It’s easy to skim over the verses below but read them. Keep this in mind: God sends the defeat, just as He does the victory. God sends the wounding even as He does the mending. God sends the chaos along with order.
Is God good in all things? Even if He slay you? Even if He he seems to leave you? Even if He surrounds you with turmoil? Is He still good if He doesn’t heal you in your timing? Is He still good if He sends the rain and the floods? Is He still good if you can’t find His favor? Is He still good if you fail? Is God still good if you are depressed? Is He still good if you feel rejected by Him?
Is God still good if you feel disgraced and humiliated? Is God still good when you are lonely?
Is God still on the Throne? Is He still Captain of the Angel-armies? Has He not appointed an angel assigned to guard you?
This is going to go against a lot of theology but I take more comfort in knowing that if the devil attacked me, I can pay him no mind to him because the Lord allows it for my struggle to know and trust God in a greater way.
At the core of all addictions, is an anger towards God. Every.Single.One. Put aside drug and alcohol addiction. Food. Gambling. Sex. Shopping. Internet. Video Games. Addiction is filling up the void that was PURPOSELY CREATED BY GOD.
A void created by God? It was purposely created by God. A longing, an emptiness, a need that could only be satisfied by Him and when it isn’t, we fill up on other things. This filling up of other things is what happens when the sun goes down on our anger.
We call God good, but we have a biased definition of good. We say we are blessed when we receive good things, but do we say we are blessed when we are persecuted? Do we say we are blessed when we are starved? Do we say we are blessed when we are without resources?
Defeat, like victory is God’s doing. Adversity, like prosperity, is God’s doing. It is too shallow for me to give the devil credit for anything any longer because whoever you give credit to, gets the glory. I’m not going to get into the sickness thing. God’s desire is for you to be healed just as it is His desire for you to prosper and be in victory. But the journey to getting to that place with all its pitfalls, and troubles, is still by God’s hand.
If you can’t see that, you, YOU PERSONALLY, will not rule from a place of victory but defeat. You will continually see that you have to reach a certain goal in order to attain something you will never be able to attain.
Ruling from a place of victory is understanding that though the devil slay you, he was just a tool in the hands of the ONE who loves you in order to refine you. Jesus Himself said, regarding His own death:
John 10:17 For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again.
vs 18 No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
Psalm 44:2 O God, we have heard with our own ears;
our ancestors have told us
The deeds you did in their days,
with your own hand in days of old:
vs 3 You rooted out nations to plant them,
crushed peoples and expelled them
vs 4 Not with their own swords did they conquer the land,
nor did their own arms bring victory;
It was your right hand, your own arm,
the light of your face for you favored them.
vs 5 You are my king and my God,
who bestows victories on Jacob.
vs 6 Through you we batter our foes;
through your name we trample our adversaries.
vs 7 Not in my bow do I trust,
nor does my sword bring me victory.
vs 8 You have brought us victory over our enemies,
shamed those who hate us
vs 9 In God we have boasted all the day long;
your name we will praise forever.
Selah
vs 10 But now you have rejected and disgraced us;
you do not march out with our armies.
vs 11 You make us retreat before the foe;
those who hate us plunder us at will.
vs 12 You hand us over like sheep to be slaughtered,
scatter us among the nations.
vs 13 You sell your people for nothing;
you make no profit from their sale.
vs 14 You make us the reproach of our neighbors,
the mockery and scorn of those around us.
vs 15 You make us a byword among the nations;
the peoples shake their heads at us.
vs 16 All day long my disgrace is before me;
shame has covered my face
vs 17 At the sound of those who taunt and revile,
at the sight of the enemy and avenger.
vs 18 All this has come upon us,
though we have not forgotten you,
nor been disloyal to your covenant.
vs 19 Our hearts have not turned back,
nor have our steps strayed from your path
vs 20 Yet you have left us crushed,
desolate in a place of jackals;
you have covered us with a shadow of death.
vs 21 If we had forgotten the name of our God,
stretched out our hands to another god
vs 22 Would not God have discovered this,
God who knows the secrets of the heart?
vs 23 For you we are slain all the day long,
considered only as sheep to be slaughtered.
Once while sitting alone in my room
Reading and writing a psalm
I felt a quick jart
Thrust into my heart
Its removal felt more like a balm
I was caught in a daze
And my eyes were a glaze
It was nothing like I’d ever known
Painful yet sweet
And while still in my seat
I found that I wasn’t alone
“I wounded and healed you so no one else could”
I heard audibly with my ears
I sat, at a loss
Then saw Him on the cross
His side jabbed by a much larger spear
Blood flowed out like water
Bones exposed to all men
“Forgive! They know not what they do”
Then He looked straight at me
Saying
“All Glory be
To the One who makes all things brand new”
by darlene rose
8-23-07
