Obtaining Mercy

 

"My best asking falls immeasurably short of my Father's giving." ~ J.H. Jowett

Father, give us faith to ask for what we need and eyes to recognize Your gifts.

May God richly bless your weekend! 🙂
Alesha

 

I do love to receive God's blessings.

It is delightful to pray for something, or to beg for God's intervention, and then to see His answer arrive, just in the nick of time.

However, I will be honest:

I do not want God's blessings at the risk of losing my fellowship with Him.

 

Psalm 106:15 "And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul."

 

The children of Israel were notorious for begging God for His miraculous deliverances again and again; and quite often God came through for them.

Oh, they sang His praises as soon as they were delivered:

 

Psalm 106:10-12 "And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.
 And the waters covered their enemies: there was not one of them left.
 Then believed they his words; they sang his praise."

 

But it did not take them long to start their grumbling and complaining as soon as they had a need:

 

Psalm 106:13-14 "They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel:
 But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert."

 

It is then we see God gave them what they wanted, but He took away something in the process.

The verse above says that He put in their souls a "leanness".

 

LE'ANNESS, n.

1. Destitution of fat; want of flesh; thinness of body; meagerness; applied to animals. 2. Want of matter; poverty; emptiness; as the leanness of a purse. 3. In Scripture, want of grace and spiritual comfort.

 

I do want God's blessings, but do I want to give up His comfort?

Would I trade "things" for His presence in my life?

Do I beg for His gifts and deny His companionship?

 

I don't think that I am any better than the children of Israel.  I am just as selfish and self-centered as they were.  I can very easily focus on the blessings rather than the Blesser, the gifts rather than the Giver.

It is a fault I want to avoid.  It is something that I want to be aware of in my spiritual life. 

I would like to praise the Lord for His goodness, as does the Psalmist at the beginning of this chapter…recognizing the greatness of His Person more than the greatness of His physical blessings.

 

 Psalm 106:1-5 "Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.
 Who can utter the mighty acts of the LORD? who can shew forth all his praise?
 Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times.
 Remember me, O LORD, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation;
 That I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance."

 

 

Hebrews 4:12 "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

 

~The Word of God cuts us…breaks us down into our most base elements…shows us our deepest motives and desires.

 

Hebrews 4:13 "Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do."

 

~Our Heavenly Father sees it all…every thought, every intention, every motivation.

 

Hebrews 4:14-15 "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."

 

~Our Saviour understands all of it.  He has suffered the same temptations that we face.  However, He never sinned…and that gives us hope!

 

Hebrews 4:16 "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

 

~We can go to the Father, no matter the situation; and He will give us mercy and grace and help.

 

 

When I am hurting, when I know my heart is far from my Lord, when there is sin in my life, my basest instinct is to avoid reading the Bible.

I feel guilty.  I feel tired.  I feel hopeless.  I feel alone.  I feel angry.

These feelings encourage me to stay away from Him.

However, my heart knows He loves me.  My mind knows He has guaranteed His help.  My soul desires to rest on His promises.

I must ignore the feelings and trust the facts. 

Even when I don't want to read the Bible, I must nevertheless read It.  I must allow the Lord to meet my needs as I submit my will to His.

The Bible has the answer for every need in our life…Our only true Hope is found in Its pages.

 

John 18:11b "…the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?"

 

"Our afflictions are the price we pay for our ability to sympathize."

 "To have a sympathizing God we must have a suffering Saviour, and there is no true fellow-feeling with another, save in the heart of him who has been afflicted like him."

 

Both of these quotes are from Mrs. Charles Cowman, author of Streams in the Desert.  She and her husband were missionaries in Japan and China.  Many of the thoughts she shared in her book were written while she cared for her husband while he was dying.  She nursed him for six years.

I think so many of us find her book incredibly insightful and comforting because she wrote from her place of suffering.  She was compassionate to those who were hurting, and her legacy continues still today.

For myself, I find that I can immediately and deeply sympathize with a parent who has a sick child. 

You see, I know how it feels to have a sick child.  I know how to pray for those parents.  I know how to help; and I know what to say, and sometimes more importantly, what not to say.

I can also understand and commiserate with those who have underlying or debilitating personal health issues, because I suffer with my own physical problems.  I feel much compassion to those who are sick and hurting.

 

II Corinthians 1:4-7 "Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
 For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
 And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
 And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation."

 

I know that suffering is not pleasant.  Sometimes the pain of it seems more than we can bear.  However, as we suffer we learn how to comfort others.

Perhaps you have no desire to comfort others, and you feel that your suffering is unfair and will not profit you at all.

To that I can only say that in some Divine way, (and it is often difficult for us to understand), our suffering leads to Heavenly glory.

 

Romans 8:17b-18 "…if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

 

God's ways are sometimes hard to understand; but He loved us enough to send His only Son to suffer a cruel, unimaginable death on a cross to pay for our sins.  With that kind of love already shown to us, why do we doubt that even our suffering is part of His loving plan for our lives.

 

When it doesn't make sense to our mortal, human mind,
we must put our faith in the Immortal, Unhuman and Divine Mind of our Heavenly Father. 

We must read His Word and believe with all our heart the words of comfort He speaks to us there.

 

I Peter 4:12-13 "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
 But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy."

 

Romans 4:16-17 "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
 (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

 

"Faith steps on seeming void, and finds the rock beneath." ~Streams in the Desert

 

It is one thing to step out in faith.

It is another thing altogether to continue to walk by faith when you do not see an immediate answer.

Abraham obeyed God by setting out with his son and his servants to follow the Lord's command to sacrifice his son.  He did well, although I'm sure his heart broke when God spoke this command to him.  Each step must have been heavy with dread and grief.

However, did you realize that they traveled for THREE DAYS before they reached the mountain where the sacrifice was to take place?!!

• Three days to contemplate killing his only son
• Three days to reminisce about his miracle child's birth
• Three days of close communion with his treasured boy
• Three days for the fear to grow
• Three days for the doubts to rise
• Three days to wonder if he'd understood God's instructions
• Three days to dread his return home without his son
• Three days to wait in vain for God's intervention

 

Yes, Abraham did well to head toward the mountain to sacrifice his boy, but he did an even greater task to continue the journey when there was no sign of miraculous intervention during the three days' journey to the place of sacrifice.

 

A life of faith is not a life of continual miracles. 

Rather, it is a life of obedience:  doing each small task as the Lord would lead us; putting one foot in front of the other as we follow His commands, however incredible those instructions may seem to us.

Think about Abraham and Isaac's story:

Can you imagine the journey of Abraham and Isaac on the way home???

• Three days to praise their God for His deliverance of Isaac
• Three days to remember hearing the very Voice of God speak to them
• Three days to tell the servants about finding the ram in the thicket
• Three days to decide how to tell Sarah the story of their experience
• Three days to quietly wonder how God would keep His promise to Abraham
• Three days to rejoice about coming home together – father and son

 

Did you step out in faith to obey God's voice in some matter?

Are you still walking in faith and wondering when your miracle is going to occur?

I encourage you to hold on for just a while longer!  Keep moving forward in obedience.  God will not desert you.  He is waiting until just the right moment to send your miracle.

 

"There is nothing, indeed, which God will not do for a man who dares to step out upon what seems to be the mist; though as he puts down his foot he finds a rock beneath him." ~ F.B. Meyer