2 Samuel 10: 12. “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him.”

Joab and his army were surrounded by the enemy and he was encouraging his men to be confident and to fight with great courage and most of all to trust that God would do what seemed good to Him.

What battle or mountain are you facing in your life today?  What do you do when the odds are all stacked against you?  God has really impressed on me over the years that we need to change the way we look at things.  I think most of us have it down, when it comes to pouring our hearts out to God for help, in fact, most of us are great at mapping out a plan for Him to fix that other person and/or situation too!  Oh, if He would just follow our plan, this could all be fixed and over in a heartbeat!  No!  When we look at it that way, we are missing what could be best in our lives! 

You can pray prayers about the obvious like the person you know that needs to accept Jesus as their Savior, or for safety, or your own spiritual growth with absolute confidence in how that should turn out, and that is exactly what we should be praying for, but what do you do with those situations that are not that clear?  What do you do with that crazy boss at work?  How about your child, or spouse, how do you pray for him or her?  Do you pray that God will slap a knot on his or her head?  Do you pray that God will fix this and fix him or her?  Do you pray for money to fall from heaven when your finances are not what they should be? Do you map out a plan for how He should handle every situation in your life to make your life easier and all that you want it to be?  I have done that and I now find myself in the middle of a prayer reminding myself that I don’t need to do that for Him like somehow He is oblivious to how this should all work out in order for my life to be the way I think it should be, the goal needs to be for our lives to be what HE wants them to be, because He always knows what is best. I am learning to say, instead of all my pleading to do things my way and to fix things the way I think He should, “Lord, I want what you want!”  When things are heavy on your heart or you feel you deserve justice in a situation, those can be very difficult words, but they are the right words if you want God’s best for your life!  I find that quite often my prayer is actually, “Lord, help me to want what you want!  Help me to fully trust you and to lay all of this and all of the people I love in front of you and to wholeheartedly say ~ “I want what you want!”  Sometimes those struggles in our lives are there to help us grow closer to Him, sometimes they are there because of poor choices on either our part or someone else’s, but He sees and He knows what is best and what will benefit in the long run. We are impatient because we want that immediate relief but He wants our trust in Him to grow! If you had a good Dad then you know that he didn’t always give you everything you wanted the way you wanted it or in your timing, but he did what he felt was best for you because he loved you. If you didn’t have a great Dad growing up but you have accepted Him as your Savior ~ well you have a Great Dad now and that is what He is trying to teach you! He loves you and He will do waht is best for you in light of His love for you!

If we are truly going to trust Him and if we truly want what is best and right in our lives we need to be able to get to that point where we can just lay it all at His feet and trust Him totally with “it”!  I am trusting that it might get easier as time goes on, but I do fully trust that it is the right and best thing to do with everything in our lives!  Ask Him, “what do you want Lord?  Show me.”  Ask Him what His dreams are for your life because believe me, He wants to use your story to reach others.  What does He want to accomplish in and through you?  Trust Him to bring about His best and then you can truly know that the best is yet to come!

Quote: “If what you believe doesn’t affect how you live, then it isn’t very important.”  ~ Dick Nogleberg