Over the last few months the Lord has been encouraging me to 'hang in there' at work. I have had many challenging and demanding jobs throughout my career yet, as I have shared before, my current job as school Registrar has been above and beyond any workload I have previously encountered and at times unbearable with constant deadlines and frequent late nights. I have been tempted over the last two years to move from where God has placed me, however, he has clearly been telling me to 'wait' and has encouraged me beyond measure with scripture from 2 Samuel:5
Chapter 5 recounts how David has just taken the throne of Israel and the Philistines think that the new king and his divided monarchy will be easy pickings, so they attack Israel (v17-18). David seeks the Lord's will for the battle; he follows the Lord and God gives Israel a great victory, however, the Philistines are not totally defeated, so they come up against Israel again. David turns to the Lord once more for leadership (v23-24) and this time, instead of telling David to attack, God commands David to lead Israel in a flanking manoeuvre. They are to circle behind the Philistines and WAIT by a grove of mulberry trees.
"And when David enquired of the Lord, he said, Thou shalt not go up; but fetch a compass behind them, and come upon them over against the mulberry trees. And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the LORD go out before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines." 2 Samuel 5:23-24 [KJV]
Tomorrow we will look at 'the sound of a going', but for today I am content knowing that God is with me in my difficulties at work, wherever you face difficulties know that He is close by. For the past 2 years (while struggling through my 'winter of discontent' at work) I have watched a solitary tree outside my office window change with the seasons; as it sheds it's leaves to expose bare branches in the winter, it develops new shoots in the spring then a mass of green leaves for summer which are followed by an abundance of dark purple fruit. Sadly I have often been too busy to rest in His presence which, as God highlighted to me in the above passage, has always been as close as the Mulberry Tree that sits outside my office window. This tree has a preservation order on it, how apt that our lives too are 'preserved in his presence" Genesis 32:30 (my paraphrase)
Dawn Milward
No comments:
Post a Comment