When God not only makes you sit up and take notice but gasp out loud!

Lately, God seemed to have fallen into the habit of getting my attention in unexpected and very interesting ways.  Last week, I shared how a friend sent me an encouraging poem just for me about resting in God’s love at exactly the same time as I was putting similar thoughts into words in the book I am currently writing. I had hardly had time to get over that when God snuck up on me again and caught me by surprise. I guess some might say these were happy coincidences, but from my perspective, they sure have a lot of the hallmarks of God about them.

It’s my habit to read a psalm each day as well as some other part of Scripture. Whenever I get through all one hundred and fifty of them, I start all over again. It’s never boring – there is always something to encourage or challenge me in each one of them. Recently, I started my psalm journey yet again, just at a point in writing my current book when I was feeling particularly vulnerable. This book deals with some aspects of my own spiritual journey and thus involves checking back in my journals I have kept over many years now. I was up to a spot where I had written some rather doleful entries at a difficult and draining time of my life. It brought back many memories – I could feel those dark emotions I was reading about stirring in me all over again and beginning to take over, just as they had then.

This was not good, I realised. I knew I needed to identify with how I was feeling then in order to write about it well – but not to the extent of taking it all on board again. So I picked up my bible and quickly turned to the Psalms. I found I was up to Psalm Three – and straight away, verse three caught my attention:

But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.

Yes, I said to myself – God was my shield at that time and did ‘lift up my head’! And God will do that again for me now as I write this book and protect me from getting too ‘bogged down’ in it all.

Then I resolutely turned to my old journal again. Here were some entries from 2002 when I was on leave for four weeks. I had written out a prayer, part of which read: Lord, I feel like I have been in a ‘far country’, away from the enjoyment of your presence. But I’m on the way home now. … I feel you know my great weakness and understand.  …Turn me around – show me the way forward from here.

I continued reading. The next journal entry was two days later. All I had written was – Psalm 3:3!

 But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.

I gasped out loud. God spoke to me then through these words. And now God has spoken to me again – about the very same thing through the very same words.

Anyone would think God knows what is happening in my life at any given point – even what I’m writing about! Anyone would think God is loving and faithful and mighty and comforting and encouraging!

Are you anyone?