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Be Strong and Very Courageous!
I’ve been reading this morning…Joshua 1:1-9. God’s promise to Joshua and to the Children of Israel is that the land lying ahead of them is theirs for the taking. The battles await, but through trust and obedience, these people WILL be delivered into this wonderful land of milk and honey! A very evident message of encouragement! Verse 9 is the most encouraging of all for me.
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
How simple it is to be strong and courageous…NOT!!! The concept is easy but actions of strength and courage are not.
If I were lifting weights or sprinting up a hill, I’d have a tangible example of my strength (not that I can do either of those with any ummmphhhh!). Or if I were walking through a dark alley, with my head held high exhibiting no fear, I’d be able to measure my courage (not likely to see me walking through a dark alley, either!).
But in a life filled with challenges and dilemmas, showing strength and courage can be difficult. How do you hold your head high when your heart has plummeted to the floor and shattered around your feet? How do you boldly walk forward when the path ahead of you is treacherous, dark and loaded with danger? The promise of these scriptures in Joshua is very clear…”The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go”.
Not a person on this earth, can exist without facing trying times or scary situations and the truth is, pain hurts so very much and fear is very scary!
We have a loved one preparing to travel across the world into a country filled with turmoil and danger, yet on Friday he will board a plane to begin this journey. A land where Christians are few and the hazards are plenty! What an opportunity he will have to show a strength and courage that is tangible! We feel frightened for him…and the Lord says, “I am with you always!”
A funeral was just performed yesterday for the husband of one of gospel music’s most talented singers and a fellow sister in Christ. Today, the sun is up, the day is new, her heart is shattered and the pain in her life is overwhelming. This is one of those times when having strength and courage is the only way to survive. Our hearts break for her pain…and the Lord says, “I am with you always”.
I read a story that helps me understand how it is that strength and courage are put into action:
A child who had to walk past a very dark, spooky house each night on the way home was filled with fear. He was offered help from some adults close to him. The first, gave him a good luck charm to ward off ghosts, he clutched it tightly in one hand and gripped insurmountable fear with the other. Another adult trying to help, had a bright light installed on the street near the corner of the house. He gazed towards the light while trembling with fright. The third adult, suggested “It is a sin to be afraid, Trust God and be brave”. While it was good advice, it certainly didn’t help his feet to move more steadily.
The last adult said, “I know what it’s like to be afraid. Take my hand and I will walk with you.” With that, the anxiety and despair melted away, and the little boy took the hand of his protector and boldly forged ahead with newfound confidence and assurance.
Strength and Courage seem to be easy words. How often do we say or hear, Hang in there, be strong – have courage? Words alone do not provide the confidence. It is only by total faith do we believe that we are not alone, that Jesus walks beside us holding our hand, leading us into the place of victory, that we are able to proceed with abandon. The path will not be easy. There is no assurance of ease on your journey…but you are promised that you are not going it alone. He walks before us, behind us, and beside us!
Through Christ, we have strength for every weakness and courage for every fear. Boldly, because he has promised that he will NEVER leave us nor forsake us, we can pray…
“Lord, I give these terrifying things over to you and ask that you lead me into this land of the unknown. Thank you for the promise that you will be with me always, even unto the ends of the earth. Thank you that you have a firm grip on my hand. Give me the strength and the courage to hold fast to yours”.
Take time this week to read (over and over again) Joshua 1:1-9. Take heart and take hold of his promise…”I WILL be with you wherever you go”!
Be strong and very courageous until you reach your home!
Maria
Sometimes there are little things!
I could pretend that you’ve missed multiple blog posts throughout the summer – my tiny gems that have not yet been uncovered…WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN??? BUT, I suppose you might start to sift back through our blog and find nothing since, well, I didn’t even want to look at when the last post might have been – so let’s just move on!
We’ve had a great, busy, fun summer (so the blog suffered a little? you say) and the blog suffered a little. Partly because there was always something going on and partly because sometimes you just get a little writer’s block – for a few straight months! So, I’ll try to chop up that block today…hey, don’t worry, miracles do still happen!
I was wondering today why it seems that miracles are sometimes not going on. I’ve spent a lot of time this summer in prayer for Rejoice!, for my family, for me, for people around me (and I spent a little bit of time praying for the girl at Burger King who seemed really angry that I was coming through the drive-through a few days ago). I guess sometimes I get a little down wanting, desperately needing, some major miracle to occur!
- You know, a check in the mail for insurance premiums that I over paid – instead, ”just the bill ma’am, please pay the bill”…hrrrumph!
- A relative (one I never knew existed) has passed on to her heavenly reward and, yes, has left her BMW (mint condition – because she really didn’t drive much) to – ME!!!!! (Allowing me to junk my jeep, that keeps eating up my insurance premium money) No, no notices in the mail today of unexpected blessings, no child who has decided to never get me riled, and to do his homework without being asked and to clean house everyday after school without expecting a dime…no, so far today, everything’s just “normal”.
Actually, though, come to think of it…my jeep decided it didn’t want to run anymore just hours BEFORE I needed to head out on the road for a destination a couple of hours away…allowing me NOT to be stranded, a woman, alone on a dark interstate…
and the other day I dropped my favorite baking dish, hard, onto my porcelain sink, and it bounced but didn’t break…
and the mean girl at Burger King actually gave me my food and nothing was wrong with it…(at least, I didn’t notice anything, oh gross)
and the 3rd air conditioner repair man who visited, said we didn’t actually need to replace the entire air conditioner (like the other two) but that for $140 he could have us back up and running (thus stopping the sweat from running down my face)…
and my dog almost ate the cat…but at the last moment the cat zigged and zagged just right…and was free (1 life down, 8 to go) Read the rest of this entry »
Folks, would you please put your hands together for Tyler Vestal!!
And the crowd goes wild…Tyler Vestal, our bass singer, is now a graduate!!!!! Last Friday, Tyler walked across the stage at the Greensboro Coliseum to receive his high school diploma…and the 3 mom’s wipe their eyes as their hearts are filled with pride. What an accomplishment!
Since Tyler was a little boy, he has faithfully spent his weekends on the road with Rejoice! AND his Mondays mornings holding up his head in a high school class room! Not kidding here, he actually has a method for propping his head with both his hands so that it looks like he’s engrossed in his textbook in a way that no one can tell that he’s actually catching up on his zzzz’s not working on his ABC’s. The only trouble, he says, is when his head slips out of his hands and nearly hits the desk with a thud…LOL…can you just see that? You know, he could have unpaid fines for damage to textbooks – drool stains can wreak havoc on those pages! (goodness, I hope none of his teachers are reading this post!) (can you repossess a diploma?)
The Graduate
Am I Qualified for this Job?
Baby needs new shoes - mommy needs to get to work! Actually, Rejoice! has all sorts of needs right now in order to further our ministry:
- from sound equipment
- to a new recording project
- to transportation
- to feeding Tyler week in and week out (only half-joking)
- to new shoes (just kidding, er, well, sort of - but We do love us some new shoes!)…
To bring you up to date, I’ve promised the group that I will take on creating new bookings with a vengeance! I definitely have a sales background but sometimes selling something that is so closely connected to you (i.e. selling yourself) can be so hard! Continuing to fill the calendar with appearances is the way Rejoice! gets to continue to move forward. Over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself on a bit of a roller coaster…I can do this…who do I think I am…this is a no-brainer…how in the world do I think I’m qualified for being a booking agent! I know, that’s a lot of ups and downs, forwards and backwards – hey, you should have been on the ride with me – head spinning and mind scrambling to say the least!!!! Read the rest of this entry »
I can’t drive 55!!
We had a great weekend in the mountains of West Virginia and met some wonderful people! We were singing in a little town called Spencer on Saturday night. If you think you’ve heard of the middle of nowhere, well you just think again – there’s a new middle of nowhere and it IS somewhere in West Virginia! We took Hwy 119 for many, many miles and there were more curlers and hair pin turns than a beauty shop on Saturday mornings! I felt like our trailer was flying around those curves like a metal pinball in an arcade game! Mark, our dedicated driver, engineer, and all around chief of “I’m just here to please” was apparently working on his all time high score! Ding, ding, ding Read the rest of this entry »
What to pray??
Ah, morning in a household with teenagers! What could be sweeter? Um, yes, reality! There wasn’t much sweet about it – pretty chaotic actually! Somehow, each morning God gives me the grace to begin waking up my children with a calm and gentle voice and then within about 20 minutes, gentleness has given way to an all out battle cry! GET UP NOW or else…
I pray about it – I do – every morning just before heading in to the little darling”s rooms – that I will have a gentle spirit, that they will hear me softly calling, and that our morning will be filled with love and laughter and birds singing, yes, birds. I’m not sure upon which towel rack I place the grace that God has given me but it seems awfully easy to discard when trying to get them to hear me and to put one foot, then the next, on the floor and sleepwalk towards the shower. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, here we are! We’re world wide webbing, texting, facebooking, tweeting and now blogging!
Rejoice!
Well, we’ve done it! After much resistance, we are moving into this age of being fully connected! It’s hard to believe that back in, oh, about 1998, I was having trouble double-clicking a mouse (used to be that I just screamed when I saw one) and now here we go blogging to an entire world with a just few keystrokes! This could be an interesting ride but hang with us as we give it a whirl! I guess change is a good thing because it keeps us learning and growing but, wow, it can make you feel dense! Hey, no blonde jokes here, please! How amazing it is to be able to connect with people you may never meet in person here on earth! Read the rest of this entry »
