Psalm 69:1
Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.
Isaiah 59:19
So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
So, yeah, floods are a bitch. And sometimes they even have a voice: Generally a mocking voice that declares it will triumph over us.
The floods bring despair. One feels, like David, that one sinks in deep water where there is no standing.
But there is a river! A river of life! This river of life is God-with-us. God working in us, God working outside of us. It reminds us of the testimonies of God and urges us to believe we'll come out of the flood, undrowned, alive.
In this Psalm, the psalmist reminds his hearers of God's power...even against floods. He reminds them/us that God's testimonies are very sure. Very sure. Then he states that holiness becomes God's house. The Hebrew meaning of the word "holy" is otherworldliness. A greatness, a glory, a truth, a beauty, a goodness, a strength, a power, a way of life, that is so outside of our mental realm that it is too-good-to-believe--too-hard-to-believe news.
The sureness of God's testimonies hint at permanence. The Psalmist tells us that God's law is sure,God's laws and truth is ever-present. Faith has its laws and its constancy just as gravity has its laws and its constancy. The world -- spiritual, universal-- is stablished. It cannot be moved. Even if the waves seem to be "truth." We must simply enter into His rest, enter into the peace that God has established. To find that peace is to find the strength that allows the waves to be conquered.
Faith works by laws, just as gravity and electricity works by laws. Electricity doesn't flow through wood. Gravity can be overcome by thrust. We understand the laws of electricity and the laws of gravity to control them but we don't understand the laws of God's kingdom. The psalmist tells us that holiness becomes God's house. Holiness is nothing more than understanding and falling in line with God's established spiritual rules. Those are the only ways to conquer the waves. We can't say, "I like the idea of rubber transmitting electricity." Or rather, we can say it. But it's not going to work. God never says vain words. His words are a covenant with his people. Just as electricity and gravity has its covenant with us. We can gripe and complain all we want but we need to get the concept of the laws of the spiritual realm and apply them.
One of the laws I'm working on is that faith must be spoken. I've seen too often how speaking the negative thing has caused negative things to happen. But, perhaps it's a fear I have of believing in fairytales, I haven't seem to be able to commit to speaking the positive things. I remember several times I said, "so-and-so used to run away from his caretaker into the streets and almost got killed." Even though I had put this habit of the child's in the past, the WEIRD thing was that on BOTH times I said this, on that very same day that child ran into the street and almost got killed. The kid wasn't even in the room when I said it. Negative stuff happening when we speak negative stuff happens so many times! I remember my friend telling another friend, "You're gonna die on that new bike of yours." The next day my friend died in a bike accident. Words are powerful things, and they are part of how the law of faith works. The angel Gabriel shut up the mouth of John the Baptist's dad because Zechariah didn't believe. He would have spoken his unbelief. The woman whose son died did not speak or mention his death even when she spoke to Elijah.
I totally believe what the Bible said, "Death and Life are in the power of the tongue."
Psalms 50:23 Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God
Angels have told me several times in dreams to stop talking about my physical pain or my son's and to believe what the Bible says, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." "You will declare a thing." "We walk by faith, not by (human) sight." Why do we believe the waves? Why don't we believe that God really reigns? We can we not simply fall into the otherworldliness of it all.
St Paul tells us all the time that the battle is in the mind.
Romans 12:2
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
“I will say of the Lord He is my refuge,. my God in Him will I trust”. Psalm 91. Instead of speaking of the waves, Jesus tells us to speak to the mountain and to tell the waves about the glory of God. I will tell autism and fibromyalgia, the waves in my life, that the Bible says that we were healed by Jesus' wounds. And I will not affirm the waves' power to destroy me. All things are possible with God.
The woman with the issue of blood entered into the rest of Christ. Jesus didn't know anything about her condition, but she determined in her heart that if she touched the hem of his garment (following the word of God in Malachi where the Son of Man rises with healings in his wings. "wings" was the term for the hem of the garment.) She believed in the word of God and SAID -- or "kept saying"-- "If I touch the hem of his garment, I will be healed." Faith in the words of God and action. And, without Jesus doing anything she put into motion the "law" of Christ's healing before Jesus had time to "size her up and decide if she should be healed." None of that. She knew that God reigns.
Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Once again, Lord, I commit my tongue to speak only your truth. I resist the waves. I acknowledge your promise in Isaiah 53: By your wounds I am healed. Just as I fall in line and commit to the rules of gravity and electricity, I will commit to falling in line with the spiritual laws you've shown me in your word. Paul told us to "water our prayer with thanksgiving" and I commit to praising you for the unseen, for the surety of your testimonies and your promise. As David says, I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."
It's said three times in the Bible: The Just shall live by faith.
And
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. Hebrews 11
All around us, there is evidence of all God has established: his Word, his character, his love, his truth.
Psalm 93
1The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.
2Thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting.
3The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves.
4The LORD on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.
5Thy testimonies are very sure: holiness becometh thine house, O LORD, for ever.
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