The Olive May Fail

 “Though the fig tree 

may not blossom,

Nor fruit be on the vines;

Though the labor 

of the olive may fail,

And the fields yield no food;

Though the flock 

may be cut off from the fold,

And there be no herd 

in the stalls--

Yet I will rejoice in the LORD,

I will joy 

in the God of my salvation.

The LORD God 

is my strength;

He will make my feet 

like deer’s feet,

And He will make me walk 

on my high hills.”

A number of years ago, at the beginning of a one year time period that was one of our worst years — a time of severe and long-lasting pain for me that held no end in sight — a physically miserable, emotionally devastating year filled with tests and imaging and surgery and a long recovery, I went to a pastors’ wives retreat. At the retreat, the Lord gave me a song. I had not yet walked through what was coming. And I knew I would be walking through something. 

“The joy of the Lord 

will be my strength

I will not falter, 

I will not faint

He is my Shepherd, 

I am not afraid

The joy of the Lord 

is my strength

The joy of the Lord

The joy of the Lord

The joy of the Lord 

is my strength

The joy of the Lord 

will be my strength

He will uphold me 

all of my days

I am surrounded 

by mercy and grace

And the joy of the Lord 

is my strength

The joy of the Lord

The joy of the Lord

The joy of the Lord 

is my strength

The joy of the Lord 

will be my strength

And I will not waiver, 

walking by faith

He will be strong 

to deliver me safe

And the joy of the Lord 

is my strength

The joy of the Lord

The joy of the Lord

The joy of the Lord 

is my strength”

You can be suffering pain, uncertainty, lack of resources, loss of relationships, and so many other miseries AND still be surrounded by His mercy and grace. I did not know if I would physically survive that year. And some days I turned my face to the wall and just laid there, heart open in wordless pain to the Lord. I fretted that my children would be motherless, and my husband widowed. And then I trusted them to Him who loves them better than me. I sat in a chair much of that year. 

And the Lord sustained me. He delivered me. He walked the valley with me, and brought me out again. 

You might think I don’t like hearing that song anymore. But you’d be wrong. 

When I hear it, and when I sing it, I remember how the Lord helped me endure when I couldn’t endure. How He gave me courage and taught me to trust Him when my prayers felt like they fell to the floor. How it isn’t abundant circumstances that give us abundant life. 

The joy of the Lord is my strength.

How To Sustain

Sunday morning, February 28,
I was in the Word
and had my attention drawn to two passages of Scripture.
The first is Proverbs 15:4:
"A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: 
but perverseness in it breaks the spirit."
A wholesome tongue.
A healing tongue.
Another version called it a gentle tongue.

So, I was praying about that.
Thinking about what James says about our tongues.
A very world of iniquity.
And that the man who has control over that is a perfect man.
I prayed for forgiveness and transformation.
Because I have not achieved such perfection.
And sometimes, the words escape me.

I want to heal with my words. 
To restore and redeem. 
To reconcile. 
To build up.
To bless You and Your people. 

Then the Lord brought my attention to Isaiah 50:4:
"The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, 
that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary."
Ah, Lord-- give me the tongue of those who are taught.
I want to know how to sustain the weary with a word. 

I read through these with my children, and we prayed together about them, too.

Sunday afternoon my brother went to the ER
because a pharmacist told him to when he saw his swollen elbow.
Tuesday afternoon, he went in for exploratory surgery
because of an infection that was not responding to antibiotics, and kept growing.
In surgery, he finally got a diagnosis: necrotizing fasciitis.
Maybe you never heard of it.
You probably don't want to.
I actually already knew what it was
because we have a family friend
whose life God miraculously spared from it in the 1990s.

A number of us skipped dinner for intercession,
(my oldest three children joined in that decision).
I did not sleep much.
My brother's ambulance was arriving at his third hospital very late,
and I wanted as much news as I could get.
And I was praying.

Once he was in surgery again,
and I knew the news would be awhile in coming, I grew so tired.
I fell asleep on my phone.
When I woke up, in the wee hours of the morning,
I looked at my phone and saw a little conversation, but still no news.
I prayed again, and found myself thanking God
for my brother, my family, my parents and my husband,
my very dear brothers and sisters in Christ
who were awake praying over my baby brother,
doctors and nurses who care and strain themselves doing it.

My sister said a little while later that she had fallen asleep
feeling guilty that she was so tired she couldn't stay awake.
So tired.
But here's the thing, and what really has been balm:
While we were collapsing exhausted,
the Lord was waking up people who love Him to intercede.
I've heard from at least fifteen people
(and I do not doubt there are more)
who were awakened to pray in the night.
And I think of Moses standing with his arms lifted but weary,
and friends who care coming in to support.
And I am overwhelmed with gratitude
at God's handiwork in uniting a family that is not family.
I am so thankful for the family He placed me in,
that transcends states and nations, that crosses over time zones.
When one member suffers, we all suffer.
Bless the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits.

And yesterday, as I was pondering the whole thing,
and thinking how like to flesh eating bacteria
the growing evil in our nation and world is,
and how we need to be directed to the care of a doctor,
to have the condition recognized for what it is,
to be scrubbed clean of it,
and to be prayed over,
but we are too tired and weak to intercede alone --
the words came back from Sunday morning again.

A wholesome tongue.
A healing tongue.
The tongue of those who are taught.
That I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.
Because we are weary.
My brother's body is weary.
And prayer and the Word sustain.

And perhaps God will have mercy on our nation if we call out to Him.
Those who are taught intercede.

A Mouse Is Responsible

I came across a news item that began thus:
"A mouse is responsible for triggering a stampede in a mosque 
in the Moroccan city of Casablanca 
which left more than 80 people injured, officials say."
It went on to say, "Worshippers were reported to have fainted 
after a mouse crossed over a woman's foot while she was praying, 
causing her to rush outside and creating panic among worshippers."

We had a mouse problem in a former house.
They had grown bold, and ran right across the living room while we were in it.
One night, my husband was sitting on the floor, and a mouse ran past him.
Without thought, his hand flew at it, and it was knocked out.
In fact, it might have died instantly.
He picked it up by the tail and flushed it down the toilet.
A mouse is a slappable fear.
A flushable fear -- until we let it stampede us.
Because our stampeding can crush real lives.
The stampede was what injured the crowd.
Have you ever been stampeded by a mouse?

I fight fear.
Crippling fear, at times.
Gut-wrenching, knee-shaking fear.
Stampeding fear.
One way I fight it is to let it knock me down,
and then I pray there.
I try swallowing it, sometimes, but it comes back up.
I feel my heart swell and pound,
and my resolve turn to Jello.
And my thoughts race to a bunker filled with organic canned goods
and solar-powered electronics
and books
and gold pieces
and plenty of yarn to knit.
But then what?
I don't want to live in the bunker.
So I drop down again on the weak knees, and let myself say it all there.
All the fears,
and the griefs for things that are someone else's reality that I can't fix.
The distress over world affairs that are so wrong.
They're so, so wrong.
They are sickeningly, damningly wrong.
And the good guys are only half as guilty...

Back to my knees.
Lord, You had mercy on the children in Nineveh.
You were willing to rescue Lot's daughters from Sodom. 
There is no hope in us... but YOU are merciful. 

Peter said things to women that jump out at me and run through my mind:
"...your pure behaviour in fear, 
whose adorning--let it not be that which is outward, 
of plaiting of hair, 
and of putting around of things of gold, 
or of putting on of garments, 
but--the hidden man of the heart, 
in the incorruptible thing of the meek and quiet spirit, 
which is, before God, of great price, 
for thus once also the holy women who did hope on God, 
were adorning themselves, being subject to their own husbands, 
as Sarah was obedient to Abraham, 
calling him `sir,' of whom ye did become daughters, doing good, 
and not fearing any terror."

He mentions faultless behavior in fear,
but then says not fearing any terror.
Not put to flight by fear.
Hmmm.
Perhaps a faultless response to fear 
is not to surround ourselves with gold and garments,
but to stock up on meekness and a quiet spirit.
That's rich currency with God.
Holy women hope on Him.
They dress themselves in obedience.
They do good in the very face of the fear.
And they are not stampeded.

Stars and Sand and Every Hair

Grains of sand and all our hairs.

A friend posted a link to a photograph NASA released
that focused in on one quarter of the Andromeda Galaxy,
which is a very small section of the visible universe to us, here on earth.
It is 2.5 million light years away, and the sharpest photo NASA has.
100 million stars individually recognizable in it.
My son and I watched the video that spanned the photograph.
It took a video to look over the image, because it is a huge image.
Part of the galaxy was so densely starred
that it appeared more light than dark.
"It looks like sand!" my son exclaimed.

"That's an interesting comment," I said,
"because stars and sand
are what God promised Abraham's descendants would be like."

The stars.
Whenever I felt troubled as a teenager,
I would go out in the dark and look up.
So vast.
Innumerable.
It reminded me of how vast God's knowledge and His power are.
How the choreography of the heavens is His handiwork.
How His mind comprehends all these things I cannot fathom.
The heavens declare the glory of God.
He sees the big picture.
Bigger than we have yet comprehended.

Ah, but the sand...
From the vastness of the heavens to the grains of the earth.
Details I'm too big and important to take notice of.
I walk on it.
But I don't get close enough to count it.
The sand touches me, but I don't know it.
Not like that.
I've seen so little of it.
Those things that are so out of my reach,
and the ones that are so easily touchable,
are both unknowable to me,
and intimately known to Him.

Surely if human beings can zoom in
on a galaxy 2.5 million light years away
and recognize individual stars clustered like sand,
He can see me.
I'm a lot bigger than a grain of sand, and He has counted them.

"You comprehend my path and my lying down, 
and are acquainted with all my ways."
I am not even acquainted with all my ways.
I have talked in my sleep and not known it, but according to Psalm 139,
"There is not a word on my tongue, 
but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether."
The sum of His thoughts toward me is more in number than the sand.

"The hairs of your head are all numbered," Jesus said.
"Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul."
Do you need that reminder?
I often do.
Why not fear death?
Because He is Life.
Because He was raised from the dead.
Because connection with Him will raise us, too.
And those who serve and worship darkness and death
cannot snuff out Light and Life,
no matter how many they put to sleep for a little while.

Did You Forget?

I went to a ladies' retreat this weekend.
I think it has been five years since I last went to one.
Lydia came with me and together
we sat behind a screen set up for nursing mothers,
and I listened as carefully as I could between nursing and changing
and shushing any whimpers that started up.

I am normally a note taker,
and that helps me to process and retain the teaching that I hear.
When my arms are full of babies and their belongings, it's all I can do to listen.

The speaker paused fairly early into her first session
and asked for a verse from the audience.
Someone said a reference I recognized
from close enough to me that I could hear it plainly.

The speaker asked her to say the verse.
The familiar words came in like an old friend.
I know these words.
The ones He spoke to me through three different people in the same week
nearly two dozen years ago.

The speaker's voice smiled,
and later on in the teaching, she had more things to say about that same verse.
When I had a moment, I wrote the words down again to remind myself;
once on the provided note paper,
and once on a tiny little card I could put in my pocket.

I left the retreat earlier than the other ladies,
so I could help my husband get the kids to church this morning.
After church, I walked into my husband's office and stood next to his desk,
looking at the papers and books he had there.
I saw a piece of paper and picked it up.
It was a tattered index card, and I recognized my own handwriting:
"Do not fear, for I am with you; 
Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. 
I will strengthen you, 
surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand."
~ Isaiah 41:10

In The Multitude of My Anxieties

"Unless the Lord had been my help,
my soul would soon have settled in silence.
If I say, 'My foot slips,'
Your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up.
In the multitude of my anxieties within me,
Your comforts delight my soul."
~Psalm 94:17-19

As a child, I loved flying.
In fact, I loved it until September 11, 2001.
My anxiety increased with each trip taken after that.
In 2010 I stopped flying
when the Obama administration
instituted its new security measures against even innocent American citizens.
Since then, I have taken some long car drives,
and even a long train trip (which I recommend heartily).

But earlier this month, we were asked to come out
and be introduced to the church.
It was an internal wrestling match for me.
I intended to send my husband alone, and stay behind.
I am that courageous.

Some of you fly without anxiety, I suppose.
Perhaps being irradiated in the name of security doesn't bother you.
Perhaps being pulled out for additional screening
every time you've flown (save one) since 2003 doesn't disturb you.
But it has disturbed me.
Maybe you don't mind surly blue-shirts who question your clothing choices,
look suspiciously at your glasses,
yell at you for not knowing where to stand,
and make your children cry.
But I have minded.

I suppose the turmoil was because I felt I ought to do it,
and had no intention of doing it, regardless.
But I love Jesus, and I want to please Him.
In distress, I prayed about it in spite of my determination.
And after praying about it,
I opened up my Chequebook of Faith devotional and read this:

"'Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, 
and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out' 
(Deuteronomy 28:6)
...I have a good deal of work to do within my own soul; 
oh for a blessing upon it all, 
the blessing of the Lord Jesus, who has promised to abide with me.
I must also go out.
Timidity makes me wish that I could stay within doors, 
and never go into the sinful world again.
But I must go out in my calling,
and I must go out that I may be helpful to my brethren,
and useful to the ungodly...
Oh for a blessing upon my going out this day!
Lord, let me go where Thou leadest,
on Thy errands, under Thy command,
and in the power of Thy Spirit."

I flipped through a book by Oswald Chambers that same day,
one I had not looked at in years.
Its title?
So Send I You.
"The stamp of the saint 
is that you can waive your own rights and obey the Lord Jesus."
I told my husband I would go with him.
Knowing me as he does, he had not insisted.

These anxieties are thorns to me.
Painful, irritating limitations.
Messengers of Satan to torment me.
They slow me, and hurt me.
Handicap me.
And as with Paul, who begged the Lord to remove his thorn,
the Lord answers,
"My grace is all you need.
My power works best in weakness."
They hold me down, and make me weak,
but when I lean on Him to walk through them,
they give me power.

Having opted for a pat down instead of being scanned,
and having encountered a very polite and respectful agent
who did not yell at me or act irritated with me,
I walked through the airport toward our gate.
We weren't in a hurry.

As I looked around,
my eyes fell to rest on a display set up on the way to my gate.
"The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in."
(Psalm 121:8)
There was a Bible open in the display case.
Two verses were highlighted in it.
They happen to be significant ones to me.
"He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord,
'He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him will I trust.'"
(Psalm 91:1,2)

And He did preserve our going out and our coming in.
Thank You, Father:
in the multitude of my anxieties within me,
Your comforts delight my soul.

Therefore I Have Hope

I opened my Facebook this morning
and saw one of those things
posted by Christian friends with good intentions,
hoping to stir up in you the perfect parent
and thus lead your family into a state of unmatched perfect outcomes,
never yet seen in the world.
That was how it felt, anyway.

Don't forget: everything depends on you.
If you fail to be perfect in parenting,
husbanding,
wife-ing,
and general citizenry,
all is lost,
and your children will lead the next pagan revival.

Honestly I didn't even read the post.
I have enough anxiety about my performance,
and the results of my performance
without reading it.
Maybe it was a truly helpful post.
But its title looked unbearably guilt-trippy and depressing to me.

And when a child in my house informed me this morning
that I 'was bearing false witness against them!' 
by requesting that the pan cupboard be straightened up,
knowing that particular child
had shoved everything into it topsy-turvy in a haze of daydreaming,
I lost my temper.

The bickering between this one and one other has worn me down.
I am tired of hearing pointless arguments
and contradictions without cause.
And snotty little comments made to provoke tears.
And denials of reality when reality is that the child is a space cadet,
and walks around putting things in odd places,
whether the places and actions are remembered or not.
And it was the last straw.

I did not bake some cookies to correct the misinformed little soul.
I failed to keep my cool.
And probably ruined all future hope of happiness and prosperity for the child.
Maybe of Christianity, too.
Although I did apologize,
and the child apologized,
and we hugged one another and forgave one another.

It says that if your brother has something against you,
go to him and be reconciled.
It doesn't say,
"If your brother has something against you,
you are obviously damned
because Christians never do wrong by each other,
and don't need to ask forgiveness of each other."

It isn't our perfection that sharpens one another, I think.
I think that where it says,
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another,"
it's more about friction than lubrication.
Sometimes I wish there was less to sharpen in me.

My husband texted me, "Broken people beget broken people.
If it wasn't for the Lord, what would we do?
He is strong.
He will hold us up."

Feeling like a jerk, I sat down and looked over a few blogs,
hoping to glean a little grace.
And my eyes fell on one of my favorites,
which was quoting a Scripture yesterday:
"This I recall to my mind,
therefore I have hope:
The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness."

And it's from Lamentations -- a bit of grace in itself.
'Compassions' are multiple.
'Lovingkindnesses' are multiple.
Unfailing.
Unceasing.
New every morning.
And strangely enough, though I am a Christian,
I need them again today.
Maybe you do, too.

There is reason to hope.
Though my lovingkindnesses stopped with six words said to me,
and my compassion probably didn't even get out of bed this morning,
His was new again, as ever.
And His faithfulness is great.

Have mercy on us sinners, Lord,
and sanctify our dirt-born lives.

The Truth From Us

Tossed and tangled by a storm

I have a dark secret.
Some days I wake up and dread floods over me,
and it squeezes my heart,
and churns my stomach,
and twists my mind.
It whispers hateful frights in my ear.
It says I am unloved, and unlovable.
It says they'd all be better off without me.
That I'm an incompetent wife,
a terrible housekeeper,
the wrong mother for my children's needs,
an unwanted friend.

There was a time when every time I walked in my door
and glanced at my answering machine,
and there was no message,
I thought, "No one cares."
Every time.
And if there was a message, I thought, "Somebody wants something."
The Lord brought it to my attention, and made me aware that I had to stop.
He loves me, and saying 'no one cares' is a lie.

The enemy of our souls seeks to steal from, kill and destroy us.
We have an inheritance of light,
but he works to twist our hearts to darkness.
To sink us in depression.
We're afraid to tell the truth about how crushed we feel.
How beaten down, and gasping for breath;
pressed out of measure, and despairing of life.

Jesus is a Man of Sorrows.
He can hear the truth from us,
and shine light into our darkness.

New Mercy and Compassions that Fail Not

I am not among those who revel in the change of the year.
I am prone to dismal forebodings.
And I am not resolute.
Or at least, I resent the expectation of resolve.
I don't like to make declarations of plans.
I prefer to simply do the things I think I ought to do.
(A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds --
and all that stuff.)

Last night, we watched the freak-out in Times Square.
And when the date changed, I thought, "Hmm. There it is. A new year. Wow."
My husband said, "Last year my work was coming to an end,
and I had no idea what we would do.
We had no money.
We hadn't even put our house on the market yet.
The Lord has been faithful to us."
It was a difficult year.
Actually, the few years before that were difficult, too.
And the Lord has been faithful to us.

I don't like changes.
They trigger anxiety for me.
But I remember that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end.
They are new every morning.
Great is His faithfulness.

"This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, 
because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
The LORD is good to them that wait for him, 
to the soul that seeketh him. 
It is good that a man should both hope 
and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD."
~From Lamentations 3

Whatever lamentation the year may hold, the Lord is my portion.
He has new mercy for me every day.
He is faithful in great ways.
I am not consumed.
He is good to those who wait for Him,
and He has shown Himself so in my life.
I will hope in Him, and quietly wait for him.

"Put on humility. 
For God resists proud ones, 
but He gives grace to the humble.
Therefore be humbled under the mighty hand of God, 
so that He may exalt you in due time, 
casting all your anxiety onto Him, 
for He cares for you."
~From 1 Peter 5

He cares for me.
And His compassions fail not.
Happy first day of the first week of the first month of the new year.

Thee

'“Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.”
...What can be more astounding than the unfounded doubts and fears of God’s favoured people?
“How can I have forgotten thee, when I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands? 
How darest thou doubt my constant remembrance, 
when the memorial is set upon my very flesh?” 
O unbelief, how strange a marvel thou art!
We know not which most to wonder at,
the faithfulness of God or the unbelief of his people.

He keeps his promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt him.
He never faileth; he is never a dry well;
he is never as a setting sun, a passing meteor, or a melting vapour;
and yet we are as continually vexed with anxieties,
molested with suspicions, and disturbed with fears, as if our God were the mirage of the desert.
“Behold,” is a word intended to excite admiration.
Here, indeed, we have a theme for marvelling.
Heaven and earth may well be astonished that rebels should obtain so great a nearness
to the heart of infinite love as to be written upon the palms of his hands.

“I have graven thee.”
It does not say, “Thy name.”
The name is there, but that is not all: “I have graven thee.”
See the fulness of this!
I have graven thy person, thine image, thy case, 
thy circumstances, thy sins, thy temptations, 
thy weaknesses, thy wants, thy works; 
I have graven thee, everything about thee, all that concerns thee; 
I have put thee altogether there. 
Wilt thou ever say again that thy God hath forsaken thee
when he has graven thee upon his own palms?'
~From Morning and Evening, C.H. Spurgeon

What I Tell Them In The Dark

Yesterday an old friend wrote and asked for prayer -- mentioned being bombarded by fear.
Oh, how I relate.
Is your chest seizing up?
Can you feel it creeping up your throat, and trying to choke you out?
It comes often to me, too.

Sometimes my children wake in the night afraid.
I am more intelligent with them than I am with myself.
I pray with them, and I say, "Do you know what Jesus said?
He said, 'Fear not, little flock: 
it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.'
Don't be afraid, little lamb:
it makes God happy to give you His kingdom."

The Eclipse of Your Faith

'Changeful experience often leads the anxious believer to inquire, "Why is it thus with me?"
I looked for light, but lo, darkness came; for peace, but behold trouble...
Lord, Thou dost hide Thy face, and I am troubled.
It was but yesterday I could read my title clear;
today my evidences are bedimmed, and my hopes are clouded.
Yesterday I could climb to Pisgah's top, and view the landscape o'er,
and rejoice with confidence in my future inheritance;
today my spirit has no hopes, but many fears; no joys, but much distress.

'Is this part of God's plan with me?
Can this be the way in which God would bring me to heaven?
Yes, it is even so.
The eclipse of your faith, the darkness of your mind, the fainting of your hope,
all these things are but parts of God's method
of making you ripe for the great inheritance upon which you shall soon enter.
These trials are for the testing and strengthening of your faith --
they are waves that wash you further upon the rock --
they are winds which waft your ship the more swiftly towards the desired haven.

'According to David's words, so it might be said of you, "so He bringeth them to their desired haven."
By honor and dishonor, by evil report and by good report,
by plenty and by poverty, by joy and by distress,
by persecution and by peace,
by all these things is the life of your soul maintained, and by each of these are you helped on your way.
Oh, think not, believer, that your sorrows are out of God's plan; they are necessary parts of it.
"We must, through much tribulation, enter the kingdom."'

~From Morning and Evening by C.H. Spurgeon

To Send Relief

"And in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch.
Then one of them stood up and showed by the Spirit
that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world...
Then the disciples, each according to his own ability,
determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea.
This they also did, and sent it to the elders
by the hands of Barnabas and Saul."
~Acts 11:27-30

I read this with my kids the other day. This is contrary to the 'wisdom' your financial planner might offer. Being responsible means providing for yourself, you know. Having a retirement. Planning ahead for emergencies, and not ever allowing a famine to interrupt your prosperity. The predicted famine was not only going to affect those in Judea. It was going to affect Antioch. But the response of the Antioch Christians to this news was to give away their own sustenance.

I heard conventional financial wisdom summed up the other day: Get all you can, and can all you get.
But Jesus said, "They will know you are Christians by your love."

"There is one who scatters, yet increases more;
and there is one who withholds more than is right,
but it leads to poverty.
The generous soul will be made rich,
and he who waters will also be watered himself."
~Proverbs 11:24,25

"He who trusts in his riches will fall,
but the righteous will flourish like foliage."
~Proverbs 11:28

Trusting in riches is such a snare. It comes in wearing the clothes of 'wisdom': "It wouldn't be wise to spend money right now. I don't have enough myself." But quite often, it's the soul grasping at an anchor that cannot hold.

My heart and mind fight this battle sometimes every moment. I often have to say to myself:
"Some trust in chariots, and some trust in horses.
But I will trust in the name of the Lord my God."
Sometimes I change the words:
some trust in bank accounts, and some trust in paychecks -- 
but I will trust in the name of the Lord my God.

And I reason with myself regularly: if God can't save me with less than what I have, He also can't save me with what I have. If He isn't worth trusting, my money is even less worthy of that trust. Sometimes no one knows the battle I just fought. Maybe it's been going on for days, but I feel such a sense of relief when I decide, "I will trust the Lord." And I pray, "Lord, You see the choice I'm making here. You know what I need. Please take care of me."

I have many times heard the believers in Jerusalem faulted because they tried out 'Christian communism', and failed. Did they fail? Or did they make a conscious choice to trust Him with their upkeep? They had many widows among them, and those who had something gave what they had. They cast their bread on the waters, so to speak, and after many days, the Lord sent it back to them by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. 'He who waters will be watered himself.'

Anxious Prayer

I choke my prayer out,
gag my fear,
and catch my breath for you.
I force myself to
take a step
and brave-faced, walk in hope.
But in my heart I
choke and gag,
and I still hold my breath.