Unworthy! Defeated! Overwhelmed!
September 13, 2017
Dale & Jeannie Daly
Have you ever felt these three words described your life as it was at that period of time? Maybe feeling like Elijah when the brook he was sitting by dried up. The dwindling brook can so easily be a picture of many lives today. The dry brook can appear as if the history of our yesterdays and now clouding our tomorrows causing us to think that little will ever change. Sometimes when there’s not enough money to make ends meet, it’s then that a ‘well-meaning person’ comes along and tells you that you need to make a budget. Are they kidding? Are they serious? Or perhaps there’s turmoil in your household! Your marriage! Disorder in the home with children or grandchildren! Or it may be the mayhem that has invaded your life is from an unruly neighbor who outwardly acts as if he or she would have much preferred if you were living in another town. Issues and problems of life come in all sort of sizes and shapes, and no one is immune to its attacks.
Are you feeling unworthy? Defeated? There are thousands upon thousands who are overwhelmed! For some their personal battles have nothing to do with those already mentioned. For them this day, following the destruction left behind by Hurricane Harvey or Irma; their sense of defeat and being overwhelmed comes from what they see all around them that is now little more than wreckage left behind by Harvey’s and Irma’s vicious wind, water, and waves that invaded their personal territory.
Will there ever be light again? Will the sun shine again? Will the stars ever glow brightly again? And the answer is, YES! Yes! There will be light again! The sun will shine again! And the stars will glow brightly again! How can I be so confident to be able to say that to be so? Because of the Word of God! The Bible! The truth of God’s Word! The Word that never…nor can it ever…fail!
Words found in Deuteronomy chapter 30 remind us we have a choice when life’s situations seem to have flooded in. Verses 11-16 in the NLT read: The word the Lord is “…giving you today is not too difficult to understand, and it is not beyond your reach. It is not kept in heaven, so distant that you must ask, ‘Who will go up to heaven and bring it down so we can hear it and obey?’ It is not kept beyond the sea, so far away that you must ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to bring it to us so we can hear it and obey?’ No, the message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart so that you can obey it.” Now listen! “Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. For I command you this day to love the Lord your God and to keep His commands, decrees, and regulations by walking in His ways.” Unworthiness! Defeatism! A sense of feeling overwhelmed will soon disappear in the light of Who He is and who you are in Him!
There is a story about a small little apple tree that stood in the midst of a great forest of oak trees. As the story goes, each night the little tree would look up at the huge oak trees and through its branches be able to see the stars shining and radiating their brightness. The little tree thought to himself that it appeared as though stars where hanging from each and every branch, and it turned to God and asked if it could have stars on its branches. The Lord answered as He often does. “Be patient!” Every night was the same as the little tree looked upward to the tall oak, and then asked God again to please give it stars like the giant oak. The reply came back, “Be patient! My little one!”
One night, the little apple tree was especially sensing unworthy, defeated, and overwhelmed with its smallness. “Will I ever get those stars?” It was then God sent a great wind that caused one of the newly formed apples to fall from the little tree, and when it fell to the ground it split in half. Amazingly…there in the middle of the apple was a star! A “star” had been hanging from the branches of the little apple tree all the while! When an apple is sliced straight across, the image of a star can be seen.
Isn’t that what the Bible has been telling us all along! The opening verse reminds us the heavens are not just out there a trillion miles in distance, but no matter the distance they are meant, in one way, to be an example to us of the “star,” the inner light that shines inside of us, and is there waiting to be shown to others.
There is someone, someplace, that is worse off, and needs to see the light shining in you to bring them hope, letting them know that they no longer need to feel unworthy, defeated, and overwhelmed. Daniel 12: 3 reads, “Those who are wise and shine as bright as the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, will shine like the stars forever.”
Roy T. Bennett said, “To shine your brightest light is to be who you truly are.” And Jeffrey Fry gives words of encouragement to, “Shine brightly, so you can help those who have not found their path a way through the darkness.”
Blessings,
Psalm 20:7
Dale & Jeannie
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