And on. There’s no end in sight, no resolution, no way out. When we ask God, “How long?” the heavens seem like brass, there’s no response.

Sometimes it is actually down it us. It will take as long as it takes to learn the lessons God is trying to teach because, to be honest, all our deeper life lessons are learned in testing times. The Bible tells us that trials and tribulations arrive to refine our faith, which is more precious than gold. It’s very true. There is also another lesson God wants us to learn: that of humility.

Before he wrote this Psalm, David had been riding on the crest of a wave. He was the most successful military leader the nation had known. Then they began to sing about him in the streets:

Saul has killed his thousands
And David his tens of thousands!

It’s not hard to imagine what King Saul thought, from the moment he heard this song being sung throughout Jerusalem, and around his Palace walls. He seethed with a growing anger and resentment. Once he’d thought of David as his dearly loved protégé, almost like a son, but no more. As he tossed and turned on his bed that night, he convinced himself that David had now become a serious threat to his throne.

The next day, David came to play his lyre for the King, as was his habit, but for once the soothing music brought no peace to Saul. After a sleepless night, he was so tormented by his insane jealousy that he grabbed a spear and threw it at David with all his might. Twice he tried to pin him to the wall, as you would with a poisonous insect, and kill him, but the young man escaped, and fled the palace.

That was the moment David knew he had to quit the city of Jerusalem for good, leaving his closest friend Jonathan, the King’s son, whom he would never see again. Hiding out in the wilderness, the erstwhile hero was now a hunted outlaw, pursued from one end of the land to another by the King he’d once served so loyally.

This terrible exile was to last for seven long years. Years of sorrow and anguish, and fear for his life. But also a continuing fear of the Lord, so much so that he despite having more than one opportunity to kill Saul, he never did so. He would never harm the Lord’s anointed.

Towards the end of this time, David was even forced to take refuge among Israel’s enemies, where he was cruelly mocked and insulted as he feigned madness. It was a humiliation he could never have imagined, but this humiliation taught him humility.

When Saul finally died, David would become a great king, perhaps Israel’s greatest King. He was also a great warrior and a great poet, but it was his great faith AND his humility that made him a man after God’s own heart.

So what is our response to unending pain, to uncertainty, to injury, insults and injustice? Are we bitter and resentful? Are we angry at God? Do we take refuge in self pity?

Can we be like the apostle Paul and say that we actually delight in them? Here’s what he wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:

“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.”

What an extraordinary testimony ! Not unlike that of Peter and John when they were taken before the Jewish leaders and flogged for preaching Jesus. As the apostles left the Sanhedrin, they rejoiced because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name of Jesus.

Is that our response when we are falsely accused and ill-treated ?

It’s never easy to endure such things, but there is a way. When we get to the place where we stop trying to defend ourselves, and stop fighting back, and simply commit ourselves into God’s hands - this is our victory.

BECAUSE God is God and we are not, we can trust Him. He humbled himself for love of us, he endured insult and injury for love of us, He was crucified for love of us.

When all other help is gone, THEN it’s the time to “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help we need.”

©Sarah Cunnington

[Tasha]

Hi Sarah,
This is what I have been looking for, thank you for this word. I have been tested since in my youth and crying has been the order of the day but mostly these 3 past years have been hell and I asked God why He doesn’t take my life. I have asked him so many questions why me why this pain why no one is coming to my rescue but then I came to this word. Let me patient the lord is with me, he lead me out of this dilemma. That’s why am requesting everyone to put me in their prayers. I pray my children to go back to school. To get wat to eat and mostly to pay loans of people, bank that I took for my business but again it collapsed.