How soon life can be flipped into turmoil, confusion, frustration, tears, heartache...
Considering recent events, I was resting on the couch when one of my sons came and sat against it with a little Bible story book. I watched him flip through the pages and stop to read about the story of the Tower of Babel. God had said to spread out over the earth, but the people had taken matters into their own hands and decided to build a huge tower instead, so they could stick together and BE something.
{and let us make us a name,
lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. Gen 11:4}
...the end result we all know. They all started to speak in different languages resulting in chaos, frustration, confusion....!!!!!!!!!
As I pondered this, I realized this happens when we leave God out of the picture, when we try to do it our way. When we take things into our own hands and not do what God wants us to do.
~When He says for us to school together, work together, farm together....we need to do it
{And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Deut 6:7}
~When He says gather not up treasures here on earth....we need to do it. (interestingly how as we are decluttering, throwing things out, getting ready to sell and packing things away, I found an article on Decluttering. It brought me to another level and I went back and threw out more stuff! =)
{Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth...Matt 6:19}
~When life gets hard and baby bump weighs heavy and pulls me down, physically and mentally, God keeps reminding me to TRUST HIM, to endure...(because He has a plan, and that plan was not what I had planned) but He wants me to go on, in endurance...
{Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. James 5:11}
.....and in place of all things things we put behind us, throw out, put away; we get
PEACE!
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace,
whose mind is stayed on thee:
because he trusteth in thee.
Isa 26:3
The phrase
no God; no peace. Know God; know peace
rings true in every aspect of my life. When I remember that my worth is measured by what GOD thinks of me, rather than man, I can go on through my day joyfully, finding delight and peace and rest in serving my family, the way God wants me, not what the world around me is screaming loudly to me on how to do things, when to do things.....how to talk, how to dress, how to walk...
It brings peace and rest when we are looking at a farm with a small (teeny tiny) house (knowing soon we will be a family of nine) but that we will be together, we will be living side by side, working, schooling, teaching, learning, homesteading...making a living together.
Hard work, but so rewarding and satisfying at the end of the day...
I fear God. I fear consequences. I fear, and therefore I DO.
