Spurgeon and Elliot

I had to laugh a little tonight.
I tried to do a search tonight to find articles or just some bible verses on "direction for the future" or "how to know what God wants you to do"...I wasn't really coming up with anything...or maybe I wasn't being very patient...or maybe I was just trying to find some clear answer as to where I'm supposed go or what I'm supposed to do with my life! I guess it doesn't really work like that!

I am signed up to get some daily emails that contain different clips from CH Spurgeon sermons and I also receive an Elisabeth Elliot one. Usually with them flooding my inbox daily I tend to just throw them in the trash instead of read them. (Again...maybe I'm not being very patient.) Every once in awhile I'll read them...and they are always SO good...so I don't know why I throw them away. ANYWAY...so I decided to go through my email trash and read them...thinking that maybe it would just happen to fit with what I had been looking for.
hmmm...what do you know...they just happened to fit into what I was needing to hear!!! I have to pass them along to you all!

My Choice Is His Choice
He shall choose our inheritance for us. (Psalm 47:4)

Our enemies would allot us a very dreary portion, but we are not left in their hands. The Lord will cause us to stand in our lot, and our place is appointed by His infinite wisdom. A wiser mind than our own arranges our destiny, the ordaining of all things is with God, and we are glad to have it so; we choose that God should choose for us. If we might have our own way we would wish to let all things go in God's way.
Being conscious of our own folly, we would not desire to rule our own destinies. We feel safer and more at ease when the Lord steers our vessel than we could possibly be if we could direct it according to our own judgment. Joyfully we leave the painful present and the unknown future with our Father, our Savior, our Comforter.
O my soul, this day lay down thy wishes at Jesus' feet! If thou hast of late been somewhat wayward and willful, eager to be and to do after thine own mind, now dismiss thy foolish self, and place the reins in the Lord's hands. Say, "He shall choose." If others dispute the sovereignty of the Lord and glory in the free will of man, do thou answer them, "He shall choose for me." It is my freest choice to let Him choose. As a free agent, I elect that He should have absolute sway.

Isaiah 3:10 "Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him."

It is well with the righteous ALWAYS. If it had said, "Say ye to the righteous, that it is well with him in his prosperity," we must have been thankful for so great a boon, for prosperity is an hour of peril, and it is a gift from heaven to be secured from its snares; or if it had been written, "It is well with him when under persecution," we must have been thankful for so sustaining an assurance, for persecution is hard to bear; but when no time is mentioned, all time is included. God's "shalls" must be understood always in their largest sense. From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, from the first gathering of evening shadows until the day-star shines, in all conditions and under all circumstances, it shall be well with the righteous. It is so well with him that we could not imagine it to be better, for he is well fed, he feeds upon the flesh and blood of Jesus; he is well clothed, he wears the imputed righteousness of Christ, he is well housed, he dwells in God; he is well married, his soul is knit in bonds of marriage union to Christ; he is well provided for, for the Lord is his Shepherd; he is well endowed, for heaven is his inheritance. It is well with the righteous-well upon divine authority; the mouth of God speaks the comforting assurance. O beloved, if God declares that all is well, ten thousand devils may declare it to be ill, but we laugh them all to scorn. Blessed be God for a faith which enables us to believe God when the creatures contradict Him. It is, says the Word, at all ties well with thee, thou righteous one; then, beloved, if thou canst not see it, let God's word stand thee in stead of sight; yea, believe it on divine authority more confidently than if thine eyes and thy feelings told it to thee. Whom God blesses is blest indeed, and what His lips declares is truth most sure and steadfast.

Elisabeth Elliot, A Lamp For My Feet, Exodus 13

Detours

When Pharaoh let the people go, "God did not guide them by the road towards the Philistines, though that way was the shortest....God made them go round by way of the wilderness towards the Red Sea"

The direct route would save time as well as wear and tear on the people, but God had something infinitely more important than economics in mind--He wanted the people to be able to sing the song of praise of chapter 15--"The Lord is my refuge and my defense...my deliverer. He is my God and I will glorify Him; He is my father's God and I will exalt Him." (ex 15:2). They sang this song because they had firsthand experience of God's power and deliverance. Pursued by all the chariots and horses, cavalry and infantry of Egypt, they had passed through the Red Sea in safety and seen the enemy drowned. They would have missed this glorious lesson if they had taken the short road.

When we are puzzled by delays and detours, let us think about the great purpose of life: to glorify God. The lessons He wants to teach us "in the wilderness" are priceless means of providing us with a song we could not otherwise have sung: "In Thy constant love Thou hast led the people!" (ex 15:13)

Elisabeth Elliot, A Lamp For My Feet, Romans 12:2

Interrupted Plans

We like things to go smoothly and as planned. Very often unexpected things intervene, and our plans go awry. We think we've got "problems". There is another level at which everything that happens is being engineered. "God has no problems," Corrie ten Boom said, "only plans". When ours are interrupted, his are not. His plans are proceeding exactly as scheduled, moving us always (including those minutes or hours or years which seem most useless or wasted or unendurable) "toward the goal of true maturity" (rom 12:2) Believe God. Turn the interruptions over to Him. He is at the controls.