Encouragements and Promises for Harder Times!
From the "Keeping an eye on the financial collapse" thread-
harvestisripe wrote:
Actually I think it is good for us to talk about these things and to allow
others to speak out and to rationalize these things - and not to judge anyone
and to try to encourage each other and to pray for one another - to have peace
in the coming storms - we can not make this go away but we can sure encourage
one another in the Lord - in the word - and we really need to love on one
another - perhaps even with comforting scriptures and also scriptures of what
the word does says reguarding the times we live in and the days ahead.
Perhaps one might like to start a thread concerning these things.
God bless all of you - Lynn
I'm starting this thread in response to Lynn's suggestion. This is in hopes that anyone will post their testimony of how God has sustained them, or scriptures where God has promised to remain faithful to His children in the midst of turmoil or calamity. I'll start with mine.
In 1998 my wife and I pulled up roots, I resigned from my government job of 9 years and we moved our family, including 4 kids to a different state over 700 miles away to attend ministry school. We believed the Lord was putting it on our hearts to do so.
When we arrived, another student who left his practice as a doctor prophesied that God had brought us there to prepare us for ministering to others during the economic collapse that was coming. This wasn't a really "edifying" word for me at the time. We'd left all the security and comfort that we'd known for years, but we were sure that God was going to give us a velvet pillow to land on because of our obedience in moving there. It wasn't hard to imagine, after all, as it was a fairly booming time economically speaking back then. The stock market was in the middle of a huge rally, it was also the beginning of the "dot-com" boom, jobs were plentiful and everyone seemed to be prospering, and the prophecy from the good doc really didn't make sense in the midst of it all.
Well, the Lord did provide for us. I met someone who offered me a job working for a Christian television station paying $8 an hour. Remember I have 4 kids. I had a payment on a van (we'd gotten before we moved) of over $200 a month. Our rent was $600. If you do the math, after taxes we had roughly $250 per month left over to meet all of our other expenses. Two hundred and fifty bucks might be the amount of a monthly electric bill in the summertime. And we haven't talked about food yet.
Through the whole time I held on to this passage from God's word:
Quote:
Do Not Worry
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your
life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his
kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:25-34And this one, too;
Quote:
I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or
their children begging bread. Psalm 35:25
For about one year we were place on what I called "God's economy", where you nearly literally depend on the ravens to bring you your sustenance. We went from day to day not knowing what the next day was going to bring, and it caused us to trust in Him for our everyday needs, to the point where my head would hit the pillow at night with the rent due the next day and not a dollar in the bank and I knew that God was going to provide.
Did we lose some conveniences? Yep. And the Lord has this funny way of showing you the difference between a "necessity" and a "convenience". When a "day's wage" is nearly literally what it costs to buy your family's bread, you find out that the telephone and car insurance (or any kind of insurance for that matter) are "conveniences". But then again, God Himself becomes your "insurance". Sounds pretty biblical, actually, don't it?
On the other side of it I can tell you that myself and my family were never without food, never without shelter, and never without clothes, and yes, He provided transportation and necessary utilities like electricity and running water (at least those are a necessity for now ). Yes, bill collectors came knocking (and so did the landlord once or twice). We thought it was humorous that the Lord allowed our phone to be cut off because, miraculously- that's when the bill collectors stopped calling!
Anyway, we have many testimonies of God's provision through that time- every experience is like GOLD to us now, because we'll never have fear of having "lack" again. And yeah, we do feel qualified to encourage others who are going and who will be going through the coming harder times.
And the most important thing we learned? Get OIL! Seek the Kingdom and everything you need will be provided to you. Put aside fear, it's useless and a waste of time. When you're confronted with a major need and you see no way for its provision, BE GLAD! God is about to show you something that you really need to know. After you've confronted that "giant" and you find that the Lord is on your side the next one won't seem so fierce.
These are just a few gems I've picked up on the journey. I'll leave the thread open for others' testimonies/encouragements.
Be blessed, (and UN-afraid!)
ken
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