Courage For Today

floor

Never Shaken

Strength

“Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.  As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore.”  (Psalms 125:1-2)

My wife and I have been on vacation this week and had the pleasure of spending a day visiting Providence Canyon State Park in Georgia.  It is a State Park that I had only read about and had only heard about, but never visited.  It is a beautiful park known as Georgia’s “Little Grand Canyon” with gorgeous rock formations and caves, along with a surprised deer or two and seemingly never-ending tree-lines.

During our time in the park, we made a choice to hike along one of their many available trails.  This particular trail took us down a long and winding path gradually inching us closer to the valley at the bottom of the canyons.   When we finally reached the canyon floor, we began to walk along a dried creek bed that twisted through the canyons sandwiching us between the multi-faced walls of rock formations on each side of us.

It was such an interesting feeling for me as I walked down the creek bed surrounded by this fortress of stone.  The quietness of the moment was so peaceful and calm.  The walls of the canyon gave me a sense of protection and strength.  Even though I was walking in the deepest valley of the canyon, I felt calmer and more strengthened than I did at the top of the canyon.  In fact, the more I walked along the valley floor, the more I witnessed and experienced the strength of the surrounding mountain walls.

At some point in your Christian life, you will face adversity and heartache.  There will be times when you feel like you can’t carry on any further and you just want to give up.  You’ll have those days when the world is seemingly against you and the valley you are in seems too deep to overcome.  It is during those times, you should remind yourself that you are truly surrounded by the Lord both now and forever.  Your valley doesn’t have to be a place of hurt and failure; instead, let it be your reminder of the strength and majesty that is God surrounding your life with a fortress that cannot be shaken.

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View From the Top

Encouragement

“God…made us alive with Christ…And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-6)

Many years ago, I was fortunate enough to visit Chicago on a business trip.  I was working for a financial company and was asked to visit a State Court there in Chicago to testify on behalf of my company.  This was my first visit to the Windy City (and so far, only trip) so I was not so much interested in the business purpose of my visit as I was seeing the big City.  I wasn’t disappointed and I have many fond memories of the beauty that is Chicago.

I remember being able to walk from my hotel to the courtroom.  It was only a few blocks walk and I was amazed at all the hustle and bustle and commotion.  Pedestrians walking everywhere.  Cars honking at every little thing. Mass Transit trains rumbling through the City.  Everyone was in a rush and speeding from one place to another.  It was an amazing–and nerve racking–thing to experience.

On the morning of the trial, I navigated through all of the chaos on the street, and finally made it to the courtroom. Of course, I had to go through the mandatory security checks and then on the elevator to the 33rd floor of the courtroom building.  I am not a fan of high places, but when I arrived at my floor, I decided to glance down at the street from my new view.  What had been chaos on the ground was now calm looking and silent from above.  What changed?  The only thing that changed was my view.

Whatever you may be going through in life at this time, I can tell you it is very easy to only look at your situation through your own eye’s view.  I know because I have done so myself.  When you look at your situation only through your eyes and your own perspective, the view is often like my view from the street that day in Chicago–hustle, bustle, and chaos.  Instead, I learned to change my focus through Christ and remember that, as a Christian, I am already seated on His right side.

Most times, it isn’t your circumstances that need to change; it is your view of the circumstances.  Changing your view from a ground level perspective to a Heavenly perspective makes all the difference in the world.

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