Living By Faith Blog

Call upon Me

I love Psa 50:15 — “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

Twice last week I faced trouble.

But God gave me grace to call upon Him.  And then He powerfully delivered me.

Here’s what happened —

Thursday’s trouble

Last Thursday I prayed about what to write for the next day’s post.

God stirred my heart about “putting on humility” from Col 3:12.

So I sat down — started writing — and finished a rough draft.

At that point I needed to do some other things.  So I put it aside — thinking I’d work on it later.

But later when I looked at it — I didn’t like it.

I tried tweaking it this way — tweaking it that way — but nothing helped.

And I realized —

I was in trouble

But here’s the good news.  Whenever we face trouble — God wants us to call on Him (Psa 50:15).

So I closed my laptop — and prayed.

I laid this blog post at His feet — surrendering it to Him.

I thanked Him for all the times He’d helped me, guided me, directed me with this blog.

I told Him that all I wanted was to be in His will — and that if he didn’t want a post published on Friday — that was OK with me.

I quoted a personalized version of Psa 127:1 — “Unless the Lord builds the blog, they labor in vain who build it.”

And I asked Him for help — for wisdom — for guidance.

A thought

And then — a brand new thought popped into my mind — a different way to approach the topic.

That thought led to another.  And then another.  Wow.

A much better way to put this together.

I opened my laptop, and started writing.

It flowed.  It felt right.  I was pumped.

And I knew — God had delivered me.

Then on Friday …

Thursday night we were up late with some good friends — and early Friday I had a discipleship group.

So as I sat down to work on the Sunday sermon I was tired.

But I prayed — started writing — and the Father helped me.

I was about half-way through when it was time for lunch.

But after lunch — and even after a power-nap — I felt even more tired.

Not only tired — but distracted — bored with my topic — unmotivated.

I wanted to do anything except work on the sermon.

A day of trouble

But I remembered what happened Thursday, so I decided to call upon God.

I got up from my desk and walked around our house praying out loud.

I turned to God the Father — told him I was tired — distracted — bored — and unmotivated.

I asked Him to strengthen me — help me — focus me — energize me.

I asked Him to capture my heart with the passage and the topic.

I didn’t feel any different — but I went back to my desk and started writing.

Thirty minutes later it dawned on me — I’m energized — I’m motivated — this is coming together.

And an hour later — I was finished.

God had delivered me.

Take-aways

One lesson I’ve learned through this blog is to call upon God with every need and problem — and He will deliver me.

That’s the point of Psa 50:15 — “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

Still — there’s too many times when I don’t.

There’s too many times when I try to gut-through my troubles with my own will-power.

But those times are getting fewer.

More and more I’m calling upon God — and seeing Him deliver me.

How about you?

Do you have stories of calling upon God and experiencing His deliverance?  Share them in the comments section below — thanks!

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And here’s some related posts you might find helpful —

• An unusually quick battle -- over this blog
• I always only have one problem
• Praying with faith
• 4:00am worries

(Picture on everystockphoto by heku.)