Stevemidkiff's Blog

the wicked walk on every side when the vilest men are exalted.

Prov. 12:8

O Lord Jesus

keep us safe from lies

Keep us safe those who twist & contort everything

Keep us safe from those who stalk us with lies

Deliver us from those who collect honors for their

Grotesque lies

Psalms 11

DON’T FALL APART WHEN THINGS FALL APART

THE TEST V.1-3

DETERMINE YOUR ASSURANCE V.1

TRUST VS. TREMBLE

In the Lord put I my trust:

REST VS. RUN

How say you to my soul,

FLEE VS. FREEDOM

Flee as a bird to your mountain?

DISCERN YOUR ADVERSARY V.2

THEY’RE ALERT

For, lo, the wicked bend their bow,

THEY’RE ACCURATE

they make ready their arrow upon the string

THEY’RE ADEPT

That they may secretly shoot at the upright in heart

DECIDE YOUR ACTIONS V.3

DON’T FALL APART WHEN THINGS FALL APART

If the foundations are destroyed what can the righteous do?

THE TRIUMPH V.4-7

TRUE CONFIDENCE V.4

GOD’S SUPREMACY

the Lord is in his holy temple,

GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY

the Lord’s throne is heaven

GOD’S SCRUTINY

His eyes behold, his eyelids try,the children of men.

TRYING CHASTENING V.5-6

GOD’S SEARCH V.5

the Lord tries the righteous:

GOD’S SEVERITY

But the wicked & him that loves violence his soul hates

GOD’S SNARES

Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire brimstone and

an horrible tempest: this will be the portion of their cup

TENDER COMMUNION V.7

GOD’S SATISFACTION

For the righteous Lord loves righteousness; his countenance does behold the upright.

SOOTHING COMFORT

Comfort,

comfort my people, says your God.

Isaiah 40:1

Store up comfort.

This is our mission.

The world is full of hurting & comfortless hearts.

We must be trained to comfort

Our training is extremely costly,

For to make it complete, we too must endure the same afflictions that are wrenching hearts to tears & blood.

Our own life must be a hospital ward where we are taught the art of comfort. We will be wounded to experience the binding up of our wounds by the Great Physician,

Then we must learn how to render first aid to the wounded everywhere.

Don’t be shocked by our experience of some great sorrow!

This how we learn to comfort the afflicted

This how we learn to comfort with the comfort we were comforted with.

God will apply the anesthetic He once used on us to them.

Our gleams of hope is what chases the shadow of despair from the soul, then we will know why we were afflicted.

The is in our comfort & the results are in the comforted

And we will bless God for the discipline that filled our life with treasure of experience & helpfulness.

Adapted

They tell me I must bruise The rose’s leaf,

Ere I can keep and use Its fragrance brief.

They tell me I must break The skylark’s heart,

Ere her cage song will make The silence start.

They tell me love must bleed, And friendship weep,

Ere in my deepest need I touch that deep.

Must it be always so With precious things?

Must they be bruised and go With beaten wings?

Ah, yes! by crushing days, By caging nights, by scar

Of thorn and stony ways,

These blessings are!

These are the comforts of our souls

Streams

The measure of our love for others can largely be determined by the frequency and earnestness of our prayers for them. —A.W. Pink

Prayer is not groveling in problems,
prayer is glorying in a person;
we have the privilege
of an intimate relationship with Jesus
who asks us to turn our back on fear &
fix our eyes & heart on faith in Him.

So we wait & we wait & we wait

And why?

Because He is worth of our waiting!

He! Alone! Is worthy!!!

God’s way of doing things usually are the opposite of what we would come up with.

Wouldn’t the best way of coming down to earth, involve celebrity, bright lights, riches, pomp & circumstance

Why does our God & Savior present in humility, poverty, vulnerable weakness and the ultimate rejection of submitting to torture & the sacrifice of dying on a cross, hanging between two thieves.

God uses the power of the mundane to save us from our sin and ourselves.

Humiliating dependence is our strength.

O Lord, you know us.

Better than we know ourselves.

You know all there is to know about us.

You know what we will do before we do it.

And you know why, too.

You know what we’re thinking before we think it.

You see us when we’re alone & you see us in a crowd.

You know what we are going to say before we say it.

You precede us.

You follow us.

You hold our hand.

Wow. Just wow, Lord.

It’s too wonderful to grasp.

Yet we know it’s true.

We can go nowhere that You are not.

We can try to flee from You,

and You will still be there before we arrive.

You are never absent.

Never unaware.

Never surprised.

Never inattentive.

Wherever we go,

You are there to guide us,

and Your strength will be there to support us.

Even the deepest darkness won’t separate us from You,

for You are light,

and You enlighten all things.

You even see into the most delicate, inner parts of our body–

Ou nerves,

Our cells,

Our capillaries & corpuscles.

From our mother’s womb,

You have seen us.

Thank you for making us so complex

and for knowing us so intimately!

Your workmanship is incredible, absolutely incredible.

You watched every moment as we were formed,

and monitored our every move in the seclusion of the womb.

You knew us then.

You know us now.

You’ve known us every moment in between.

Every day of our life up to now was recorded in Your book.

Every moment of our future is laid out with precision.

We are amazed that You think about us, O God.

We are finite, but Your thoughts toward us are infinite.

How is that possible?

How can that be?

We don’t understand You, God,

but we know You understand us.

We cannot grasp the “why” or “when” of Your ways.

But You chart all our ways.

Open us like a book, O God,

examine our heart & mind.

Point to anything that displeases You

and lead us where you want us to go.

Psalms 139 paraphrased

On that day the announcement to Jerusalem will be,

Cheer up, Jerusalem! Don’t be afraid!

For the Lord your God is living among you.

He is a mighty savior.

He will take delight in you with gladness.

With his love, he will calm all your fears.

He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”

“I will gather you who mourn for the appointed festivals;

you will be disgraced no more.

Zephaniah 3:16-18

Have we locked up our heart by giving Christ the key in our prayers through the day,

Or do we do the opposite in our pray-less waste—

we lock up our hearts & give the devil the key & think that the evil one

will be honest enough not to rob us.

Our heart is in bad hands when we’ve trusted it to the thief of our souls,

He’ll just keep filching from us all day long the precious things that were entrusted to us,

finally at night we’re empty, we need help, we’ve lost our way & are depleted of energy & motivation.

We’ve been robbed & have foolishly yielded

Let God have the key to our heart

Put yourself in Christ’s hands,

Plead for His mercies and His graces persistently with every breath

“When God inclines the heart to pray,

He has an ear to hear;

To Him there’s music in a groan,

And beauty in a tear.”

Hide not your ear at our breathing

Lamentations 3:56.

Whatever our position in prayer,

if we can’t speak, cry.

If we can’t cry, groan.

If we can’t groan,

Then do “groans which cannot be uttered.”

And if we can’t even rise to that point,

let our prayer be at least a breathing—

We need to be outpouring our inner life even when simple & weak,

God will accept us.

when we can’t pray as we want,

pray as we can

Like a swallow `or’ a crane, so did I chatter;

I did moan as a dove; my eyes fail `with looking’ upward:

O Lord, I am oppressed, be my certainty.

We make cries like a bird;

We give out sounds of grief like a dove:

Our eyes are looking up with desire; O Lord,

We are crushed, take up our cause.

Isaiah 38:14