WISDOM WEDNESDAY

Today someone lost a loved one, a child is missing, someone was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and there is a hostage situation going on. Today a relationship ended and someone lost their job. Today there are many people who are in pain, homeless, hungry and in a state of depression. I am not making this up, today all these things happened. If you don’t believe me, turn on the news. Some of us don’t have to do that because we are dealing with one of these up close and personal. I can honestly say in spite of all this, I still feel blessed. But I am not going to lie; today I was feeling some type of way. I asked God, how can we still see your beauty in this world of ugliness? And what came into my spirit was to continue to keep my gaze on Him and my glance on the world. Ok God that is what I try to do every day. Yet I live in this world, I see what’s going on, and it is breaking my heart. My next thought was maybe I should try to see the ugly things through spiritual eyes instead of natural eyes. ???????. Whenever I don’t understand something, I go to the Word to study and I research. I allow God to lead me. I found a great man of faith in the Bible, Asaph, he was David’s music director, and he wrote twelve Psalms. Asaph served in Jerusalem for all of David’s reign, He was in Jerusalem when God gave David the great promise that David would have a son who would be the Messiah, and reign forever. He saw the death of David, the accession of Solomon, and the building of the Temple. After Solomon’s dedication of the Temple, Asaph saw Israel turn into something quite different from what he expected. After a promising beginning, Solomon turned his back on God and pursued power, wealth, luxury, and human wisdom, as well as worship of other gods. To finance these pursuits the people were oppressed with slavery and taxes. Asaph and his family, who had remained faithful to the truth, became victims of violence and murder at the hands of the Solomon and the Egyptians. Asaph saw Solomon become a wicked man who entrusted the administration of his Kingdom to other wicked men. After Solomon’s death, Asaph saw David’s kingdom torn in two by God’s decree. Before today, I had not read or remember hearing about Asaph. Today I feel his pain. He must have been heartbroken as he watched the Kingdom destroyed, the Temple ruined and many of his own family killed. Yet, through it all, Asaph found God’s faithfulness a strong tower of hope. And God revealed to Asaph the ultimate truth of what He had promised. It was not what man’s ignorance and David’s impatience sought, but what God’s wisdom provided. It was not about Solomon! It was not about Solomon’s destroyed kingdom and burned Temple! It was not about Solomon’s worldly despairing wisdom! It was not about Solomon’s corrupting and corruptible riches! It was about Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace who was to come! It was His eternal Kingdom, His perfect wisdom, His true riches, and the Temple of His body! I believe as Asaph looked around him and saw all this devastation and felt all this heartbreak; he asked God as I did today, “how can we see your beauty in all this ugliness?” As remarkable as our eyes are, we only see physical things. God has given us spiritual sight through the means of His Holy Spirit. When Asaph looked at events through physical eyes, he could only see unfairness as the wicked seemed to prosper and the righteous seemed to suffer and get weaker. However, as he continued to meditate on these things with spiritual eyesight, he could see the end of all things and learned to trust God for the true long-term conclusion of all things. I really want to be able to see with spiritual eyes like Asaph. We cannot open our own spiritual eyes. We have to come to Christ. He is the light! I believe we start by making Jesus the center of our lives and keeping the focus of our life on Jesus Christ. When we see through spiritual eyes, it reinforces Romans 8:28; “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”

Today I was reminded by God that no matter what this world brings, pray, believe and keep the faith anyway. I pray this helps someone. Love and Blessings….

 ANYWAY

 In this world people are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered:

FORGIVE THEM ANYWAY.

In this world if you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;

BE KIND ANYWAY.

In this world if you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies;

SUCCEED ANYWAY.

In this world if you are honest and frank, they will cheat you;

BE STRAIGHTFORWARD ANYWAY.

In this world what you spent years building, may be destroyed overnight;

BUILD ANYWAY.

In this world if you find serenity and happiness, people may be jealous and scorn;

BE JOYOUS ANYWAY.

In this world people who you love may disappoint you and break your heart;

LOVE ANYWAY.

In this world you will lose loved ones, trials and tribulations will come, you will get discouraged and sometimes you won’t feel like moving on;

MOVE ON ANYWAY.

In this world the good you do today, may often be forgotten tomorrow;

DO GOOD ANYWAY.

Give the world the best you have and it will never be enough;

GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU’VE GOT ANYWAY.

YOU SEE, IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS, IT IS BETWEEN YOU AND GOD;

IT WAS NEVER BETWEEN YOU AND THIS WORLD ANYWAY!

(Original Author Unknown)

(Additions Added by Curleen Johnson)