Dig the Trenches

"Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye, and your cattle, and your beasts. And this is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord: he will deliver the Moabites also into your hands" (2 Kings 3:16-18).

To human thinking it was simply impossible, but nothing is hard for God.

Without a sound or sign, from sources invisible and apparently impossible, the floods came stealing in all night long; and when the morning dawned, those ditches were flooded with the crystal waters, and reflecting the rays of the morning sun from the red hills of Edom.

Our unbelief is always wanting some outward sign. The religion of many is largely sensational, and they are not satisfied of its genuineness without manifestations, etc.; but the greatest triumph of faith is to be still and know that He is God.

The great victory of faith is to stand before some impassable Red Sea, and hear the Master say, "Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord," and "Go forward!" As we step out without any sign or sound--not a wave-splash--and wetting our very feet as we take the first step into its waters, still marching on we shall see the sea divide and the pathway open through the very midst of the waters.

If we have seen the miraculous workings of God in some marvelous case of healing or some extraordinary providential deliverance, I am sure the thing that has impressed us most has been the quietness with which it was all done, the absence of everything spectacular and sensational, and the utter sense of nothingness which came to us as we stood in the presence of this mighty God and felt how easy, it was for Him to do it all without the faintest effort on His part or the slightest help on ours.

It is not the part of faith to question, but to obey. The ditches were made, and the water came pouring in from some supernatural source. What a lesson for our faith!

Are you craving a spiritual blessing? Open the trenches, and God will fill them. And this, too, in the most unexpected places and in the most unexpected ways.

Oh, for that faith that can act by faith and not by sight, and expect God to work although we see no wind or rain. --A. B. Simpson

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There is nothing that you are facing that strains the strength of God. The prophet Elisha told King Jehoshaphat that God said that despite the fact that there would be no wind or rain, the trenches would be filled with fresh water for the men and their animals to drink from.

God calls us to stand in faith in order to receive those great blessings that He has prepared for us. Couldn't God have simply caused it to rain? Yes, of course, but there are those times that God will introduce you to that which is perceived as impossible and ask you to trust Him. He asked Moses to trust Him and then sent him into the most powerful nation in the world with a word and a wooden staff. He asked Abram to trust Him and leave his land, but never gave him a final destination, but promised him the world. He told Noah to build an ark on dry land before anyone had even heard of rain. There are going to be those moments in which God is going to ask you to dig trenches and wait on them to be filled. It is not your job to determine how the trenches will be filled. Your responsibility is to simply dig them and trust God to fill them.

Dr. Rick Wallace

Some of you are going through the most difficult time you have every faced. When you evaluate the situation with your limited perspicacity, the problem seems impossible; it is so much bigger than you. The first thing that you must do is stop viewing your mountains from your perspective. Stop measuring your moments based on their size in comparison to yours. Take the size of your problems and place them next to God and your perspective will change. The simple presence of God transforms the impossible into the conquerable.

God is asking you to dig trenches in the valley. While you are in the heat of the struggle, stop striving and dig trenches. Do not become consumed with the filling of those trenches, that is God's job. Simply dig the trenches and wait. The digging of the trench says to God, "I believe". God is about to water your drought stricken life with waters of restoration and rejuvenation.  God is about to bring strength to your weary and troubled soul. He is about to lift you out of the valley of despair and place your feet upon a rock of confidence and purpose. Dig your trench today. Dig and wait. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace

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Satan's Tools

"Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and, let us run with patience the race that is set before us" (Heb. 12:1).

There are weights which are not sins in themselves, but which become distractions and stumbling blocks in our Christian progress. One of the worst of these is despondency. The heavy heart is indeed a weight that will surely drag us down in our holiness and usefulness.

The failure of Israel to enter the land of promise began in murmuring, or, as the text in Numbers literally puts it, "as it were murmured." Just a faint desire to complain and be discontented. This led on until it blossomed and ripened into rebellion and ruin. Let us give ourselves no liberty ever to doubt God or His love and faithfulness to us in everything and forever.

We can set our will against doubt just as we do against any other sin; and as we stand firm and refuse to doubt, the Holy Spirit will come to our aid and give us the faith of God and crown us with victory.

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It is very easy to fall into the habit of doubting, fretting, and wondering if God has forsaken us and if after all our hopes  are to end in failure. Let us refuse to be discouraged. Let us refuse to be unhappy. Let us "count it all joy" when we cannot feel one emotion of happiness. Let us rejoice by faith, by resolution, by reckoning, and we shall surely find that God will make the reckoning real. --Selected

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The devil has two master tricks. One is to get us discouraged; then for a time at least we can be of no service to others, and so are defeated. The other is to make us doubt, thus breaking the faith link by which we are bound to our Father. Lookout! Do not be tricked either way. --G.E.M.

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Gladness! I like to cultivate the spirit of gladness! It puts the soul so in tune again, and keeps it in tune, so that Satan is shy of touching it--the chords of the soul become too warm, or too full of heavenly electricity, for his infernal fingers,  and he goes off somewhere else! Satan is always very shy of meddling with me when my heart is full of gladness and joy in the Holy Ghost.

My plan is to shun the spirit of sadness as I would Satan; but, alas! I am not always successful. Like the devil himself it meets me on the highway of usefulness, looks me so fully in my face, till my poor soul changes color!

Sadness discolors everything; it leaves all objects charmless; it involves future prospects in darkness; it deprives the soul  of all its aspirations, enchains all its powers, and produces a mental paralysis!

An old believer remarked, that cheerfulness in religion makes all its services come off with delight; and that we are never carried forward so swiftly in the ways of duty as when borne on the wings of delight; adding, that Melancholy clips such wings; or, to alter the figure, takes off our chariot wheels in duty, and makes them, like those of the Egyptians, drag heavily

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In the Bible we are told, "fret not" and "be anxious about nothing" among other passages that explain the devastating force that accompanies worry. Worry robs you of rest, focus and productivity. Worry renders you dysfunctional in your duties as a believer. Worry snatches victory from your grasp and replaces it with emptiness and uncertainty.

Will the vicissitudes of life roll in incessantly? Most certainly, but understand that in Christ you are victorious despite the circumstances of the moment. Your victory is not dependent of the absence of struggle, difficulty, uncertainty, and pain, it is assured despite it.

There is power in learning to trust God to the point that you find yourself smiling in the midst of heartache. There is power in believing God for the supernatural despite the empirical and pragmatic evidence that is sitting before you. There is power in being able to stand firmly in your faith and say, "God I trust you. I trust you with my life; I trust you with my hurt, I trust you with my failures, I trust you with my future."

Don't allow the weight of worry to crush you. If the weight is so heavy that your knees buckle, then you are in the perfect position to pray. David, in one of his darkest moments, after acknowledging his plight, says, "but I give myself to prayer." What ever you may be facing is not a problem for God, so give yourself to prayer. More bills than money? Give yourself to prayer. Feeling lost and alone? Give yourself to prayer. Can't seem to break free of what has entangled you? Give yourself to prayer. Faith and breakthrough are inextricably bound together by the creator.

Christ's magnanimous gift provided at Calvary assures your victory in every circumstance. The evil machinations of the enemy are no match for the cross. The cross brought expiation and redemption. The cross brought power and reconciliation. Stand firm my friends and know that God is about to bust a move in your life. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace