Thursday, September 26, 2013

Peace! Be still... PART 2


“This is what the Lord says— your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
“I am the Lord your God,
who teaches you what is good for you and leads you along the paths you should follow. Oh, that you had listened to my commands! Then you would have had peace flowing like a gentle river and righteousness rolling over you like waves in the sea” (Isaiah 48:17,18).



            A few days ago I wrote about the great blessing the Lord gifts to us when we are going through problems and storms –peace. Jesus assured that it comes from above and it’s something the Lord passionately desires to implant in our hearts no matter the circumstances we go through. The conclusion of the short devotional was, “I have problems but I’m at peace.”

            So it seems that the Lord wanted to test me if I really walked the talk. A couple of days after I wrote about peace, my computer wouldn’t turn on anymore. I took it to an Apple Store, and the technician diagnosed the problem with the following statement, “Your hard drive is fried; you need a new one.” And of course the million-dollar question followed, “What about all my information? My school documents? My research papers? All the valuable information I have accumulated throughout my college career? My programs? My pictures? My videos? I have Logos and Bibleworks there! Photoshop CS5 entire collection series too! Can I still recover them? His answer: “Sorry. We did everything we could. The hard drive is wiped clean and it is not responding. There are companies that physically open the hard drive, take disk by disk, and recover some of it’s data. It runs about $600 for a 500 GB hard drive. Good luck!”

            It seemed to me that the whole world was watching how I was going to react or what words were going to come out of my mouth after hearing such news. I silently took my computer, walked out of the store, sat at the bench in front of it, took out my Vegie delight 12-inch Subway sandwich, and slowly started eating it. Immediately, He sat next to me, turned his head towards mine, leaned a bit over, and a mix of whispers so hard to decode came across saying, “Peace. Be still.” And I was… It seemed that I was under anesthesia –I didn’t feel anything. Oh the awesome gift of peace…

You see, in every part of scripture, especially in the book of Leviticus, the words, “I AM” are constantly popping out. It seems to suggest that it’s audience may be suffering from some sort of short-term memory loss, and wants to make sure the reader keeps in mind who the great “I AM” is. Isaiah, in chapter 48:17,18, one more time states who the Lord is and what He is to us: Our redeemer who gifts us peace. Additionally, in chapter 57:18-21 brings it to a more personal level declaring that He heals and comforts the hurt and gives them ABUNDANT OVERFLOWING peace.

I tried several methods to recover some of the HD’s data and they failed time after time, so I went ahead and bought a new HD. You see, God didn’t fix my computer and he never promised He would anyway. What He has promised is to pastor, comfort, heal, and gift me peace in these kinds of situations. Isn’t that enough?

I know in whom I have believed in, and His presence is sufficient to me. What about you?

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