Monday, October 28, 2013

Dare to Ask

Have you ever made a mistake in life?  Forgot or failed to seek the Lord and use wisdom and discernment before plunging into a decision you later regretted?  Haven't we all?

The following is an excellent word of encouragement by Ginger Garrett for us to dare and ask God to redeem our failures.  I love it when an author shows me a gold nugget of truth before which I have never seen in an old familiar Bible story.  Reading Garrett's article was for me one of those "ah-ha" moments. . . .

"A friend of mine suffered serious burns on her arm during an accident. The pain was excruciating. She broke out in a sweat, her vision blurred, and she could think of nothing but getting immediate help. God gave the human body a pain response for just those moments. Without it, we would not seek attention for the wound. But there’s one pain that many of us prefer to hide, and it comes from the wound of failure. Like Adam and Eve, when we’ve sinned or blundered in some important way, we choose to hide. We don’t seek out the healing attention of our Great Physician.

The Old Testament hero Joshua would challenge us to rethink that decision. You may know him best by the miracle he was granted. During a raging battle, he asked the Lord to hold back the sun so the fighting could continue. Scripture says, “So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped . . . There was no day like that before it or after it, when the Lord listened to the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel” (Josh. 10:13-14).

This was a miracle, but unless we understand the context it occurred in, we miss the greater gift. You see, Joshua and his men never should have been in that battle. Earlier, God had commanded them to refuse all covenants of peace with nearby nations, including the Gibeonites. But the Gibeonites were afraid of the Israelites and desperate for a pact. So they decided to try a trick."

Read the entire article here.

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