Challenge TIme (Coming to you from VOM @Bartlesville , OKlahoma)

      

God’s Power Principle For today:  A Word for troubled times;  “…for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hands.” (I Sam 17:47c).

Hey Gang:  Have you been confronted by any giants lately?  If not, you should be the one writing these morning messages.  Years ago we had a preacher man on our board  and his favorite saying was “This too shall pass”.  It was his conviction that problems have time limits and we have much to say about the time we allow the problem to persist. 

I must admit that I have struggled with that little ditty on many occasions.  I tend to lean more to David’s challenge to Goliath when he said, “The battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into my hands”.  I would far rather put my trust in the Lord than into setting a time limit when I will allow a giant to bug me.

When I was a little squeezer, I learned the adage ‘practice makes perfect’.  It certainly made sense to me and I used it consistently with the boys in detention and at the Village.  Notice David also believed in that adage.  When David arrived and found Goliath challenging the Israeli army and there were no takers, he informed Saul that he would take this pesky gnat to the cleaners. (Gramps rendition).

How did he know?  Because he had already tested God and found Him to be true and dependable in every case.  He had tested Him with the lion and with the bear and now would test Him once again - with a giant. 

The point: God can use what you have invested in your relationship with Him, when the rubber-hits -the road.  That is why it is important to be continually inputting the word of God into your heart and mind so that when alligators come calling, the Holy Spirit can pull out one of those pearls of great price that are firmly planted in the recesses of your heart and mind.

Soooo, good buddies, take a word of advice from an old duck that had many conflicts with alligators.  I have learned that I am a lousy alligator fighter and need to have a truly great Alligator Fighter on my side when slue foot comes calling. 

And I hate to admit it, but for the first thirty-two year of my life I was so brash as to think there were no alligators that I could not handle in my own strength.  I have many scars from those battles to prove that I was no match with the evil one.  Get it firmly planted in your brain - when you do find an alligator snapping at your heels, "The battle is the Lord's!

Blessings, 

Gramps