I opened You Version App this morning to finish my Bible plan on Revelation. My heart did a little happy dance when I saw Isaiah 43:2 is the verse of the day. “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression,you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.” Isaiah 43:2 (NLT)
While I love water; whether it’s deep or not, whether it’s a river, ocean,lake or even pool, I enjoy them all. Water is invigorating and soothing at the same time. There is always the element of adventure especially in natural bodies of water. Even the pull of tides, waves and rushing of rapids add excitement.
Let’s symbolically transfer that to real life. Everyday you wake up, you are in the “waters of life”. How do you navigate it? There are the currents, dealing with your abilities or lack there of. There are the safety devices; prayer, praise, self pep talks, the Word of God and good ole common sense. There are the rip tides which you have no control over. For exampl dealing with humanity and all that comes with that. One example of this is being locked out of your iphone. Oh my goodness! From the response of the person, you’d think it was the end of the world. This person came to me all frustrated and I was like, “why are you dumping on me? I’m not an IT person! Just wait until it unlocks. It’s just one hour! Geez!” Another example is a family member losing their wallet recently and oh my word, again the world had come to an end. Thankfully h tracked it down with technology and it had been turned in. Just two simple examples when you have to deal with the “Riptides” of human nature.
I was scrolling through Facebook posts yesterday and saw someone posting about “being over” dealing with people. Sometimes people are just so self centered and unkind and dealing with such can be draining. I encouraged this friend to “let it go” and move on. We can’t control what people do or how they respond but we can control our own response. We can also pray for wisdom because we all need it.
Dealing with low vision and hearing loss is so challenging. If you only knew. I don’t complain because only God can change it. Sometimes I feel I try in vain to understand. I’m always willing to try but I don’t always “get it”. The constant trying can be down right exhausting. I guess that can be like navigating rocks while kayaking down the Catawba River. I see the “rock” or “struggle” and try to strategically maneuver around the issue. You get around it in one way or another. Sometimes you “Hit the rock” and other times you mange to successfully clear it. That’s just life. It can be so tiring at times and you just want to “float” but that can become boring quite quickly and you want to be in the “movement” of life again.
As Isaiah 43:2 reminds me, God is with me through it all. He is with you too! He’s not going to let us drown! He’s going to get us through whatever the day holds. He’s going to help us with people issues and our own logical attempts to understand life. Keep focusing on Jesus! Keep praying! Keep spreading love, peace and joy. You’ve got this, because God has you. Deep breath, now exhale! Paddle on!
I love sharing what God puts in my heart. I pray it’s a blessing to you. If you like it, please feel free to subscribe and pass it along to bless someone else. We all need encouragement. You can find my autobiography Rooted by the Water on Amazon. I hope it inspires you to never give up in hard situations. God is always there to help us. Surrendering to Him years ago was the best decision I’ve ever made. Be blessed and better yet, be a blessing.
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