“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6
Dare I confess that sometimes the paths that I choose lack the presence of God in them. It would seem that I have trust issues. It is not so much that I distrust God, but rather that I think that I don’t need help, and that I can do it on my own with my own strength. Have you ever been to this place? Even though I have felt the effects of leaning on my own understanding in my own stubborn way, God didn’t leave me or abandon me. He has been there despite my lack of vision and trust.
Thank goodness God is present even when we are not. 
Perhaps today you might face daunting tasks that you feel require your strength and your passions alone. Often times it is at the end of our battle that we quickly realize we need help, and so we cry out to God is desperation. Have you experienced His love breaking through for you recently? He will be there for you when you ask Him, but He wants to be more than just your life alert kind of cries for help. He longs to fellowship with you each step of the way. When we begin to fully trust God instead of just crying out to Him in emergency situations, we shift gears spiritually, and in this higher gear we will find what we have been missing all along. His presence and His hand guiding us each step of the way. When we allow this trust to take place, we will find that although life doesn’t get easier the direction in which He will guide will become clearer to us.
Do you have trust issues with God?
Are you fully relying on His understanding, or do you pull back sometimes and find yourself attempting to do it all in your own strength? Let Him in, and see what a difference He makes in your life today.
Prayer: Dear Lord, there are certain things in my life that I struggle giving you access to. I confess that at times I am stubborn and unwilling to relinquish control over this path that I am on. Help me to see your hand upon my life, and that I can trust you with everything, not just a portion. Remind me of your strength, love and peace today even if my day includes storms along this path. Guide me dear Lord. In Your name I pray all of these things -Amen.
can cling to. He is always there to provide safety and security! His strength and light shines and frightens all of the darkness away! He is our Savior and the One who calms the storms of this life! I would venture like any parent, our Heavenly Father becomes afraid for us at times. He longs to rush in and rescue us. Perhaps it is just me, but I think of my Heavenly Father like that – fulfilling that role. His strength is sufficient for any task and any danger. That doesn’t mean that we go looking for trouble, but when trouble finds us, and it will, we can cling to the Rock of our Salvation! Run to Him! Tell Him of your fears. Allow His mighty hands to enfold you and protect you. Find comfort and encouragement in Him today ! He is Your Rock and Your Salvation…do not be afraid!! So let me ask you…what are you afraid of???
We see this all the time though don’t we? There is a lot of hate in our world today. Wouldn’t it be amazing to worship and adore God so much that we naturally love our neighbors around us? What an amazing world we would live in if we respected and loved one another because our first love was God. Even the people of Jesus’ day questioned who their neighbors were. In Luke, right after Jesus repeats the Shema Yisrael and speaks of loving our neighbor, one of the teachers asks “who is my neighbor?” You can almost hear the wheels churning in this man’s mind. Can we pick and choose who our neighbor is? Does my neighbor look like me, have the same interest as me, perhaps have the same skin color as me? Is “my neighbor” those I choose to associate myself with? The answer is NO! Jesus takes it a step further and tells them the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate our neighbor is more than people who look like us, talk like us, and have the same interests or cultural practices.
Loving God with all of our being broadens the world around us.
The Salvation Army needs more leaders to be men and women of integrity. I say this for all areas of leadership. From the local officer position all the way up to the General. We need people who will do what they say they will do while being men and women of Holiness. Without the characteristic of holiness, a leader’s integrity cannot be completely fulfilled. Thus, leadership must begin on our knees before our heavenly Father. Because we will be held to account for what we do on earth. Leaders who operate with ulterior motivations and do not have holy integrity, will falter and perhaps inflict casualties within our body of soldiers. We are very good at pointing out the bad in others, but this godly principle of living must begin with us! Without holiness and integrity our sphere of responsibility and leadership will crumble and find a limited impact for the Kingdom.
or place of leadership and conduct themselves contrary to that place of authority? What we say and what we do should line up, and with it our REAL responses to the world around us. There is no time to be a phony leader or a phony Christian. We cannot have leaders of any level merely giving lip service to God, but their motives and conduct are completely contrary to their bravado. This Army needs more authentic leaders! We need people who are real, people who know what it means to struggle with life, people who get it. This army is in need of leadership that has empathy not apathy. We need more candid conversations and less brow beatings and starchy high pulpit speak. We have to have a spirit of trust and an understanding that our Army is made up of people who are fallible and require compassion and grace. We need more leaders who will go to the gates of hell for people and soldiers in need instead of delegating or sending others to do their jobs. The leader that can be trusted will come to your level and spend time talking with you about the things that matter. Can you be a trusted leader? Do you have a heart to serve? Are you moved with compassion for those you lead? Then be authentic, and leader with authenticity, this Kingdom of God doesn’t have a place for two-faced leadership.
Leaders who pass the buck are not leaders of accountability.
the power that is entrusted to you. Know that final authority is not you – but rather God. Even if you do not have someone who is currently over you in authority, your actions and motivations will be judged in accordance to Godly principles when we stand before Him. I do not say this to sound threatening or vindictive, I say this because I believe there are those in numerous places of authority who are power hungry and motivated not by a spirit of service but to be served. This is a very real danger in all levels of leadership. If we are to be leader who can be trusted, we must possess a level of accountability towards those we serve in leadership both above and below us (for lack of a better term). Is it still Thy Kingdom come, or has it come “My Kingdom come”?
This reminded me of another story. A story that Jesus told. It was about a woman who had lost one of her ten silver coins. This may have been all that she owned in the world, and losing just one of those coins would have been devastating to her. So she tears her house apart looking for this lost coin until she finds it. Then she calls her neighbors together to celebrate with her. Jesus told this tale to illustrate just how important every person on this earth is to Him. He doesn’t want to lose anyone along the way. In fact, just before this story Jesus told another story – the parable of the lost sheep, and at the very end of that story He said, “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
This was more than coincidental, this signified God’s presence would no longer just reside in the temple, but He could be accessed by everyone all because of what Christ did on the cross.
Pastor's Ponderings 