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The Amish Voice 10
Join Our Amish Voice Conference Call!
Join us for a live conference call on the first
Sunday of every month at 8:00 p.m. EST.
Simply dial
(302) 202-1110
, and then
enter the conference code
409703
. Join
us in discussion or just listen to the call!
Some of our future conference calls will
be taken from topics in the Plowman
Academy’s ABC study.
Upcoming conference calls:
December 04: Lord’s Supper
: What does the Bible say?
January 01: Missions
: Should we take the Gospel to
others?
You can also call in and listen to some of
our past conference calls:
The Family Altar
The Holy Spirit
God the Father
Jesus Christ
Baptism
The recordings are about an hour long. To listen to our past
recordings, dial:
(641) 715-3800
and enter pin #
89752
.
After you listen to a conference call recording, leave us a
message and tell us what you think!
Isaiah 51:11-16 states:
Therefore the
redeemed of the Lord shall return,
and come with singing unto Zion;
and everlasting joy shall be upon their
head: they shall obtain gladness and joy;
and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
I, even I, am he that comforteth you:
who art thou, that thou shouldest be
afraid of a man that shall die,
and of the son of man which shall be
made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy
maker, that hath stretched forth the
heavens, and laid the foundations of the
earth; and hast feared continually every
day because of the fury of the oppressor,
as if he were ready to destroy?
and where is the fury of the oppressor?
The captive exile hasteneth that he may be
loosed, and that he should not die in the
pit, nor that his bread should fail.
But I am the Lord thy God,
that divided the sea, whose waves roared:
the Lord of hosts is his name.
And I have put my words in thy mouth,
and I have covered thee in the shadow of
mine hand, that I may plant the heavens,
and lay the foundations of the earth,
and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.
The Lord highlighted these verses to me
recently, and with good reason. I have
been afraid of what people will do to me.
People! HE is my Maker. He set the
foundations of the earth in place. He is the
One I should fear, and not mere mortals.
Now, I'm not talking about being afraid
that someone is going to hurt me, I'm
talking about how blind we as humans
can be to the thoughts and feelings of
others. The interesting thing is that as we
focus on how we feel as we are being
unjustly treated, our anger and fear causes
us to mistreat them, and we are
completely blind to it.
Sometimes a lot of this could be avoided
if we would truly fear the Lord and see
His amazing power and authority. Beyond
that, when we are focused on Him and
His might, these things we go through
pale in comparison. What's more, the
Lord often has to allow us to experience
these things so we will become desperate
enough to come to Him and see the truth.
This is a really rough reality for me,
because my flesh wants to focus on how
much it hurts, and that pain really does
matter to God. His heart weeps with ours
when we are hurting. My point is that our
focus on our hurt rather than using our
spirit-man to steer our eyes toward Jesus
and His power actually ends up causing
more pain to our own hearts.
The facts are still facts: someone is doing
something that causes you pain; life is
dealing you something you don't like.
That's still true. It still matters to you and
to God, but your focus is different. It is on
God and His power, rather than the
circumstances. It seems God has to keep
bringing me back to this, because I still
get derailed so easily. Hopefully, you've
already learned this long ago, but I'm
hoping that my sharing it will help others
on their journey, and spare them the
agony of learning it the hard way.
I would like to add that I believe that as
we turn our eyes back to the Father, our
Maker, and to His goodness, power, and
might, I believe He is faithful, and will do
as He says in the verses above. He will
fill our hearts with joy and gladness, and
put a song on our lips. He WILL come
through for us, but our minds need to be
'stayed' on Him, rather than questioning
Him
for
allowing
our
tribulations.
END
The Power of Keeping our Eyes on God
—Norma Miller