BIBLE TEXT: Philippians 4:6-7
Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray; let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.
This message was preached at the invitation of Women Fellowship Quarterly Prayer Meeting. They were seeking God’s mind and strategies to navigate this difficult season in society and the world at large. Indeed, this is a season that tries men’s faith and soul.
WISDOM KEY
If you summon heaven to respond to what the earthly vessels have been instructed to do, heaven will not respond to you. However, if you do what heaven asks you to do, then heaven will do what you cannot do and supernatural things will happen.
First thing to know is that God is inside your pain. What pains you, pains God.
One of the strategies to use to stay safe in times like this is to remove the veil around the pain. Cindy Trim calls it the Pain Points (PP).
If you can identify the pain points, you’ll discover how much the love of God is wrapped in and around your pain, tears and challenges. Put the pain points into short account and move on.
To enhance our level of understanding, let us examine the message story behind one of our favourite hymns we sing:
“My Faith Has Found A Resting Place”
It’s about a family of believers. It is about a gentle man called Joel Edwards. He lived, according to report, in the outskirts of London. He had a thriving business and a wife and 5 children. Another season came and his business collapsed and he was seriously in debt.
Consequences:
- His wife left him.
- His children were angry and in pain and indiscipline.
- In debt to a lot of people.
- Police were chasing him here and there.
- Bankers were chasing him.
So after all the pain and frustration and embarrassment, he decided one day to go to the mountain and pray and just die there. It was winter time. You can imagine how cold the place would be. So off he went to the mountain top to pray and end his life. While he was there, two gentlemen came to him and said, they are angels. They introduced themselves and asked him to return home. That the King of the City has sent somebody to bring him to the palace.
At first, he did not believe the angels, so they downloaded some of the details of his life for him. Finally, he took courage and left and he came back home. When he got to the gate of the City, true true, two chariots have been sent from the palace to come and fetch him. He sat on the chariot and as they were going, he thought he was dreaming.
Finally, he got inside the palace and was brought into the inner chamber of the King. Here is the same man who was running away from people he owed, running away from shame, disgrace and frustration.
The King said, “Joel, I hear your business failed, I hear you owe a lot of people. I hear you are in embarrassment and I want you to be my adviser, my counsellor in this palace. Why? The king explained, I want somebody who has failed before, who will not be arrogant in attitude to serve me?
The impossibility specialist whose name is Jehovah God stepped in and changed his story. You see that his problems, challenges, why he ran away, God turned to advantage and opportunity. By the world standard, Mr. Joel was not qualified for that position, for the world has already label him failure. But mercy found him and gave him a new beginning. Grace will choose the unqualified and then qualify the chosen.
The Almighty God specializes in removing one disgrace and amplifying grace. Turn your mess to mercy. Your mistake to message, pain to glory and shame to fame, loss to reaping. Then the king did an extraordinary thing. He said, “I’m going to bring in your cook and when the cook came in, guess what? It was the wife who left him. He said, “Honey, what are you doing here, I thought I was going to cook for a big man in the palace. I didn’t know it was you. So, restoration began.
In addition, those pursuing him, using the police to threaten him, are now the people coming to work under him in the palace.
Biggest surprise, his children also came to serve in the palace under him. He looked around and he beheld the restoration power of God sponsored by the love of God, the light of God and the life of God.
He remarked, “I would have died three days ago today on the mountain, running away from all these people.” Then he was asked, “What do you have to say to the people?” He replied, “My faith has found a resting place, not in device, not creed, religion. I trust the Everliving One, His words for me shall stand. I need no other argument; I need no other plea.”
In storms, big challenges, remember God’s love and mercy never diminishes. He’s preparing you for something greater, even in the fire. Our biggest breakthroughs or blessings often come from the toughest times, so trust the process, stay strong and keep hope alive.
Remember, the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 had been divorced five times, yet Jesus still used and encountered her. Don’t let people count you out because you have had complicated past. Jesus preserved her tomorrow. He will preserve yours too. Life’s battles are won by those who believe it the most and those who believe it the longest.
