May 5, 2020 … Out of Strength

Berry Patch Devotions in 2020 - Day 126 

Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ...  Please take the time to take in song and lyrics from Steven Curtis Chapman singing His Strength is Perfect … poignantly singing of how God’s strength is there for Christians when we need it. And then USE THIS LINK  to hear the song God Will Make A Way where Don Moen sings about God making a way in life when we just can’t seem to see His road ahead.

Frustrating writer's block 

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Highlight Verse[s]: 1Kings 19:5 [NLT] ...  5 Then he lay down and slept under the broom tree. But as he was sleeping, an angel touched him and told him, “Get up and eat!” 
… God provides the substance Elijah needed in a dire time of weakness.
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Highlight Passage [context]: 1Kings 19:1-9 [NLT] ... USE THIS LINK ...
… Elijah, suicidally depressed, is restored by God’s providence.
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Reference Passage : … Isaiah 41:10 [NLT] … 10  Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand. 
… God’s promise to a remnant of discouraged believers thru the Prophet Isaiah.

Reference Passage : … 1Corinthians 10:13 [NLT] … 13 The temptations [or “trials”] in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation [or “trial”] to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted [or “tried”], He will show you a way out so that you can endure. 
 … As the linked song tells us … “God will make a way!”

Reference Passage : … 2Corinthians 12:9-10 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul showing what he had learned from Jesus … that God’s grace is ALWAYS sufficient to provide us with HIS strength in our times of weakness.

Reference Passage : … Philippians 4:11-13, 19 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul had learned that n Christ we have all we need in life to make a way when there seems to be no way.

My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Lisa Boucher Pye, uses a personal story of a time suffering from writer’s block where she needed God’s sustaining grace. … The ODB author wrote: One summer, I faced what seemed an impossible task—a big writing project with a looming deadline. Having spent day after day on my own, endeavoring to get the words onto the page, I felt exhausted and discouraged, and I wanted to give up. [see photo] A wise friend asked me, “When’s the last time you felt refreshed? Maybe you need to allow yourself to rest and to enjoy a good meal.” 

We’ve likely all been there, like the ODB author or Elijah (see highlight passage), … where we’ve hit the wall of weakness and perhaps despair, … where there just doesn’t see to be way ahead. Elijah, trying to escape the clutches of an evil Jezebel, became suicidal in his time of weakness. But God came thru for him and provided sustenance to give him the strength he needed and the way forward in life.

I hope all reading here have taken in both linked songs and meditated on the Scriptures from my devotional time this morning. Because, if you have, you should be bolstered by God’s promise to lift us us when we’re down (Is. 41:10) … that God will provide us with His strength when we feel week in times of trial (1Cor. 10:13 and 2Cor. 12:9-10), … and that - In Christ - we have all we need to find contentment and strength (Phil. 4 verses).

So, dear one, even if we’re feeling down and discouraged, we can glean our strength to move forward from God’s sustaining, sanctifying grace. Yes, my friend, “God will make a way where there seems to be no way!” 

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My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh Abba Father, ... thank You, Lord, … for providing me with Your sustaining grace to move forward today.
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My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... I pray, Lord, that all reading here are will join me to seek and receive the strength we need from God’s grace to find His way today … and tomorrow. Amen

Blogger Note:  Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled “Our Daily Bread,” distributed online via email by RBC Ministries.  If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.</ span>