** The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him. ** Psalm 28:7
** I will strengthen thee ** Isaiah 41
Whatever the Lord tells us, it is true and He will fulfill every promise that He declares to us.
In Isaiah 41, the Lord promises to strengthen us and we have discussed many ways that He does that: through trials, in His Word, through others’ encouragement, by helping us to get up on our feet and try again. You can find these posts by typing ‘strength’ in the search bar on the front page of the blog if you would like to review them.
Today, we conclude our strength series by looking at the big picture.
David states in Psalm 28 that the Lord is his strength and shield. The Lord is the one that keeps him on his feet, and keeps him strong and the Lord is also the one that protects him from even more troubles.
In the midst of David’s trials, he learns to trust the Lord more with each passing trouble.
By trusting the Lord in each of his trials, David was watchful for what the Lord would do in his latest one. How would the Lord deliver him this time? What would the Lord teach him in this hardship?
Being watchful is how he was sure to not miss what the Lord was doing or did to help him. This made it easy to declare ** and I am helped **.
Facing his own trials and trusting and leaning on the Lord for the help and strength necessary and then seeing His Hand move in his favor, filled David’s heart with joy and increased his faith each time.
That joy and faith produced Psalm 27, and 28 and 29 and so on. David sang his Psalms to tell others all that the Lord is to him and all that the Lord did for him.
He used his words, his talents, his time and his heart to complete the circle:
God promised
God kept His promise.
David sees what the Lord does and is strengthened and helped in his troubles.
David rejoices over the Lord’s latest victory in his life.
David praises and sings about it so more people know the amazing promises of God and His power to fulfill them.
David’s story is our story.
David’s troubles are our troubles.
David’s promises are our promises.
David’s God is our God.
The Strength Circle is ours as well.
When life turns against us in small or large ways…we can jump into the circle.
We can find a promise from the Lord–Believe it and trust Him with it–Watch for what He is about to do–Not missing His mighty Hand by focusing on the problem–But, focusing on the promise and on God Himself–
Then, when the trouble is over, or even better in the middle of it, we can praise Him for what He will or has done.
Then we can celebrate it in a way that others know how great our God is.
The Strength Circle. David’s and ours.
Our job is to stay inside this circle of faith and invite others to form a part of it.
The Lord’s promise: ** I will strengthen thee **.
The Perfect Strength Circle began generations ago and will never end until we are with Him for all eternity.