A Fresh Word

 

What do you do when you just need a fresh word from God? You get to that place in life where you are stuck in a rut. Your relationship with God and others seems to be going nowhere and you don't know how to revive it. You may be in a place of sadness and you don't know how to pick yourself up by your bootstraps. Like Beth Moore says, you just got to get yourself out of that pit but you don't know where to begin the climb. It may be that you did something completely stupid and even disastrously sinful and you feel like it is over for you, God has probably given up on you, how could he use you now? You need a fresh word from the Lord. You need to hear his voice.

As you can probably tell I am reading through the lives of the patriarchs and God is teaching me so much. What dawned on me yesterday was how generous God was with speaking to Jacob. I don't know if it was that Jacob got into more messes than his forefathers or if God just was being extra gracious, but Jacob got some encouraging messages.

On Jacob's way to Haran when he was running for fear of being murdered God spoke to him. He would protect Jacob, He would protect Jacob's inheritance and He would be present with Jacob. God spoke to Jacob when it was time for him to leave Laban's house. Laban was the father of Jacob's 2 wives and he was controlling Jacob's life. Jacob needed to be free, he needed to have his own land and his own fold. God told Jacob it was time to go, and the added encouragement that God was the one who miraculously multiplied Jacob's portion of Laban's flock. Angels met Jacob on the way to his reunion with Esau, and even greater than that God himself wrestled with Jacob all night long before Jacob would cross that river to the land he was promised. Jacob was terrified about meeting Esau and God met him in his fear, and blessed him.

The incident that absolutely puzzled and amazed me was God's encouragement to Jacob after his sons brutally murdered all the male villagers of Schechem and kidnapped their women and children in retaliation for the Prince”s act of raping their sister. Jacob was filled with fear that the people of that land would gang up and kill his entire clan. They didn't, God instilled fear in the hearts of the surrounding peoples and God spoke to Jacob. He told him to go to Bethel, the place where he met him on his journey to Haran some 20 years ago. Go back to where I met you at first and gave you the promise. Remember the promise. Jacob responded with haste and commanded his people to purge themselves of all of their idols. They did, a time of repentance and cleansing occurred in Jacob's house. They were on the brink of slaughter but God was giving them a way out. God was bringing them to the place of Bethel “house of God”. There he spoke this promise once again to Jacob in Genesis 35:11-12

I am The Strong God.
Have children! Flourish!
A nation—a whole company of nations!—
will come from you.
Kings will come from your loins;
the land I gave Abraham and Isaac
I now give to you,
and pass it on to your descendants.

In my inability to grasp the mind of God I can't understand why he gave so much grace to Jacob and his family. Jacob seemed to be continually in trouble and God was faithful to speak to Jacob and to remind him of the promise through all of the heartache. Jacob had a tradition of building an altar at the place where God had spoken. He stacked stones to remember, this place is holy, this is where God spoke to me.

I have gotten into places where I just needed a fresh word from God. I needed to know he was actually listening to my prayers. I needed to know that He hadn't forgotten me. When I was in Germany I was longing to meet my husband, to know if God indeed had a husband for me at all. One morning, at the end of my rope I asked the Lord to have someone just come up to me to tell me I would marry. I needed the word that badly. No joke, in the locker room at the gym a woman came to me and told me “Judy, you have a spirit of marriage about you, you will get married when you go back to the states, you are too busy right now”. I walked out of there, or maybe even floated out of there amazed. When I struggled over having our first child, God gave me a dream with him in it. The toddler in the dream told me that he would come back and put a note in my pocket. He had blue eyes and blond hair. I told him that he had my eyes, but where did the blond hair come from as Jeff and I both have dark hair. He told me the hair was to remind me that he was from Jesus. My son was born with blue eyes and blond hair.

There are other stories or times in which God spoke to me so clearly in such a way that I just needed to hear his voice. I would say though, that for more than 20 years God has been speaking to me through His word. What do you do when you need a fresh word? Sit down at His word and really let it sink deep into you heart. Pray and ask God to speak to you through scriptures. Ask him to spring the words to life right off the page. Really listen to his voice as your eyes scan the page. God has a word for you. He is speaking. When he speaks and you feel like it is a message brought just for you, build yourself a place of remembrance. Write it down, tell someone, celebrate the God who meets you in your place of need, celebrate the God who lifts you out of that pit. Read his word, listen to it taught, meditate on it day and night. Your heart will be healed by the truth of it.