Thank You Lord 2

We are in difficult times around the world. Several things have happened concurrently. Nations rising up against each other, the death of prominent World figures and the ongoing recession in many countries. Times are not as rosy as they have been in the recent past however our poverty may be our greatest blessing. Because of how tough things currently are, we are looking up to God more for our sustenance. This draws my mind to the Israelites and their wilderness experience.

“Keep and live out the entire commandment that I’m commanding you today so that you’ll live and prosper and enter and own the land that God promised to your ancestors. Remember every road that God led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that he would know what you were made of, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don’t live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from God’s mouth. Your clothes didn’t wear out and your feet didn’t blister those forty years. You learned deep in your heart that God disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child.” Deuteronomy 8:1-5 MSG

What can you exchange for your soul? Sometimes the seemingly bad things are in place so that you recognize God as your source. Certain lessons are only really understood through tough experiences. Crises teach you how to be more humble and test your tenacity . How do you react when you are at ground zero? Being in a low place allows you to think deeply about situations and acknowledge that you are not indispensable.

You need to always be thankful for all the things that you have been through. It could be a painful heartbreak from a relationship you had hoped to have a lasting future. When you remember how ill-treated you were by the person or perhaps you were made a mockery of after all the sacrifices and investment of time and resources you made only to be cast away. God probably wanted to let you know that your sweet face, educational certificates or affluent family background is not a guarantee of receiving good things or being favoured. He is teaching you some virtue and to truly appreciate when something better comes your way much later.

A doctor once had to carry out a postmortem on a beautiful woman who had recently died. She had been placed on a trolley in the mortuary. The standard in that mortuary was that two bodies share one trolley. The dead woman’s nails looked freshly done before her untimely death. As her remains lay on the trolley, the body of the man that lay next to her in the opposite direction had its foot in her mouth. The thought that crossed the doctors mind was how this very clean, prim and proper looking woman might not have even associated herself with such a lowly and dirty looking man had she still been alive.

“And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, “Today—at the latest, tomorrow—we’re off to such and such a city for the year. We’re going to start a business and make a lot of money.” You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing. Instead, make it a habit to say, “If the Master wills it and we’re still alive, we’ll do this or that.””James 4:13-15 MSG

When God takes you through an experience which brings you to ground zero, just let it make you grateful. The reality is that in our our “bigness”, with all we say and do we are just flesh…nothing…dust. One might say, “but I have never even been in a relationship before. I am so lonely and no one ever takes me seriously”. Whether you have had heartbreaks in relationships or not, both situations are experiences. All things work together for good.

You may have had so many people breaking your heart, using you or taking advantage of your kindness. You might also not have ever been dated/courted since you came of age. God has a unique reason for making you go through what you are going through. Those who have many experiences with bad relationships may be learning to appreciate a good thing when they finally receive it. A person on the other hand who might not have had any relationship experience is being saved the situation of comparing their past relationships to what God has in store for them so that they don’t mess it up.

Someone might be able to still excel in life even after suffering several heartaches. Another person after just one major heartbreak could lose themselves in depression or literally go mad. You need to always be thankful for the paths and journey that your life takes especially when you are relying fully on God’s grace and guidance. Remember that God will never give you more than you can handle. He always knows what is best for you.

“So it’s paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. It’s a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. It’s land where you’ll never go hungry—always food on the table and a roof over your head. It’s a land where you’ll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills. After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land he has given you. Make sure you don’t forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God, the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery; the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness, those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions; the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock; the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you. If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”—well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today. If you forget, forget God, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I’m on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it—destruction. You’ll go to your doom—the same as the nations God is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn’t obey the Voice of God, your God. * * *”Deuteronomy 8:6-20 MSG

The mistake we usually make is to forget and think that our own strength has brought us to where we are. And oftentimes when we are blessed we have the tendency of being proud and ungrateful. Remember why God is making you wealthy so that you will support His work and be a blessing.

God wants to really bless you because He wants to establish His word throughout the nations. He will bring you into a good land after going through the miry clay of life. You only need to trust His direction and timing. A time is coming when you will be surrounded with abundance so much that you will not just be blessed but be a blessing to many others.

With Love, Esinam.