Dissatisfaction can be an Invitation

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[Janet Easson Martin]

Dissatisfaction Can Be An INVITATION

As we enter a new beginning in the New Year, we often ponder things we'd like to do differently.  Some of those things can include changing up activities that seemed to have waned in their satisfaction level. Perhaps they have in our honest evaluation become dissatisfying.  They may be such a part of our daily routine that we are somewhat mindless in selecting them as activities to fill our days.  

I believe our attentive and shepherding Father uses our dissatisfaction with these to invite us to look toward Him and recall the visions he called us to.  So that we might think on things he may have shown us in the past that we have been too shy or fearful to pursue.  Things we may have passed off or let go of as our own imagination rather than God speaking to us.  We lost confidence in what we felt he said to us.  I feel he wants us to pick those visions back up again, no matter how long ago we felt prompted to pursue them.  These pursuits put the joy of our relationship with Him back in our daily life.  

He has designed us to be satisfied.  This is one of the five benefits he beseeches us to never forget in Psalm 103.  

"who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's"

So in the fresh start of 2018 we can ponder what dissatisfying things God may be lovingly steering us to replace with divinely intended satisfying ones.

[Janet Easson Martin]

An INVITATION To Recall God's Promises

One day when I was feeling kind of low and weak in faith, I flipped through the pages of my bible to find Promises God had given me in past times alone with Him.  I needed desperately to recall his commitment to me. My eyes longed to see his guarantee. My soul ached for his assurance and consolation.  As I wrote each one I felt a little surge of strength and hope inside. By the time I found and wrote a dozen I was more confident of God's support and intervention for me. I believe my weakness was God's invitation to me to remember his rescuing vows.  And, I needed to do that more than once that day; and the next day to build my faith back up again. "...Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ" (Romans 10:17)

Just like we stretch our muscles to warm them up and activate them, we can excercise our spiritual senses to warm up our faith and activate it.

We all have promises from God's own mouth, His Very Word, that have spoken personally to us.  Some have underlined or highlighted these in their Bible.  Others have written them in their journals or on their heart.  They may be from yesterday or go back many years.  Even though dust may have gathered on them, they are still living and active, are still ours to claim, and will work wonders in us.  They don't fade like so much else.    

Go back and find those and write them down where you can access them easily.  You will be lifted up even as you recall their deliverance and record their power.  They transcend human understanding. They pump hope into our veins.  They course newness into routine life.  They gush abundance into hearts.  THEY erupt the kingdom of God into mere men.

How many Promises?  As many as you can recall God giving to you!  They are all YES!  As 2 Corinthians 1:20 says, "For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory."  That 'Amen' means most assuredly, truly, so let it be, and may it be fulfilled.

So, don't be grieved about your weakness, it is likely an invitation to recall God's Promises.