Shake Well Before Using

OK this title comes from the sermon my preacher, preached yesterday morning. I loved the sermon I know that it was just for me. So I wanted to share it and add my thoughts to it also.

The first thing Preacher D said was "Sometimes God has to shake us to be able to use us." He preached from the book of Habakkuk using 1:1-5, 2:1-4, 20, 3:17-19, the God thing in all of this is that all week last week God kept trying to get me to read the book of Habakkuk. Different things I would read would talk about verses in that book and I just didn't listen to God. I kept putting off reading it, oh I would glance over things in the book but not study them. Well this week I will spent time in the book of Habakkuk seeking what God wants to show me.

Well shaking me is what he has been doing lately and the shaking has not been funny. Like he told us God is always working in our lives and he knows what he is doing, even when we don't understand. Preacher D told us if we just look at the storm it will cause confusion. That is were I have been the last week or so, just looking at my storm and I have been very confused about a lot of things. You know I have learn to be content in a the situations that are in my life, but this last week I have been confused about feeling I have had concerning some of them. Preacher D told us that looking through the storm helps us build our faith and that we should look the eyes of God not our own eyes. Well, that is something else that has been told to me several times this week and I have not listen too. I always tell people that they need to look through the eyes of God, but its hard sometimes for me to look myself.

The last thing that Preacher D told us is that we need to look beyond the storm and that we could do that through the strength of GOD. I must always remember it's not what I can do, but what God can do and what God wants to do through me. I just have to trust God and wait on him to show me what he wants to do in my life through the storm. That in the storm we need to rejoice and find joy in the Lord. That is hard but when I prayed and realized that if I thanked God for the storm and let him have it I could rejoice because he was then carrying me, yes he was on my side just waiting on me to give it to him.

Thank you Lord that you take my storms and show me just what a great God you are. No the storms are not gone, but God is there and he is greater than the storm.

Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength, ....

Habakkuk 3:18-19