I was very low this past weekend...and pulled up everything I could think of to rise again...and here it is, in case it can help anyone else:
When David was doing his best, while he was away from home, the enemy sneaks in and steals all the women and children of himself and everyone else...and his men blame him for it, he is absolutely stripped and bare...so what does he do? "And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God." I Sam 30:6. Risen Christ says I go to my God and your God. But before the fact we each have our own...our God...our experience, our resources, and our hope, rolled into one.
(How DID he get everything back? I can't remember. *goes to look* Hmm, he puts on priests clothes, asks God what to do, goes after them, finds a straggler (Egyptian) who had been abandoned because he was sick, succors him, and he leads them to the enemies, David beats the tar out of them from twilight to evening (not sure how long that would be) and gets everything back.) I tried to find out what an ephod is - "girdle" and "armor"...if your backbone lets you down then put on an exoskeleton, but whatever you do, when you have turned to jelly you must find some support to STAND UP RIGHT AND WALK ON. (At the moment, my job is my exoskeleton- my spine is crooked and crumbly.)
There were giants in the land, we were as grasshoppers in IN OUR OWN sight, we better stay here, we'll DIE over there. Num 13:33. Oh really? Well you just sealed your fate, you are dead in your tracks - with many of them the Lord was not well pleased, I Cor 10:5, their carcasses fell in the wilderness, Heb 3:17, they could not enter in because of UNBELIEF. (And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men who have transgressed against me...the shells remain, THE WORM SHALL NOT DIE NEITHER SHALL THEIR FIRE BE QUENCHED...like that Burning Bush JUST YOU TRY TO PUT IT OUT LOTSA LUCK WITH THAT...Our God is a Consuming Fire and so are ALL HIS OFFSPRING...if we are deliberately cruel to another don't go asking "jesus" to get your back, nothing remains but a Certain Fearful Looking for of Judgment and FIERY INDIGNATION...Heb 10:25,26, Is 66:24...going off the subject, can't help it...)
(They did not get to go in but their children did. I die daily, born again every morning...all the versions of themselves born in the trial by existence in the wilderness...they come out...only the first generation, with its own set of expectations that could not relinquish them...had to die.)
Unbelief and Fear, twin devils, really the same devil. As long as you cling to sanity and reason they will bedevil you. If you let go of "reality" and walk by faith, they have no hold on you anymore. (But there are some unrealistic people who seem very toxic to me - but to themselves I guess they are the picture of health. I haven't figured it out, how much to let go of reason...I just know that a realistic assessment of the matter will drive you mad...better to be a little unrealistic - and back to the card games, there are always jokers and wild cards that reason can never anticipate and that change the whole circumstance in a moment. I got an email, one of my sorority sisters had a stroke over the weekend - if I had a stroke all my other concerns would immediately recede into insignificance - I know that is true...when I had acute labyrinthitis it was true...if only I could walk upright again, without throwing up - I'd be happy...well I can now...am I happy??? Sometimes...
No temptation hath overtaken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted above that which you are able but will with the temptation make a way of escape.
When you go through the fire I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you.
My fears say something will happen and I will not be able to bear it. But usually it is not about something happening to ME but someone I am intertwined with..."loved one"...
There remaineth a rest to the people of God, but you can't go in except by faith...they could not enter in because of their unbelief. Heb 4:2,6. The word doesn't do you a bit of good without "faith" - or as Tinker Bell put it, a little pinch of pixie dust...a little against hope believing in hope...always hoping...love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
See that none of you suffers as a Murderer or a Thief, or an Evildoer - OR... A BUSYBODY IN OTHER MEN'S MATTERS...
Murderers say others are nothing. Thieves take what belongs to others - some murder and steal at the same time - you are nothing and I'll take your significance and make it my own...evildoers inflict pain...they hurt. (It is written my house shall be called a house of prayer - wishing and hoping and striving for good - for all people but you have made it a den of thieves, why dost thou set at nought thy brother?) But a busybody pretends to be your friend/lover and sets about to run your life for you. Very nasty of me. I deserve to suffer. I Pet 4:15.
If any person suffers after the pattern of Christ, that is, not from his own choices and things over which he had control and understood, but from circumstances that evolved when he was doing the very best he was able and understood (and is there any suffering not like that? Even the busybodies, really...they know not what they do...no one deliberately chooses to be AntiChrist...purely destructive of everything...)...LET HIM NOT BE ASHAMED...let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator, I Pet 4:19. He brought you into this world, he'll take you out. Do the best you can and let it be - father into thy hands I commend my spirit...for even hereunto are ye called, I Pet 2:21