Some thoughts God gave me...

Isaiah 12

In that day you will say: "I will praise you, Lord.  Although you were 

angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me.

Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.  The Lord, the Lord 

himself, is my strength and my defence; he has become my salvation."

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

In that day you will say; "Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make 

known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted.

Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things;

let this be known to all the world.

Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the 

Holy One of Israel among you."

I read this yesterday morning and these are the unedited thoughts I wrote after reading this...

I was immediately drawn to "The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song." Chris talked on Sunday of "Emmanuel - God with us". When I think of the Lord being my strength and my song I think of the strength physically and mentally that I need to get through the day, each day.  We need Emmanuel to be able to have this.  

"And my song", Christ spoke of how we can get certain songs in our head and heart some days and this is just a reminder of how our Lord is that song.  We need to sing Him in all we do - in our hearts and out loud, proclaiming that He is our strength and our song.  Why? Well, the rest of the verse says "for He has become my Salvation!"  Without Him we would still be lost and without hope.

This whole chapter in my bible is titled, "Songs of Praise".  I found verse one to be a little unnerving as it says, "I will praise you, Lord. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me." I often read verses about God's anger and ones of how he was angry but now is not.  I also wonder what I have done to anger God.  We know God's anger is not something you want on you as it is fierce, and we also know He is not slow to anger.  So, it should come as no surprise when we discover that God is angry at us for things we think may be permissible.  I mean, we all know that sin in general is not good and that can make him angry.  Also, not spending time with Him or reading His word or even talking to Him are definately things He could get angry about.

Think about it like this... You have this BEST FRIEND, I mean the best type, not just any old friend but your nearest and dearest.  So, your BF wants to spend time with you (of course), and you know this as they are your BF and they have told you!

A day passes and you've gotten so busy you haven't even thought of them.

A week passes, no contact from you has been made.  Although on Sunday you heard something that made you so proud to be their BF, Monday they sent you flowers, Tuesday they wrote you a note, Wednesday, they left you a magnificent painting, Thursday some of your other friends got together with you BF but you were too tired to join them, Friday you were to exhausted to even text them to say thanks for anything let alone being their friend.  Saturday rocks around and you go to speak to your BF and you wonder why they are annoyed at you?  Because after all they are your BF and they'll understand and forgive you for ignoring them, not reading their notes or looking at their handiwork or enjoying their gifts and not being bothered to spend time with them.

Sounds extreme, or does it? Our God is a jealous God!

Thankfully, as verse one eluded, He can turn away His anger to comfort us.  This is a great reminder to not be selfish and take God for granted.

As an extra note here, can I tell you that I got all this before 5am in the morning, I had an extra ordinary day and did not tire all day!!! However, this morning when I had the same opportunity and shamefully chose sleep over spending more time with God was totally to my detriment and my day turned out VERY different!!! Guess what I plan to do tomorrow morning?? (Check with me to see how I went!)

Debbs

UPDATE:  (Thanks to Ben for asking!) I was hammered!!! The enemy soooo was not happy with my commitment.  I had gotten up to feed the baby and went back to bed at 1:30am and somehow managed to wake up at 4am to get up. I almost fell asleep when praying, so prayed with my eyes open.  That was one difficult morning with many things contributing and all day I knew I had to keep my guard up.  But by the end of the day, even though I was exhausted physically and mentally, spiritually I felt pretty good.  Our God is awesome and He was my strength in many ways that day.

Thursday I got up early again and it was a very productive and joyful day again (almost on par with Monday), then today I didn't wake up early enough but I have sung praises all morning until I was able to sit quietly with God. (Thankful for a boy at kindy and a sleeping baby to make that happen.)  I am looking forward to continuing this early morning catch up with my Best Friend!