What freezes your heart this wintry day? I simply cannot make my heart unthaw. But God can. He is the One Who shows His Power through the plagues. Man is helpless without Him.
Matthew 25:13 Watch therefore, good and faithful servants for you know neither the day nor the hour when the One comes to say "Well Done."
When my son was three, I watched him pretend to be boiling blood in the Party Kitchen with his two-year-old sister. I was horrified. We had just read about this plague in his Children's Bible. Boiling water---but it had turned to blood. Water---an unbelievable commodity. Free. Fresh. Pristine. Pure. Unless...it becomes blood. Now it's Pure Panic.
What panic do I face in my own life this winter season, on my own journey to hear Him say, "Well Done, My Good and Faithful Servant."
Leaning Hard on Him.
Falling Forward toward Him.
Standing Tall in His Power Alone.
But Pharaoh hardened his heart...
ReplyDeleteTruth set before him in so many ways, but we have a choice to humble ourselves and submit in obedience, or to look blindly and reject Truth.
Help us have hearts that are soft enough to feel, to hurt, to turn back to righteous ways, to obey. Soft hearts that feel for others with compassion and mercy, soft hearts that gratefully bow before our Great God.
It's taken me the better part of fifty-two years to grasp that it is in humility that He can begin to use us. My first prayer this morning was a heart filled with thanks and though tired and weak due to a diet I'm on, strengthened by a Greater Love. He is my strength and song. He can turn this day around on a dime and use it for good. Let us only say the word, "I surrender" as Pharoah could have done so many times before life had to be lost.
Praying for you Bev....you are still shining through for Him, in your darkness.
ReplyDeleteOh, Annette, I agree with you so much. May be have hearts that are soft enough to feel, to hurt, to turn back to righteous ways, to obey. Watching that lived out in my son's life. We are doing the happy dance big time. Answers to prayers prayed for so long. Also, bringing to mind that we have feet of clay and hearts that are prone to wander and hearts that can become hardened, unless we hold tight to Him and keep our focus on Him and fall hard on to Him. He is our strength and song... What an awesome life lesson I am seeing lived out before me. To hear sin called sin and not just a bad choice or a wrong choice....this mama and child of God is praising Him and realizing her own shortcomings at the same time.
Praise God for His righteousness and oh, His amazing grace. It is ALL grace.....
Don't you find it so interesting that one of the plagues was changing the life-giving Nile into a river of blood?
ReplyDeleteWhat can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
There Jesus is in this battle against Pharaoh. Offering Himself to those who would come to Him.
It is offensive to think of that river of blood. But justification washes me with His blood so that I become righteous through Him.
I am humbled, too, Annette.
Mary Lou, it's ALL grace.
Bev...frozen, hard hearts are melting. I just know that.