Oil Paintings: I Wait | Soar above your storm | Living Streams by jtmuses
My greatest challenge in being a child of God has been waiting on God when things are not right or when things need to get fixed. I have a questing mind and I will ask questions with a purpose.
Psalms 37:7: Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him remains radical for me. It requires enormous humility!
I don't need Job's friends. When he was grieving, he spent much time battling with his friends - Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad who gave unhelpful legalistic answers. " That is the way God works," they argued. "You reap what you sow, Job and you must have done some bad things. Classic religion. The problem with this is that it wasn't true with Job. He was an innocent sufferer. His friends played God and stood in God's shoes. Job had 2 fights going on: one with God (ranting his woes to God, and I say it is OK to be not OK - love that Korean drama :-)) and the other with his friends who tortured his pain even more. You know what it is like to feel worse after talking with someone.
Climbing the Ladder of Humility Job emerged from his suffering transformed. He was a broken and changed man. Throughout his waiting, he made a choice, he transformed into the love of God. God spoke to Job out of the storm of his life and the result of Job waiting on the Lord:- 1. Job prayed and blessed his 3 religious friends who tortured him with their proud, insensitive counsel. (Job 42: 7-11) 2. He embraced his losses and personified the honourable qualities found in the Beatitudes...
In the Beatitudes, Jesus is describing the characteristics of the ideal follower of Christ and the blessings he or she will receive, both on Earth and in Heaven.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-are-the-beatitudes-definition-meaning.html
https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-are-the-beatitudes-definition-meaning.html#transcriptHeader
Today's reading: Max Lucado says: Keep Forgiving

Colossians 3:13 says, “As Christ forgave you, so you also must do.” Really, God? Begin the process of healing. How? Keep no list of wrongs. Pray for your antagonists rather than plot against them. Hate the wrong without hating wrongdoers. Turn your attention away from what they did to you to what Christ did for you. Outrageous as it may seem, Jesus died for them too. If He thinks they are worth forgiving, they are.
Does that make forgiveness easy? No. Quick? Seldom. Painless? Forgiveness vacillates. It has fits and starts, good days and bad. Anger intermingled with love. Irregular mercy. We make progress only to make a wrong turn. Step forward and fall back. But it’s okay. As long as you’re trying to forgive, you’re forgiving. It’s when you no longer try that bitterness sets in. So keep trying. Keep forgiving.
Vengeance is God’s. He will repay—whether ultimately on the Day of Judgment or intermediately in this life. God can discipline your abusive boss. He can bring your ex to his knees or to her senses. Forgiveness doesn’t diminish justice; it just entrusts it to God. He guarantees the right retribution. The God of justice has the precise prescription.
Forgive your enemies? That’s where you and I come in. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger,” Paul wrote, “and do not give the devil an opportunity” (Ephesians 4:26 -27). Don’t give the devil territory or ground. Bitterness invites him to occupy a space in your heart, to rent a room. Believe me, he will move in and stink up the place! When it comes to forgiveness, all of us are beginners. Stay the course!
By Max Lucado
Jtmuses adds: Forgiving means: I hold it against you no more. Give it to God who will judge the person for what he or she has done to you. God help me. May my wings grow! :-)
Meet Sunny - the olive backed sunbird https://www.glimpsesofedenart.com/post/storifying-the-wings-collection
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