Song of my Life

This has been an insane week with all kinds of crazy stuff going on. I don't feel like I've gotten any kind of a Spring Break at all, but in the midst of it all, I find myself so thankful. I am the child of a great and merciful God who loves me and wants good things for me. I've been reading this morning, looking for the right verse to express how I feel right now, and I think Psalm 103 says it the best:

1 Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-
3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Long story short, I didn't get the house I blogged about in my last entry. I thought it would've been wonderful, but obviously the Lord knew better. Now I know that there is something even better he has prepared for me, just ahead where I can't quite see yet. I don't know if it's a house or maybe something completely different. What I do know is that he is good and he wants to satisfy all my desires with GOOD things! I always think I know what is good for me, but more and more I'm learning that my definition of good and his are very different. Mine is good, but his is better. Praise the Lord for that!

Sometimes it is so hard just to leave things up to him. I tend to be such a manipulator when I find myself in a situation with something that I REALLY want. This time, I resigned myself from the beginning not to manipulate. I found myself starting to do that as I found that someone else was putting in an offer at the same time as me. I wanted to offer more money than them, when there's no way that I could've afforded any more than what I offered. I had to stop, realize what I was doing, and take a step back. I could've put a backup contract on the house, but I just decided that if this is what the Lord wants for me, he'll find a way for me to have it. If it's not what he wants for me, he's saving me from tons of headaches and preparing something better.

It's so hard to just give up that control we think we have and let him take over. In all reality, we don't have control anyway. We just think we do. Of course the Lord gives us free will, but even that is something he chose to give us. We can struggle with God over control for the power we think we have, or we can submit it to him and willingly let him guide us. He doesn't need us to give that perceived control over to him. He can take it back anytime. It's our willingness to hand it over that he desires.

I really haven't even touched on the second section of the verses yet, and already this is a long entry. There are lots of other crazy details from this week that I'm not really at liberty to share over the internet. Know this, though. The Lord loves his people. I'm so thankful that he doesn't pay us back according to the bad choices we make or even the good choices we make. He just loves us. He wants to bless his children with good things. Sometimes the enemy attacks and we feel ourselves being blasted from all around, so we succomb to those temptations and feelings of inadequacy or hatred. We screw up royally, and we should probably be left to rot in the crimes we've committed. We aren't, though. Even then the Lord wants good things for us. Even when we fail him, he doesn't punish us the way we deserve. Praise him for that, because I fail him every day.


One other thing. Joe Beam spoke at The Branch a couple weeks ago. His three sermons were on Satan and spiritual warfare. Really, really good stuff. It came from a book he wrote called Seeing the Unseen. I'd recommend you listen to the Saturday night sermon, at least. It was really good, interesting stuff and I learned so much listening to it. You can download it here. Just click on Spiritual Warfare Part 1 from March 4. There is a battle raging and it's good to be prepared for it!