Valley Women's Encouragement Conference

You can be sure that hard times will come. If they don’t you are either living in oblivion or you are simply not a threat.

We are told to not be surprised at the fiery trials that come upon us (1 Pet.4:12). If we are true followers of Christ then we will have opposition. Simply the fact that we are Christ’s is enough for Satan to wage war against us much of the time.

Many difficulties are just the offspring of our own foolish choices. We all mess up and create problems for ourselves naturally. But there are times when it is obvious that Satan is turning up the heat in battle and we go through a heavy time. Life is not perfect. Life is not always good. It is during this time that I read Psalm 60…

“Thou hast made the earth to tremble; thou hast broken it: heal the breaches thereof; for it shaketh. Thou hast showed thy people hard things; thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment.”

We are in a hard place. My family feels pummelled. It just won’t stop. There is always just one or two more things that happen in an attempt, I believe, to wear the whole lot of us down.

Have you seen Facing the Giants? Remember that part when all the guys are exhausted and lying around on the football field after their practice and the coach does something unexpected? He straps one of the guys onto the back of the captain of the team and blindfolds him. Then, tells him he has to crawl with the extra weight of his team member on his back across the football field as far as is physically possible….. already tired from the previous practice. Nobody thinks he’ll make it far, but then when the going got really tough the coach starts yelling ‘encouragements’ at his side, “I need 3 more downs!! Don’t you give up on me! I NEED 3 MORE DOWNS!!!”,  and his teammates cheer in amazement from the side as he makes it all the way to the end zone. All shocked that, indeed, it really could be done and there was so much more stamina left in him than they all thought in the beginning.

That’s what we feel like right now. We feel like right when it was supposed to be all over, more is heaped up on our plate and we have even more to do…

…but God is at work.

“I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performers all things for me.” Psalm 57:2

These times of trouble and exhaustion are not the time for subtlety. It is during this kind of time that I read the Psalm about the Lord allowing hard things in the lives of his children.

Those times when God allows His voice to seem silent and the very earth moving unsteady under our feet.

That time we are in horrid astonishment of how far we have been taken…

Then… Then, there is that next verse that caught my eye. Follow me…

“Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah. That thy beloved may be delivered; save with thy right hand, and hear me.”

When the earth around you shakes with the uncertainty of the future. When nothing is going right and it feels that God has gone quiet or turned away from you, that is the time to take His banner and raise it as high as you can. In the middle of the battle field, raise that banner of truth up for all to see…. for all that want to follow His ways to get connected once again and refocused. Raise it up, gather together, and press on, waiting in confidence for the deliverance that God promises to those that trust Him.

It truly is God that performeth all things for me. I can’t do it. He has to accomplish it; whatever it is that He purposes.

“Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man. Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies.” vs.11,12.

In the dark times get into the Word even more and  raise that banner even higher! Display the truth even more. Proclaim God’s goodness in the midst of the darkness you are in.
Show the hope of Christ.
Because, through God we shall do valiantly!! He it is that shall tread down our enemies!!!

~Shannon