Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Tuesday 01/18/2011)

I know You Placed It in His Hands, BUT Did You Really Leave It In His Hands?

Matthew 11:28-30 (Amplified Bible)

²⁸Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.] ²⁹Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls. ³⁰For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good--not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne.

Have you ever found yourself in a place where you had some real decisions to make and none of them were easy?  Then you also found you had some circumstances in your life that were weighing heavy on your mind and heart, and you felt as if you had cried it through, prayed over it and still the answer or the resolution had not presented itself?  It seemed that you woke up with the heaviness of these events upon you and you went to bed the same way.  Recently I can honestly say that has been me.  My life is not as simple as it looks and often what I am going through, no one knows but God.  Because of certain events in my life my circle of true friends is quite small and growing smaller by the year, but I have found that I have one friend that is never too busy or too tired to hear me.  He treats me fairly then I often treat Him and He is no fair weather friend He is there in the storms and the rain, the good days and the bad.  He listens when everyone else turns a deaf ear, or is too busy to care.  Each night before I close my eyes to sleep, I give Him all that I am, my fears, my brokenness, my hurts, my disappointments, my stresses and my overwhelming thoughts.  But I give Him something that I feel is more important than any of those things, I give Him my love and attention, and you know what He does, He loves on me, and cradles me.  He wipes away every tear that stains my face at night and those sobs that seem to filter up in the darkness of my midnights, when I feel most alone.  He comforts me, when it feels I cannot be comforted, and causes what seems allusive to me to become sweet and obtainable which is rest and sleep, Hi sweet sleep.

            So many times we are being crushed by life.  Or at least that is how we feel.  We look around and see that we have given love and not received what we have given so selflessly.  We are suffering from a broken heart and no amount of crazy glue or sweet words can make it better.  We have life happening all around us and we are struggling to keep our heads above water, and be able to take in air so we do not suffocate from all of the responsibility that we seem to garner daily. We are walking around with our heads hung down, our shoulders tight because of the stress that is ours, with what we feel is no relief.  We find that those, whom we love and depend on, hardly love us and we can’t depend on.  We struggle to find purpose for all the pressure and peace for all of the constant paradigms. BUT GOD!  With everything that we try to bear, and attempt to shoulder we cannot do it.  We are but flesh blood, and spirit.  It is only when we realize that we need to take our cares to God and give them to Him, and actually leave them that we can find relief.  God has an exchange policy that is out of this world; He takes our issues and our despair and gives us peace and tranquility for them.  For our ashes and our ruins He gives us beauty, for the weakness we feel He gives us strength.  God will take our periods of mourning and give us gladness.  

            God is a friend that never fails, and He is a God that is bigger than every one of our problems.  Anything we have going on He can handle.  There is no past too wild, messed up or out sorts for Him to deal with, to deliver and heal us from.  He is a God that loves us and wants to take all that we have going on and bear it for us.  But the choice is always up to us whether we allow Him to or not.  He is willing, but are we.  All too often we give it and take it back each day.  He wants us to surrender all to Him, so that He can bless us with the peace we desire and the type of life we never even began to think of.  God wants us to trust Him to comfort us and to care for us.  To relieve us of every pain that we endure, and every circumstance that weighs us down, but we must long to be relieved and in a better place for as long as we want to carry it or continue to pick it back up, God will allow us to.  So make the choice today before you close your eyes tonight to give it all to Him, I don’t just mean all the “Things and Issues” but all of you, because with all of us comes all of our issues, baggage, etc.  When we make the choice to do this God can give us abundance that has never been experienced, peace and love that we are missing!