Today, my topic is “Strengthening Yourself in the Lord,” a phrase that comes right out of David’s life story.

It’s pretty easy to tell when David was walking really closely with the Lord compared to when he drifted away and his focus was on other things.

From reading about David, we learn how pressure and stress can affect your walk with the Lord. For example, when David was a young man, he spent a lot of time as a shepherd out in the field with the sheep. He had a lot of time to focus on God and think about how great God is, mighty and loving.

David would look up at the night sky and later write words like, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him.”(Psalm 8, verse 3.)

The Women’s Ministry recently studied the life of David, and what we found was that … When David focused on God, his faith soared.

For example, when his dad sent him to check on his three older brothers who were fighting the war, David saw Goliath standing there, a huge Philistine giant wearing all his armor and taunting the soldiers of Israel.

David’s reaction was entirely different from anyone else’s. The King and the soldiers were cowering in fear but David said, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (1 Sam. 17:26b).

That wasn’t just a naïve boy mouthing off, but that was a young man focusing on God so he saw the giant with a different perspective. He heard the giant’s taunts. He saw how tall the giant was, but wasn’t intimidated either. When David focused on God, his faith soared.

Indeed, in our Women’s ministry, we often say:

GLANCE at the problems but GAZE at God.

Keep Him clearly in focus. Factor Him in when considering problems and challenges.

We all know what happened next. David faced the giant, and there he was, young David, marching forward, full of faith. He put a large rock in his shepherd’s sling, and let it go, whereupon the rock hit the giant in the forehead and he fell down dead. That was a great victory.

Fast forward a few years and things were a bit different. David was a national hero and was very popular with the people.

King Saul, on the other hand, was insanely jealous of David and was out to get him, so David had to run for his life.

When David focused on his problems and left God out of the picture, his fears increased, his faith plummeted, and he made some big errors in judgment.

He hid out in the caves of Adullam, a very remote and wild area, and not just for a few weeks or a few months, but scholars say it was for six years or more – some believe it could have been more than ten years.

During those years, hundreds of believers and others who were disgruntled with the government sought David out. Soon, he had hundreds of people that he was leading.

It was a huge responsibility to keep him and all of those folks fed and alive, especially as they were officially in hiding from the King.

Somewhere along the way, with all those challenges and problems, David’s focus changed.

There’s no doubt he still loved God, but he was so stressed and exhausted that he quit gazing at the Lord.

For a couple of years there was no mention of David praying to God, or writing a single psalm.

When David focused on his problems and left God out of the picture, his fears increased, his faith plummeted, and he made some big errors in judgment.

At his lowest point, David came back from a raid with his men only to find that the enemy had taken their possessions and kidnapped the women and children.

David’s men were so disheartened that they spoke about stoning him.

“Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.” (1 Sam. 30:6)

So when he hit bottom, David finally looked back up the Lord and he strengthened himself in the Lord.

We all have times when we feel the troubles of the world resting on our shoulders and we find ourselves blown off course by the winds of adversity. So …

How do we strengthen ourselves in the Lord?
 Well, when we realize we’ve been blown off course, we need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and look up so we can focus on God again.

We should all remember …

OUR KEY VERSE:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30)

These are verses that stuck in my mind this past summer, so I’m only telling you what I’ve been trying to practice!

I haven’t been in a crisis recently, but I have had an incredibly busy summer overseeing the Women’s Ministry, helping plan our son’s wedding and looking after our grandchildren for several weeks.

Here are three practical suggestions on how to strengthen yourself in the Lord:

God says …

1. COME TO ME

The Lord is always there, no matter what’s gone on in your life, and He always has His arms outstretched, welcoming us to come back and come home.

“Let me restore your soul and give you rest” is what I feel He says to me – especially when I am weary.

His spirit is within you and He stands ready to help you, so just come and run to Him.

COME HONESTLY.

Someone said, Intimacy = into me see
Let Him hold you, let Him hold you together.

COME TO LISTEN.

Don’t do all the talking: Come to listen, too. Let Him talk to you through your open Bible, through the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit within you.

And, by the way, listening time isn’t all about trying to figure out our problems, it’s about recalibrating our focus, so we can learn from Him.

Jesus was always listening to His Father, so if He needed His listening time, how much more do we?

2. Take His YOKE upon you

He wasn’t talking about an egg yolk, but what was Jesus talking about when he talked about “yoke?”

A yoke is a wooden beam, normally used between a pair of oxen and other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs, as oxen usually do.

A yoke maker would make a basic yoke in his shop, but then he would take it out to the field and custom fit it to the animals so it wouldn’t hurt or chafe them.

When Jesus says “My yokes are easy, he means it will fit you well.”

His yoke is custom DESIGNED for you.

You were never intended to pull all the weight or burdens by yourself. Jesus is in the yoke with you, and He is the leader, so you should try to walk in step and not walk against him.

His yoke is light because He PULLS MOST OF THE WEIGHT.

So, let me ask you: How are your shoulders and neck feeling today?

Kind of tense?

Achy a little?

Have you been trying to pull a little too much of the weight all by yourself – or maybe pulling against Him?

If we would let Him lead, cooperate with Him, and let some of the burdens go - let Him carry it - life would get that much easier and better.

Remember, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” – Frederick Buechner (American writer and theologian.)

I love that quote because God knows us inside and out. He knows the gifts, talents and passions He has put in each of us, what life experience you’ve had and He knows exactly what we need.

He is able to make our work and our ministries joyful and fulfilling, while at the same time meeting the deep needs of others.

At the Women’s Ministry, we see that happen all the time. God places women in our lives that need exactly what we have to share with them and vice versa. We get to share with another.

Jesus is the expert on your life and what a blessing to be able to slip his mighty shoulders in the yoke next to you and for him to do most of the heavy lifting. Isn’t that a relief?

Jesus went about doing good and preaching the Gospel, casting out demons and healing the sick, but he didn’t heal all the sick in Israel during his thirty-three years on Earth.

He didn’t cast out every demon or didn’t personally share the good Word with every single person. Why?

Because He was living in a human body like us, and there was physically only so much he could do. He, too, got tired, hungry and thirsty. He knew His limitations and didn’t try to do it all. He was always listening to His Father and just doing what God led him to do.

And that’s how we need to be – always listening and do what God is leading us to do.

But, it’s OK to say no to others sometimes, and the final thing to do to strengthen ourselves in the Lord is

3. REST!

Did you know that God wants you to rest? Even God Himself rested on the seventh day, so that’s right; it’s not a sin to relax.

We’re to take one day a week to relax, recalibrate and refocus back on Him.

The Lord doesn’t want us to be lazy, but he does want us to relax.

As the Bible says, “God gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.” (Isa. 40:29-31)

There’s a physical and emotional rest that God wants to give us, but there is even a deeper rest – something I call “Heart Rest.”

We experience Heart Rest when we fully trust in the Lord and believe that He loves us so much and has only the best plans laid out for us.

As it is written, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Sometimes, when we’re exhausted, or we’re in crisis, we just can’t imagine what good could possibly come out of this – but God promises that if we love him that all things, everything, even the terrible things will work together for good.

That’s when we get to choose to take our focus off the problems and put them back on the one who sees the end from the beginning and choose to trust Him.

“You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. (Isaiah 26:3)

John the Baptist got to learn that the hard way. He was in prison and he sent two of his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one, the Christ?”

He was actually implying, “Remember me – your relative – the one who pointed you out to the world. I’m in jail, please come rescue me.”

Jesus told John’s disciples, “Go and tell John the things that you have seen and heard.”

Here’s the part I’d really like for you to catch… “Blessed is he who is not offended because of me.”

Jesus was the one – He was God in the flesh.

Though he did many things for those in the community, Jesus did not rush to help John.

God allows us to suffer. The thing is to not allow ourselves to be frustrated or angry when things don't flow our way.

If we choose to submit to His Lordship, we have to let Him be the boss and not be offended when He doesn’t do the things we’d like.

The apostle Paul, even after he was whipped and beaten in prison, still found a way to remain positive, and it turns out that some of Paul’s greatest writings came while he was in jail.

So, God’s plan was so much bigger and better than Paul could ever have imagined.

There is a little song called “Trust His Heart” by Ray Boltz that kind of says it all. The lyrics go, in part like this:

“God is too wise to be mistaken; God is too good to be unkind.”

Facing whatever circumstances that come with a heart of rest, I know, I know, I know that He loves me, and that His plans are good.

So, when you don’t understand or see His plan, when you can’t trace His hand – trust His heart.

That’s how I want to live.

How about you?

Questions:

1. Are you in the yoke with Jesus?

2. If not, what is stopping you?

3. Even faced with problems, who are we supposed to focus on? Why?

4. When was the last time you just rolled your burdens off onto the Lord, quit fretting and just rested?

5. How do we strengthen ourselves in the Lord?