12/02/2008
Psalms 16:7 - 8 (HCSB)
7 I
will praise the LORD who counsels me—
even at night my conscience instructs me.
8 I
keep the LORD in mind always.
Because He is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
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I enjoy traveling, especially abroad. I don’t have a lot of anxiety about going to a place where I don’t know the language. I usually find a way to get what I need. I use hand gestures, point to pictures and try as best I can to learn a rudimentary level of the language. However, I do not like traveling alone. Just the company of a single friend is comforting so that I can share my thoughts, seek advice, ponder the day’s events, and so forth. And if I ever do get into a jam, it’s so comforting to have someone who understands me to help me navigate the situation.
So it is with our God. As children of God, we are actually in a foreign land. When we were adopted into His family, His home became ours. Meanwhile, we sojourn through this foreign land and often times, it seems as if it were some exotic place where ideas, customs, language, and morality are far removed from that of our adopted home.
How pleasant it is to have our Father with us to share our thoughts, seek advice, and ponder the day’s events. How good it is to have a Friend who instructs us in perfect wisdom.
Yet it would be of no benefit for me to have a friend while traveling if I constantly left my friend at the hotel room as I traveled around – or worse, if I left my friend at home altogether. Likewise, we need to consider God our constant friend who is with us always, because He is! We should keep him right beside us in all situations. In every event, we should not only consider His presence, but seek His counsel – even for things that would seem to be a no-brainer. Perhaps God would have us approach the situation in a certain way that we would not intuitively go. And when we do this, when we continually pray and seek His wisdom, we will not be shaken, as it were, by troubles in this life.
Jeff Justus
Cleff Publishing
www.cleffpublishing.com
©2008 Cleff Publishing, all rights reserved.
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