Each week we feature a devotional, book review or testimony ~ a “Devotional Spotlight”, written by a woman in our ministry. Today’s devotional comes from Elizabeth Stubblefield. She is a gifted Bible study teacher who loves Jesus and His Word. Elizabeth’s husband David recently accepted a position on staff at Bayside Baptist Church in Chattanooga, TN so they will be relocating. We will greatly miss you and your family Elizabeth!
Psalm 37:3
“Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.”
This verse is so very pertinent in my life. Right now. Today.
The truth is that it is pertinent to all of our lives. But some of you, with me, can especially feel it in your hearts as you read it.
Whether your life is too full or feeling not full enough, you have the question of what exactly you really should be about today.
What is it that you are desperately longing for and waiting for today…
A husband?
A child?
Healing?
Direction or provision?
A job?
To see the salvation of someone you dearly love?
A different life?
Waiting is a part of life. If you desire to walk with Jesus, then it’s a very real part of life because the trajectory of our lives shifts from “what I want” to “what HE wants” and from “my plan and timing” to “His perfect plan and timing.”
I have often heard believers say something like this… “Well, I feel called to this or that… or I really think the Lord is leading me into ______ (fill in the blank with your own answer) ….or of course we should give …. BUT. Here’s the kicker, the big BUT. We usually follow with something like… “REALISTICALLY we can’t do that”, or “that’s too radical”, or sometimes, at the end of the day, we really just don’t want to wait. Or trust. Or give. Or do and be the “whatever” the Lord has laid on hearts.
When we do this, we rationalize away the reality to which we’ve been called. We look to the world and we look at all that is seen and, weighing what is seen with what is unseen, we choose to take the seemingly safe road and live in what makes us feel secure. We assure ourselves that we are just being “realistic.”
For the believer, it boils down to this: reality IS trusting in the Lord.
It’s obeying what He says, when and how He says it. It’s looking to Him and then looking to Him again and again when you’re weary and when your heart is crying out. It’s in this place that we need to cry out TO Him, asking Him to deepen our faith and strengthen our trust. And He does. He will. Every time.
Do I trust Him? Do you trust Him? How do we trust in the Lord while we wait? What does it mean to cultivate faithfulness?
What do we do in the “in between” of life, before faith is sight? This question is two-fold because while we all have the “in between’s” in our personal lives, we collectively share in the reality that we are living in the great in-between of Jesus’ first and second coming. One day He IS COMING BACK for His bride, the Church. In the “waitings and wonderings” of our personal lives and in the ultimate waiting that this life requires, how do we wait well?
Psalm 37:3 gives us very practical, simple insight:
Click HERE for your free 4×6 Psalm 37:3 Scripture printable as a gift to you from Lamplights
We trust in the Lord.
While we are trusting in the Lord, we do good. We walk in what we know, in what His Word teaches us to do. We walk WITH Jesus. Step by step. Moment by moment. Day by day.
And as we daily walk with Him, we dwell in the land where He has called us. Translated, this means we live where we are. We love the people around us. We serve. We give. We make disciples. We dwell in the land that God has chosen for us …and we CULTIVATE FAITHFULNESS.
It’s an amazing reality that fruit bears the seeds of future fruit.
Think on that for a minute. What a sweet little picture the Lord has given us for our own lives. As I abide in Jesus and cultivate faithfulness in the place and situation into which He has called me, He bears fruit in my life. Then that fruit that was born, perhaps under trial and in hard places, is the very fruit that is then multiplied to continue to bear more fruit in my life in future seasons.
I don’t have to know or understand all that God is working out in my world, on my behalf, in my future, or in my present. BUT in this exact moment and this very situation in my life, here I can TRUST Him. Here I can keep on doing good, here I can keep on walking with Jesus. Here, in this place of joy or trial or waiting…here, I can keep on cultivating faithfulness.
He will reap a harvest of lasting FRUIT in our lives. It will be beautiful and bountiful and life-giving to you and to those around you.
So, press on. Trust Him. Do good. Dwell. Cultivate. He is using today to shape you into who He wants you to be tomorrow.
