Prayer for deliverance Continued

In reading the scriptures I came across these scriptures in Psalm 119 that just seemed to go along with my prayer for deliverance. Frequently praying the scripture helps to form the words in prayers where we have no idea what we want to say.

"Lord God I open my mouth panting expectantly, longing for Your commands. Come and show me Your mercy as You do for all who love Your name. Guide my steps by Your word, so I will not be overcome by any evil. Rescue me from the oppression of evil people then I can obey Your commandments. Look down on me with love. Teach me all your principals." Ps 119:131-135

I don't know about you but often when I open my mouth I do so to stick my foot in it, however, with this scripture they talk about panting expectantly and longing for God's commands. Good advice wouldn't you say? I think so.

The next part is asking the Lord to guide our steps and rescue us that we may not be overcome by evil. The part about this that we fail to see is the fact that in order to have God guide us properly we need to follow. We would like to leave off the part about "so I can obey Your commandments." No, no, no not that! Not the "O" word, obedience.

We like the thought of being delivered from the hands of the evil people out there but we don't want to have to do our part in the process. We get ourselves into all sorts of trouble and expect instant deliverance with no effort on our part at all.

Our desire needs to more on the obeying of God's commands and panting expectantly for them and if we do this we already have overcome a great deal of the evil that is around us. What a blessing it is to know that God is looking down upon us with love, our return to Him for that love is to be the student we need to be as we state, "Teach me ALL your principals."

ALL God's principals, not just the ones we like and agree with, we need to be taught all of them and again deliverance is ours. Praise the Lord.

Bend in the Road

As I travel to town daily to go to work I go around a bend in the road that was nicknamed “Dead man’s corner” many years ago. Over a long period of time it earned that name because of the people who were killed there. This includes the drunk driver that hit my husband, brother, and their best friend. It was on this corner that as I came into it I found my adopted granddaughter and her mom sitting on the side of the hill waiting for a ride to rescue them from the car troubles they were having. I picked them up and took them home, the car was rescued later.

Life is full of bends in the roads. As much as we would like to travel from Point A to Point B with the straightest of all road it doesn’t work that way. Funny thing about a straight road, they can be boring which makes the journey appear to be longer than it really is.

The bends in the roads we encounter can come from situations such as being diagnosed with cancer, told your spouse wants a divorce, troubles with raising kids, problems at work, and so much more. These are all disruptive moments that come up in our lives that we need to be prepared to handle.

Unless you are familiar with the road you don’t know what is around the bend. We trust in the road department that they don’t have some surprise on the other side. We trust that the road is built well enough that we can get through to where we want to go.

With life’s situations that create bends in our roads we need to trust God as our road department that He knows what He’s doing. That the road we are traveling won’t end up in a surprise on the other side.

When traveling in a car we are taught to have some kind of provisions tucked away in case something happens. And trust me things can happen such as flat tires, dead batteries, trees blocking the roads, lost drivers and so much more. In our spiritual journey we need to be prepared to take with us the provisions God supplies through His grace, mercy, strength, and wisdom.

The bends in the roads we encounter don’t have to earn the nickname “dead man’s corner.” How we handle the situations we come up upon will determine whether we will live through them or allow our spirit to die there and go no further.

Years ago with my epilepsy I once had it created a very big bend in my road. I was declared disabled, lost my job, my driver’s license was taken away, I was told to never have kids all in the span of the first month or two of my new marriage. Many times thanks to pity parties and discouraging moments I stopped on the side of the road and wanted to quit. It was there that I wanted to die but God wouldn’t let me. Little did I know at the time he was traveling with me through these bends, he was the one that rounded the corner and found me sitting on the hillside as He asked me if I needed a ride.

Praise the Lord we have God with us during these moments. We should never doubt that. Just because He is there doesn’t guarantee us smooth sailing, what His promise is, is a safe landing on the other side.

As I travel into the next bend in my road with cancer I’m glad God is still with me. The hard times I face are not punishment for bad behavior from yesterday but for blessings in my future to learn what I need to learn in the classroom of hard knocks. My teacher travels with me, on my spiritual car I’m traveling in I hang up a sign on the trunk that says, “Student driver. How’s my driving? Call Jesus.”