Today I came across a verse I had not thought of in quite a while. Psalm 46:1 (NIV) reads, God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
So very true, agreed?
God is there when everyone else fails you. God is there through the good times. God is there through the bad times.
Bottom line, God is always with those who profess Him. God is always there for those who accept His one and only Son as their savior.
There have been times when I have doubted his presence, which is the reason I stopped blogging for a while. When a seven-year-old is taken from this earth as the result of a senseless accident, it gave me a jolt that I am still feeling.
In fact, as a result of Taylor’s death and my father’s untimely passing, I stopped attending church.
Even though I read my devotional and the associated scriptures every single night without fail, I did not feel like I absorbed anything from this ritual. It was more a habit than anything. It really was not the spiritual experience I had found in the past through Our Daily Bread.
I also continued to play with the Joy Bells at Newberry United Methodist Church, but the “joy” was missing from my participation. I was having a hard time feeling any joy at all, much less any spiritual uplift from my faith in Jesus and my commitment to sharing his message in song or through this blog or through the associated faith-based Facebook pages - Retreat to Belief and Good News Beacon.
I goes without saying, I was in a rut - a big, deep, muddy rut.
Then one day it hit me – by excluding my faith in God from my life I was inviting a joyless life. I was disengaging myself from the one thing that mattered most to me – Jesus and his message of salvation.
I have since returned to church and today, started blogging again about what really matters – love of Jesus and faith in Him and the Father.
I will admit that I am not at the level of faith I enjoyed when I began the Retreat to Belief blog and its associated website, www.retreattobelief.com, but I am on the road to restoring my faith to heretofore unheard of levels.
Good Lord willing, I’ll be there soon.
In the meantime, I offer this Psalm of praise for your consideration and absorption.
Psalm 46 (NIV)
For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. According to alamoth. A song.
1 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
8 Come and see what the LORD has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
11 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
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