It’s easy sometimes to read the Word of God and not seem to get anything from it.  How is it that some people say that the Word “spoke” to them and came to life?  How does that happen?  It can happen in many ways, but I want to give you a small example.

I was reading one of my favorite scriptures, Psalm 91, affectionately known as the protection scripture.  I came to the part that says,  “surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler”.   That just seemed to jump out at me.  It seemed to stand out and beckon me to go deeper.  What is a fowler?  So I stopped what I was doing and looked it up.  A fowler is one who catches birds in a snare, usually by pulling an attached cord.

Now I’m not a bird, and God often speaks metaphorically, but I still didn’t get it.  Yet I felt it was standing out for a reason.  So I stopped reading and prayed this scripture over myself.  “Lord, deliver me from the snare of the fowler.”  I said that prayer for several days having no idea why, just in faith believing that God had magnified this particular passage.

Events came to pass quickly.  I had been diagnosed with crohn’s syndrome for about 7 years.  I had tried many different medications to no avail.  They finally tried a shot that lowers your immune system and I had a horrible allergic reaction (thankfully).  They sent me to UNC Medical center for another opinion on what to do with me.

My first meeting with the new doctor, he looked at my blood test results that my doctor had sent him.  He looked at me somewhat frustrated and said, “I don’t think you have crohn’s disease at all.”  I was shocked – how many tests my doctor done and said it was crohn’s?   Then he showed me some pretty simple numbers on the lab results explaining his conclusion.  Then he asked if he could privately (apart from my doctor) do his own colonoscopy to confirm his belief.  And sure enough I DID NOT HAVE IT!!!

For seven years I had been in pain on and off and taking some kind of different medicines that didn’t work and still not feeling well.  This UNC doctor told me to immediately stop the medicines and gave me something mild to calm nerve endings.  I had been telling all my doctors that I thought something was wrong with my ribs and that something else might be causing pain.  ALL of them ignored me and left me in the crohn’s box, except this doctor.  He almost turned red faced and said, “You are not a guinea pig”  He could not speak strongly against the doctor that had referred me to him, but he was angry that this had gone on.

Then I began to see it clearly.  I had been “snared by the fowler”.  Snared by a lie I was ignorant of.  Even though I did not understand the scripture fully until I actually saw the snare in my life – God answered the prayer and exposed what I could not see.  Actually it was the Holy Spirit that led me to begin praying that line in the Psalm.

I was free from that medicine and diagnosis rather quickly and went on to look for the correct answers.  I was free from a seven year snare.  

That’s just a small example of how a scripture set me free.  “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”   John 8:32

God speaks in many ways.  I hope this will inspire you to pay attention to that “still small voice” or what seems to be a small leading.  Follow the Master, read His word with an open heart – and follow it through in faith believing.  Unless you have some large outstanding sin you are ignoring and not prayed about –  God will not withhold communication from you!  He is no respecter of persons.  And if there is a sin you need help getting rid of – talk to Him and ask for help.  He is good at removing obstacles.  He loves you and is on your side.  He longs to have a deep, sweet relationship with you.  He promises  “seek and you shall find”  “ask and knock”  Take a step in His direction and see what happens!  He will not withhold His voice from you!

God bless you – you are loved!!

GAZE – poetry

August 29, 2020

I look but I cannot see

My eyes are clouded with dust

The storms are dark up ahead

That’s when I must gaze on our trust

 

Daily my heart is bombarded

With sad thoughts of days gone by

Where did all the good thoughts go

To find them I really have to try

 

But they are there with certainty

Glistening and shining true

The things that God has done for me

The light comes shining through

 

Where is my rhyme and reason

It’s so hard to obtain

Life sometimes seems like a circle

Like an echoing refrain

 

The days are long and endless

I can’t help but wish for it’s end

But then there is that hopeful treasure

Of life’s best coming once again

 

Believing without seeing

Trust without the feels

Life by faith must be experienced

Then you know what is real

 

On Christ the solid rock I can stand

He is always true

Unmovable and unshakeable

Is how I know its You

 

So rocky and crazy the path ahead

One place my head can rest

That you will never leave me, no

I can lay my head on Your chest

 

So now I say a long needed prayer

Come to me Lord let me know

Thoughts of our beautiful heaven again 

And a joy in knowing I will go

 

 

copyright  2020  Jean Chamblee Thomas

                                                            

In a dark and lonely room

With a fire in my heart

I close my eyes and think of You

 

With unquenchable hunger

I call out to You

You are the union I crave

 

One taste of Your love

One drink of Your soul

My quest will last forever

 

Though clouded by flesh

Surrounded by worldliness

Like a flower buried beneath the snow

 

The enemy rages to rip us apart

Moments are stolen, some slip away

But light always returns

And melts away the baracade that tries to keep us apart

 

And that thing deep inside

First contact never dies

It twists and turns and cries out to survive

 

With conquering force

Breaks down all the lies

And sets free the heart , the love and the cries

 

The candle inside -the Love of my life

So much more than a Savior

His essence abides

 

Jesus, Jesus

Love of my life

May Your heart know how I hunger for You tonight

 

copyright 2009 Jean Chamblee

Heaven Will Be Undivided

August 2, 2020

It is important to see things through the eyes of God, which can totally be found in the scripture if we read it for ourselves and ask His help to understand it.  Everything happening today was foretold by God.  Thousands of years in advance.  Because “ He knows the end from the beginning.”  He dwells outside of time.  That’s why it is so foolish for man to seek “mediums” and horoscopes and such to find “wisdom”  when God is Wisdom Himself.  He made everything and knows what it’s purpose is, and when it will come to an end.

The beauty is – that He has offered us through accepting what Jesus Christ did on the cross and accepting Him as our Lord – we are offered the promise of living in His kingdom – forever – where there are no more tears, pain, sorrow…..heaven.  And in the here and now – we will never be alone.  He will never leave us or forsake us.  We have good promises to stand on.  Having faith is believing what He said – no matter what you see.

God will protect us in this crazy time or take us home to His house at our appointed time.

As for where we are now…..it’s all in the Book.  Don’t be afraid to look.  

God will arise to judge the earth – but if we are in Him, in Christ – it will be okay for us.

Here is an interesting scripture about God “shaking” the earth.  For us – it is so our reliance will be on Him.  But for the world and the enemy of humanity, the devil, Satan.  He gets his way for only a moment in time – and people decide who their allegiance will be to.  Then for Satan and all those that have chosen to follow his ways……it will end…..and not well.  Choose life.  God rules heaven and earth and yes, we will have to live by His ways…..because a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.  And heaven is undivided.  

Isaiah 2:17-22

 

The arrogance of man will be brought low

and human pride humbled;

the Lord alone will be exalted in that day,

and the idols will totally disappear.

 

People will flee to caves in the rocks

and to holes in the ground

from the fearful presence of the Lord

and the splendor of his majesty,

when he rises to shake the earth.

 

In that day people will throw away

to the moles and bats