Written by Chuck Swindoll, these encouraging devotional thoughts are published seven days per week.
We get in a hurry when we don't wait on the Lord. We jump ahead and do rash things. We shoot from the hip. We run off at the mouth, saying things that we later regret. But when we have sufficiently waited on the Lord, He gets full control of our spirit.
This may be one of those "white spaces" in your own life. Maybe it's time for you to pray and fast and to call upon a few close friends to fast and pray with you. Maybe it's time for you to say, "I'm not going to rush into this unpredictable and unprecedented situation. I can't find the path to walk. So I'm going to wait. In the meantime, I'm going to give it to God. I'm going to listen with a sensitive ear and watch the Lord's leading with a sensitive eye."
We'll gain new strength. We'll get a better perspective. We'll store up extra energy. We'll deepen our determination to persevere. All that happens when we...wait.
Do you teach your children to stand up for what they believe? Are you teaching your grandchildren how to be people of character, regardless? That's the way they will learn it. Let me probe one question deeper. Are you modelling authentic character? That leaves the message permanently etched in their minds.
What a great film or play Esther would make. Can't you just hear the words of Mordecai ringing with passion as he says, "If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?"
"Of course there is a cause!" David implies, if not in words, at least in his actions: "What are you doing sitting around in your tents with your knees knocking? There is a giant out there who hates the cause of the living God! What are you men doing standing here? Our God will fight for me. And if I perish, I perish."
Where do you stand as it relates to the absence of masculinity, the whole extreme feminist movement? What about the horror of sexual abuse that has become so rampant in our society? Or prejudice against other races or nationalities? What about the developmentally disabled? This is an urgent hour of need. Are you there, ready to be salt and light, in this hour?
I've heard some people claim that they can't believe in the sovereignty of God because doing so makes you passive. Frankly, I don't see it. Not if it stays balanced and biblically oriented. If anything, the sovereignty of God makes me active.
Now, before you frown and entertain thoughts of self-righteousness, thinking that you would never have responded like that, remember, you're surrounded by friends in a safe and unthreatened environment where there are no armed soldiers outside and governmental protocol to obey.
Be careful what you say. Be careful how you say it. Be careful that you send the right message, that you send it to the right person, and that you do so with the right motive.
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