10.20.10: Come On In...The Water's Fine!

So here I am sitting at my new desk diving into a lesson from my Bible study. I will never, ever, cease to be amazed at how - when I ask and come expecting to hear from God - how He will speak to my heart. I hope you find this aspect of Him as amazing as I do...He never fails! Let me slap on my silly and dive on into it! 

...but first, I have to take a moment and share one of my life’s true moments of ignorance. I find it easy (read = in hindsight) to poke fun at the things I believed with all my heart.

While I was in South Carolina for the Army’s Basic Training 8 week course from hell, I sort of found God. Maybe I should say that I realized my need, as an adult, for Him. I imagined my soldiering skills to be so great and fine tuned, that I would find myself in constant mortal danger, being the protector of others and in general living the life of a super hero. It is amazing that I could carry that ego around all by myself! Well who better to assist me than my Creator? I’m really sorry at this point to tell you...that the super hero comment is not “the” moment I’m talking about...it gets better. 

See, I grew up very independent. My parents gave me great confidence in MY abilities. I felt that MY self inflicted duty as a solider for Uncle Sam was to take MY independence and run with it (read = Private Benjamin meets Barney Fife). MY confidence and independence would be used along side God’s abilities. I’m sorry to say that that last statement is also not “the” moment I’m talking about. 

In my mind, when I realized my need for Him at this stage in my life, His role (read = as defined by my finite mind) was to be a protector from what I would face as a super hero. Ok, here’s “the” moment I wanted to share. I was certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that His word, when read in a solemn, quiet and reverenced manner would somehow just wash over me, inundating me with wisdom, direction and knowledge of what I should do with MY abilities. 

Ok, I cringed as I re-read that...it’s all true and really what I believed. I didn’t understand until MUCH later how misguided and so far off the mark I was! I can’t beat myself over it too much though...I was going into this with no guidance what-so-ever & was relying solely on MY abilities to understand the Creator of the Universe. I CAN however, LAUGH about it. At some point I should give you more of my “religious background”, but I’m not sure I should dig the hole that big today. By the way...you can stop laughing now. 

Reading His Love Letter to You is only ONE facet of God. Don’t settle...dive a little deeper...slap on your scuba gear (concordance, dictionary, & thesaurus) and go searching in the depth of His word! 

Let me get myself back on track here...today’s post comes from a word study prompted by Beth Moore as we dive into another of the Psalms of the Ascent. We hovered over ONE verse of scripture for Day One...just one verse! Check out what diving in and searching in the depth of His word yielded...

Psalm 125:1

Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion. 

It cannot be shaken; it remains forever.

In the Strong’s concordance, two of the words have a significant and deeper meaning...

Trust means to have confidence, be sure and be secure.

Mount Zion means/represents a guiding pillar.

When I replace the words trust and Mount Zion with their definitions it shows me a deeper meaning of who I am in Christ when I trust Him:

Those who are confident in the LORD are like a guiding pillar

Those who are secure in the LORD are like a guiding pillar

Those who are sure in the LORD are like a guiding pillar

The study directive was “How would you describe (being confident, being secure, being sure) in the Lord?” - I looked up those three words in the dictionary & thesaurus to grasp a better understand of all the facets and meanings. Then I made a list of the characteristics of someone who is confident, secure and sure of who they are in the Lord. 

Those who are confident in the LORD...

• will not fear man
• will rest in His strength 
• will have no doubt about their future

Those who are secure in the LORD...

• will have protection and provision 
• will live free
• will never be plucked from His hand

Those who are sure in the LORD...

• will be unshakable
• will be satisfied
• will unmistakably be IN this world but not OF this world (oh the difference a preposition can make!!)

One verse people...one verse and I saw God pour out so much! I love to be shown how silly (read = shallow) I was in my thinking of God’s word. His Love Letter to us isn’t just for the casual reader or for reading casually. It’s...an infallible tool created by God for man to help us dive deeper...discover who we are...discover who He is...discover the depth of His love for us...discover how to love. The list goes on, so come on in...the living water's fine!!!!!  

I HOPE YOU’LL DIVE IN SOON!!!