by David Brenneman
"Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved." Joel 2:32.
So why don't I call on His name? Why do I run run to to this person or that person, when God is so near and will hear my faintest
call? Why do I sit down to plot my own course and make my own plans? Why don't I immediately place myself and my burden on the Lord?
Straight ahead is the best way to run, so why don't I run directly to the living God? Instead, I look in vain for deliverance everywhere else, but with God I will find it. With Him I
have His royal promise: "[I] will be saved."' And with Him I never
need to ask if I may call on Him or not, for the word "everyone" is all encompassing. It includes me and means anybody and everybody who calls upon His name. Therefore I will trust in this verse and will immediately call on the glorious Lord who has made such a great promise.
My situation is urgent, and I cannot see how I will ever be
delivered. Yet this is not my concern, for He who made the
promise will find a way to keep it. My part is simply to obey His
commands, not to direct His ways. I am His servant, not His advisor. I call upon Him and He will deliver me.
- Charles H. Spurgeon
As God would have it, this was part of my reading yesterday evening. On the heels of our Grace Group studying in Psalms 25.
"My eyes are continually toward the Lord, For He will pluck my feet out of the net. Turn to me and be gracious to me, For I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged; Bring me out of my distresses. Look upon my affliction and my trouble, And forgive all my sins. Look upon my enemies, for they are many, And they hate me with violent hatred. Guard my soul and deliver me; Do not let me be ashamed, for I take refuge in You. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait for You." Psalms 25:15-21.
We often don't go first to the Throne of Jesus Christ when something has been allowed to occur in our lives. Please re-read that, it's important.
"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” John 10:27-30.
A prayer for myself concerning what began June 12th of 2025 is that I not forget at all the steps that my Savior took my Wife and I through. Especially the beginning steps. Those steps that began with my keeping silent as I was escorted out and found myself sitting in my truck looking at the end of my career at the company I had spent almost 4 years at.
My first reaction was shock of course. Then came prayer. Then His immediate plans were for me to call my Saturday Group Leader. Then my Wife then others. My God had allowed this and it was happening. Regardless of what I was told in the meeting that had just taken place I knew that I wasn't returning. I had no idea what steps to take and keeping in prayer was where I began. One of Jesus's promises of never leaving or forsaking us was the first that came to mind.
But why permit such things? Because of many reasons but the first is that when we come to Christ for salvation we are no longer our own. We were bought with a price, the shed blood of Jesus Christ. We are now His. We began a path of life that has its goal of growing us in Christ, to be conformed to Christ. To remove our character and replace it with the character of Christ.
As I explained in sharing last night, and as the Group Leader said appropriately, I can look back from memorial stone to memorial stone. Can look back and its the Spirit telling me "See how far you've come? Back then you couldn't make it through what you are going through today.".
We can't know the path of righteousness set before us without stepping in that direction with Jesus.
Someone once wrote something about hand holding with God. That if we hold hands with Him, we'll be tempted to let go. Yet if He is the one to reach out to hold our hand, He's never going to let us go.
Our tendency is, in reality, to underestimate our situation. We underestimate and attempt to take it on without asking God for help. In this we fail every single time. We ought to come to Him first. Not even trying to figure it out on our own. Standing on His promises.
My Dear Reader, even though you're probably already in the mix with your supposed unique situation, Jesus is waiting on you to come to Him with a sincere heart ready to do whatever He's got in mind for you to be doing.
All my life I have always lived to the truth that God would always allow me to work wherever He put me until He made it impossible for me to stay. June 12th 2025 was just the most different way that He has ever used to make it impossible for me to stay. No more no less.
Emotionally it was rough at first. Relationships that I thought were ok were shown to be a sham. So I pray for them because I know with as solid a certainty as the ground beneath my feet that my God will deal with them in ways that I never could. In every single time that someone has wronged me as an employer God has dealt with them in that way. I just needed to stay out of His way. I could relate stories but this isn't the place for them.
Jesus wants us to stand on His promises and is going to permit situations where we are lead to do just that, if only we would recognize that's what the purpose for it is.
There is always a purpose for what we go through in Christ. Listening for the voice of the Spirit of God is paramount. Obeying is paramount.
Beginning with that...THAT is what begins to bring a peace that passes all understanding.
That is what leads us in the path of righteousness for His Name’s sake.
That is what brings glory to God in our circumstances.
These things are what adds to that crown of righteousness that we will give back to Jesus.
Begin by stopping to take a breath and pray. Go immediately to the throne of grace.
He WILL keep His promise to always take care of you.
He WILL keep His promise to never leave you or forsake you.
To relate this point to an earlier post. Take these concerns to the Lord and leave them there. Don't give in to the temptation to pick them back up and go your way with them. Leave them with Jesus then obey all you're told to do in the Lord. Listen to the Spirit. Listening FOR the Spirit.
Lastly be thankful in everything. Yes even these things...that's what the Bible says.
All NASB Scripture Excerpts used by permission.
New American Standard Bible
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