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Strength and My Shield

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to Him in song. (Psalm 28:7 ESV)

How many times are we overwhelmed with the circumstances within which we find ourselves? New job, career change, budgetary issues, health and parental care concerns, children, job pressures and the list continues.

What do we do in these times of crisis? Do we bask in the muck of indecision and helplessness or do we consult the One in whom we find our help? All too often I go to the mud pit first before looking up to our Heavenly Father who knows all and sees all. I become consumed with my problem as I forge on in my strength to solve it, which usually doesn’t end as positively as I had hoped.

It is in the miry thick of things when my head is bursting, muscles tensed, and my thoughts filled only with anxiousness that I finally reach a wall; a wall too steep to climb and too wide to go around. There in the midst of exasperation and utter exhaustion, I find the strength I need—only when I look up and offer my feebleness into the hands of One far greater than my circumstances. He alone offers me hope in my deepest hour of need.

He doesn’t fix things and make my problems disappear, although that would be much preferred. However, it is in the thick of the disparaging struggle that God reveals His sufficiency to aid me as I walk through the darkness. He doesn’t remove the darkness…just offers me a candle to light one step ahead as I trust and follow. After surrendering the moment, the task, the exasperation, the unsettled situation to Him I find PEACE….Not absolution…Not a quick fix, but His PEACE in the middle of my crisis.

Then, I can give thanks as the Psalmist says and SING to Him! The LORD is my STRENGTH!

Keith

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FOCUSED

One of the casualties of aging to which I find myself a victim is the dimming of the eyes.  Ecclesiastes 12 counsels the young person to remember God, their Creator, in their youth before the aging process takes over and various faculties, as listed in verses 1-7, are diminished.

Clear eyesight when we are young may be something we take for granted. However, as we age the realization that our vision is not as sharp as it once was takes hold. “Readers” become standard fare for all intricate tasks. Our once keen laser sharp focus is now blurry and in need of help to restore its youthfulness. That restoration is found through glasses or some sort of rejuvenating surgery. Especially in the early stages of this degenerative eye problem we may be able to fake it and get by, but eventually we must relent and do something to correct the problem.

There is a parallel between physical and spiritual vision. “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” was written in the early 20th century. The hymn writer, Helen Lemmel, was strongly influenced by the artist and later little-known missionary, Lilias Trotter. Miss Trotter started off as an aspiring artist but early on felt a call from God to reach the lost. She began her ministry by rescuing prostitutes from the streets of London. Later she went to Africa, without missionary funding, and served for over forty years. While there she penned a poem that would greatly influence the writing of the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”  The poem was entitled “Focused: A Story and Song.” 

The poem centers around focusing one’s attentions fully and completely upon God. She writes that Satan knows that if a person uses all their powers of concentration on being led by God’s Spirit, they will have a great intensity and impact upon those to whom they are called to minister. Lilias Trotter, writing in a more formal use of the English language than we are accustomed, shares some timeless insights which could very easily have been written today but with a different accent. She writes: “Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once—art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the ‘good’ hiding the ‘best’ even more effectually than it could be hidden downright frivolity with its smothered heartache at its own emptiness.”

The “good” hiding the “best” leads us to emptiness.  Could this be true of us today especially as American Christians? Have we sought the “good” while missing the “best”? The chorus of the hymn, which we will be singing in worship this Sunday, says it best.

                Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,                                                                                                                                        And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Keith Pate

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