Gaining Strength through Faith

From the obstacles that Joseph experienced to the rebellious people that Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Caleb had to deal with, we can learn along the way how important it is for us to grab onto our Lord in faith and trust that He has our back. 

Many forsake faith and live in fear, which only paralyzes the bravest soul into a shaking mess.  As we keep our eyes on Him who is there for us, when we read Scripture each day and trust that He will keep His promises to us is when we gain strength.  Strength to take that first step towards the goal which He has called us to.  That step, when we are shaking in our boots, that we know in our own strength we are not able to take. 

When we think about it later, we realize that God has had us in training for such a time as this.  To realize that God sees what we cannot.  To realize that through our obedience in His Word, His promptings in life, those who He sends our way is all part of the plan. 

What plan?  The plan to care for those around us in the middle of chaos and cruel treatment.  The plan to step out and buy that house that you never thought you could afford.  The plan to move forward in the middle of an unplanned pregnancy.  The plan to know that He is God and He will care for you, just as He has promised; even though it’s not the way you saw it in your mind’s eye. 

“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God.  For it is written, “He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness” (1 Cor 3:19)

Charles Stanley puts it this way, “When God begins to move in power on our behalf, sometimes our situation can actually grow worse before it gets better.  Yet we can learn through adversity and grow spiritually if we will commit ourselves to Him and trust Him in all of our circumstances.” (Life Principles Bible, p 87)

I don’t know about you, but I seem to learn much better, He certainly has my attention, in the midst of hardship and sorrow.  And yet, you will hear me exclaim, “Where is God?” and I feel so sorry for myself! 

When we are in the middle of such circumstances, we seem to focus on the situation at hand and forget about the promises that we just read in our daily devotions.  We seem to forget that disappointments and heartache are inevitable and become discouraged.  But know we are not alone.

Let’s take a look at Elijah and his response to some hard times.  “God had sent the prophet to rescue Israel from its moral and spiritual decline.  Elijah confronted and defeated the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 28:17-40), but the wicket Queen Jezebel immediately threatened to kill him for executing her false prophets.

Instead of holding fast to God’s faithfulness, Elijah panicked, ran and hid (1 Kings 19:3).”  “But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree; and he requested for himself that he mighty die, and said, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers.  He lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and He said to him, “Arise, eat.”  Then he looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water.  So, he ate and drank and lay down again.” (1 Kings 19:4-6)

Not only had Elijah quickly taken his eyes off the promises of God but also what God had done for him.  Sometimes we just need to rest (yes, a good nap can help) and a little nourishment can go a long way. 

And think about those Israelites who miraculously left Egypt only by the hand of God who were quickly crying that they wanted to return to Egypt, to return to slavery, because they were going through some difficulty on the road and would rather go back into bondage rather than trust God for the promise of going to the land of milk and honey. 

When we get weak kneed, when we become frightened, when we want to go back into a sinful situation rather than fight through our present circumstances, we need to fall on our knees in prayer before God.  So often we fool ourselves thinking the easy way, the way it used to be, would be better and we long for that sinful life again.  But it isn’t better, it’s sin and that never is better! 

Not only does reading the Bible daily help you focus on His love, His strength, His plan for you but it helps to have friends who will encourage you to draw ever closer to Jesus and to remind you of His promises and the blessings that await you in being obedient to our Lord. 

Obedience is essential in all walks of our life and we find His truth and direction in reading our Bibles daily.  Reading and obeying are the keys to moving forward in the midst of difficult times. 

I don’t know who needs to be encouraged by these words but I know someone does.  I also want to encourage each of you reading this to pray…pray for someone you know who is discouraged and needs the love of the Lord.  Pray for the widow(er) going through this Easter season for the first time without her (his) dearly loved husband (wife).  Thank you for your prayers! 

Happy 2024!

It’s a wonderful new year as we start reading the Bible in the book of Genesis.  With the book of Genesis comes new beginnings, we see God’s creation of what we know as earth, His creation of all living creatures on earth, His creation of man (which includes woman…remember when there was a time that was automatically understood?) 

We also find the fall of man, sin entering into this perfect world that God created.  Why?  Because they were not content with living in the perfect environment, having everything they would ever want or need, having a close relationship with the Creator Himself.  Can you imagine?  Not content and they just had to disobey God’s instructions to find a more perfect environment. 

Now, let’s think about that a little further.  What are the environmentalist saying?  If we drive electric cars, give up our gas stoves, stop eating meat, and the list goes on, then we will have a perfect or, if not perfect, a better environment?  But let me ask you this, if Adam and Eve were not satisfied with the perfect environment, how do you think sinful man will be when man is the one who messed it up.  Through sin…the sin of not being content!

So, Adam and Eve listened to a serpent and fell for his deception.  Believing the lie that they would be better off.  How God was holding out on them.  And all too often we listen to those who are more educated, more deceptive than we can ever imagine.  We have the Word of God at our fingertips with all the answers and yet, we want to believe the lies being told to us.  Deception doesn’t look much different today than it did with the serpent but because we are not walking with God, we are so willing to believe the lie and fall into sin. 

Words the experts use today—self-actualization, self-confidence, self-seeking, self-will—we can solve the worlds problems by our self but they are all knowing and will tell us how to do it.  Really? Don’t fall for the lie. 

As we go through the genealogy of the first few generations after creation, we see that Cain followed his parent’s footsteps by having his feelings hurt (self) when God accepted Abel’s offering and he kills his brother. 

Things go so bad with sin everywhere that God was sorry that he’d created mankind.  Genesis 6:5, the “wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thought of his (man’s) heart was only evil continually.”   The earth was full of corruption and filled with violence (see Gen 6:11). 

Noah was chosen as a righteous man, blameless.  I can hear some of you reminding me that Noah sinned too.  Yes, God has always used imperfect people to fulfill His goals.  As you read the Bible this year, notice this fact and then know that He can also use you, an imperfect person as well. 

And after the flood, God makes a promise “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”  (Genesis 8:22)   With this promise from God, we can be made aware of man’s deception that we are experiencing right now…man will not destroy the earth.  We are to follow God’s commands, the first of which is “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1) And who can be fruitful?  Man and Woman, which God told Adam and Eve the exact same thing in Genesis 1:28.  He created male and female and no matter how people are trying to deceive us today, it is only male and female who can “be fruitful and multiply”. 

The other thing that struck me is the lie we have been hearing since October, that the land of Israel has belonged to the Palestinians since…when?  Actually, the book of Genesis give us a history of Abram’s calling to this very land.  “I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” Genesis 17:8

Get an old map out, one from an older Bible and you will see exactly where Canaan is…it is being occupied by the enemy.  The very ones who want the Israelites in the Mediterranean Sea.  The lies of evil go deep!

Another thing that struck me this year as I started my journey through the Bible once again, is that Lot chose to live in Sodom, an evil place, shown by their behavior.  Again, we are seeing the same thing today.  But after Sodom is destroyed, we continue to see disobedience first from Lot’s wife, who was instructed not to look back—she did and was immediately turned into a pillar of salt.  Then Lot’s daughters chose sexual immorality with their father to get pregnant.  Tell me that living in such an evil place as Sodom didn’t have its influence on Lot’s family! 

And today, how we raise our children and allow them to be exposed to so much evil will have an influence on them as well. 

We now jump ahead to Jacob and Esau, the two brothers who God promised their mother that “the older will serve the younger”. (Gen 25:23) 

It seems that Esau was more interested in quick, self-satisfaction rather than being honored as being the oldest and fulfilling God’s wishes.  But God knew that from the beginning, that’s how He could tell Rebekah this before she even had these boys. 

Life Lessons from Charles Stanley’s Life Principles Bible, p 39, helps us to understand Gen. 25:34, “In despising his birthright, Esau proved himself “godless” (Heb 12:16) because he considered filling his empty stomach more important than the spiritual promises of God to Abraham.  To avoid making Esau’s grave mistakes, always remember the H.A.L.T. principle.  Whenever you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, be very careful because you are especially vulnerable to sin.  Before making a decision, stop and seek God.  The more you give in to your feelings of weakness and look for ways to fill your needs apart from God, the more you’ll reap the terrible consequences of it.”

Now, those are words to ponder! 

I look forward to God blessing you as you read the Bible daily.  I look forward to hearing from each of you, whether you are reading the Bible from cover to cover for your first time or more times than you can count.  God will teach you each step of the way.  I am excited for you!

It’s That Time of Year

I don’t know about you but I have been super busy, not sure if I am coming or going. Last January I came up with an idea—to scan my paintings and then make notecards to sell. Sounds easy enough but it has been anything but easy. Now, to all you computer wizards, I am sure you are wondering ‘how can that be such a hard task?’

I am anything but a computer wizard so it was indeed difficult for me. I started immediately working on making these cards. Failure at every print! I even gave up for a while. But the end of October, I took the challenge once more. For over a month now, I have been trying to merge my picture onto a template. In my frustration, I gave up and started printing the pictures on a plain piece of paper and gluing them onto the cards. I figured I was going to call it good.

One last thing, I’d put out a plea to anyone who would listen to my predicament and of course, people don’t call or talk face to face so we went back and forth in text messages. I don’t speak computer language so much of the time, I wasn’t sure what they were asking. That is, until Wednesday, when my wonderful daughter (and very smart, I might add) sent me a text asking for one of my paintings. I emailed her one and she started playing around (that’s how she explains it) and within a short time, she had it! So, she emailed the finished product back to me, minus the printing…I have the art printer (or whatever it’s called).

We went step by step and before long I had my first notecard that I was satisfied with. We continued to tweak it until we both liked the finish product and did a “save as”. One painting is now a notecard. Just so you understand, I used to give all my little card paintings away but I was sure that very few people valued all the hours I put into painting it so I had decided to come up with these prints.

Are you ready for this? So, Dawn said I needed to take another painting (that’s scanned into the computer) and make another notecard. She was watching me from her home on Team Viewer or something like that. We went step by step and when I tried to merge the painting onto the template, it did the same thing that it had been doing for me. Dawn was shocked…but she’s a smart cookie and a good trouble shooter. Since she was able to maneuver this task from her end, she figured out that my mouse is misbehaving. She is bringing me a different mouse and now I will have notecards to sell along with my books.

This fall I have gone to a few craft fairs along with a couple of book signings and have been happy to be selling more books than ever before. I would say I am not good at marketing my own products so this has been a learning journey! At one point I was finally in the black until I realized that I needed to order more books so back in the red once again. I am very excited to introduce the cards either at the next book signing or at a craft fair.

If any of you are interested in either buying books or cards, please get in touch with me through my email (manager@afaeoriginal). I can mail products but postage is about $6 for one book or four cards. I am sure we can figure something out.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written but I thought you would like to know all the glamour that goes with being a writer and painter. Now that’s funny! I realize that the things I say aren’t always as funny as I think they are.

I have totally enjoyed meeting new people at the craft fairs and look forward to seeing you all soon! May God watch over you as He gives you His rich love and joy!