Ever wonder in the midst of your life when something will breakthrough and bloom? In the journey of life sometimes it feels like being in a jungle or living in the mundane! But then, to witness the power of a bright flower blooming amidst leaves all around it! Wow! But hey look at the plant leaves next to the beautiful, bright lovely flower : ) Doesn't it look like our Creator dripped or splashed dark green paint all over them? Look at the brushstrokes of light blue on the plant leaves below the pink flower.
Every mark of God we get to carry makes not only a difference in our life, but also in many others lives too! It may not look like the prettiest or the most significant mark, but we get the privilege to remember...
Rom 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Rom 8:36 Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Rom 8:37 No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Rom 8:38 For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
Rom 8:39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from God’s love, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Maybe we feel like this or look like this amidst all others. I think about Joseph or Esther or Nehemiah. They were all used "to rebuild and to preserve life" in the journey of a thousand years. Each of them carried a burning flame inside of their hearts to move forward and pave a way where there seemed to be none. Things happened amongst the spills and drips of life! I have realized how important it is to surround your life with people who trust GOD working in you! Most people mean well. Receiving advice, subconscious motives and unhealed insecurities from others can sometimes affect the walk positively or negatively.
Instructions written in Exodus 23:20-22,25-26... that all three Biblical figures followed:
1. Exo 23:20 “Behold, I send an angel before you, to keep you by the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
2. Exo 23:21 Pay attention to him, and listen to his voice. Don’t provoke him, for he will not pardon your disobedience, for my name is in him.
3. Exo 23:22 But if you indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries.
4. Exo 23:25 You shall serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you.
5. Exo 23:26 No one will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days.
* Joseph accepted the invitation of negative circumstances and thanked God for His Kindness and His Favor. Gen 39:20-21...Joseph’s master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were bound, and he was there in custody. But Yahweh was with Joseph, and showed kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.
* Esther accepted the culture's forced invitation of the ruling Persian nation and thanked God for His promises.
Esther 5:8...if I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my petition, and to perform my request - let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I shall prepare for them, and I will do to-morrow as the king hath said.'
* Nehemiah accepted the invitation to be a cup bearer of the Persian king and knew he may lose his life. And he thanked God for answering his prayer just at the right time to restore, to remember and to honor those who lived before him on earth.
Neh 2:4-5...Then the king said to me, “What is your request?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may build it.” Neh 2:19-20...But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammontite servant, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they ridiculed us, and despised us, and said, “What is this thing that you are doing? Will you rebel against the king?” Then I answered them, and said to them, “The God of heaven will prosper us. Therefore we, his servants, will arise and build; but you have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem.”
In all three lives, they accepted the invitation whether positive or negative in specific circumstances because they placed their "trust in the God of heaven and earth" for their unique Passover.
Would you agree the gifts of Resiliency and Overcoming comes in different sizes and packages in our life? God hopes and desires for us to accept His Invitation and be thankful to Him no matter what life unfolds across our path.