Terry, Spurgeon and me

Good Morning!

I wanted to share a short excerpt from a book Terry and I are reading together.  It is titled Morning and Evening  by Charles Spurgeon.  It is a devotional written by Spurgeon, but revised by Alistair Begg, using the ESV.  There is one short devotion for morning and one for the evening.  God has used it mightily.  Last night the Lord got all up in our business.  I mean  you know when you have to reprimand your child because you see them doing something you don't like and you have to get right up in their face so they know the seriousness of what you are talking about.  That is what our Father did with us last night!  Ouch!  I was still thinking about it when I woke up this morning!  Our prayer was Lord do not let us ignore what you have plainly spoken to us!  But that is not what I want to share with you this morning.  This morning the devotion was about waiting.  I just thought it too good to keep to myself, as we are all in the waiting about something.  Waiting on an answer.  Waiting on a blessing.  Waiting on a word.  Waiting on....

 August 3o                           Morning
                   
                               Wait for the Lord.--Psalm 27:14

It may seem an easy thing to wait, but it is one of the postures that a Christian soldier can not learn without years of teaching.  Marching and quick-marching are much easier for God's warriors than standing still.  There are hours of perplexity when the most willing spirit, anxiously desiring to serve the Lord, does not know what role to play.  Then what shall it do?  Vex itself by despair?  Retreat back in cowardice, turn to the right hand in fear, or rush forward in presumption? No, simply wait.  Wait in prayer, however.  Cal lupon God, and spread the matter before Him; tell Him your difficulty, and plead His promise of help. In dilemmas between one duty and another, it is best to be humble as a child and wait with simplicity of soul upon the Lord.  It is sure to be well with us when we feel and know our own folly and are genuinely willing to be guided by the will of God.  But wait in faith.  Express your unstaggering confidence in Him; for unfaithful, untrusting waiting is just an insult to the Lord.  Believe that if He keeps you waiting even until midnight, He will still come at the right time; the vision will come and not delay.  Wait in quiet patience, not rebelling because things are difficult, but blessing your God for the privilege of affliction.  Never grumble against the second cause, as the children of Israel did against Moses, never wish you could go back to the world again, but accept the circumstance as it is, and put is as it stands, simply and with your whole heart, without any selfish agenda, into the hand of your covenant God, saying, "Now, Lord, not my will, but Yours be done.  I do not know what to do.  I am at an end of myself, but I will wait until You part the floods or drive back my enemies.  I will wait, even if You test me for a while, for my heart is fixed upon You alone, O God, and my spirit waits for You in the deep conviction that You will still be my joy and my salvation, my refuge and my strong tower"

Wow! Hope you were encouraged and challenged as much as Terry and I were. 
Have a great week. STAY IN HIS WORD EVERYDAY!! 

Pressing on, in the waiting,
Carrie