A Note from the FM South Asia Leader’s Desk:
Good morning! My prayer for you
today is that God would give you his grace and strength in supernatural
abundance. It’s the hot and humid season
now, but the monsoon rains have started.
It can be a time when we get easily frustrated. Or, at least, I do, when Im hot and sticky
and uncomfortable.
This last few months I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, praying and
learning about the issue of strength.
Where do we get the kind of supernatural strength we need for the race
God has called us to be running? To see
supernatural increase, to bring in a supernatural harvest, we need supernatural
strength and energy. We also need to
learn to be excellent managers/stewards of the strength God gives, rather than
waste it or use it up in ways that leave us empty with nothing left
inside.
This morning in my quiet time I was reading from Psalm 84. Verse 5 says “What joy for those whose strength
comes from the LORD, who have set their minds on a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem. When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place
of refreshing springs. The autumn rains
will clothe it with blessings. They will
continue to grow stronger, and each of them will appear before God in
Jerusalem.” The Jewish practice of going
on pilgrimage to Jerusalem was vital to their faith. The Hebrew word for pilgrimage means “going
on foot”. Even kings would get off their
horses and go up to Jerusalem on foot as a sign of humility.
One of the keys to receiving joy and strength from the Lord, that
supernatural strength we need for what we do, is to become a people who “set
our minds on pilgrimage.” We need to set
aside the time, money, energy and effort to regularly go to His Presence for
renewal. Jerusalem represented the place
where God’s Presence was most felt, where He dwelt. This month, let’s pray for ourselves, and for
each other, that in the midst of working so hard to bring in the harvest, we
will carefully guard our energy source- and realize our strength comes from
Him. We will press in and make necessary
sacrifices to get away with God, so that even our places of sorrow can become
refreshing springs (vs 6). When we are
full of Him, His joy, His strength, and His love, bringing in the harvest will
become easy and fun, not exhausting!
