Three Fold

GOD continues to speak and as He always does with something at least 3 times. He has been using the idea of Hoping and Waiting (Growth) alot over the past few days, and one used a tree example.

Of course, HIS source of speaking to me has been through "Our Daily Bread", "God Calling", and "Living the Message"

Here are some parts of ODB, October 25-26; LTM, October 24-26; and GC October 25:

When trouble comes into our lives, we sometimes feel as if we've been hit broadside. We feel desperation and then we wonder, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?...The season of trouble may not be easy, but if we let ourselves be trained by it, new growth will result as we become more like His Son. - Cindy Hess Kasper

We shrink from the purging and pruning,
Forgetting the Gardener knows
The deeper the cutting and paring
The richer the cluster that grows. -Anon.

Only as we submit our brokenness to the good and great Shepherd of our hearts can we find the peace that allows us to respond to life: "Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance" (Psalm 42:5). Hope in God- it's the only solution for the deep traumas of the heart. -Bill Crowder

The Christian's hope is in the Lord,
We rest secure in His sure Word;
And though we're tempted to despair,
We do not doubt that God is there. -D. DeHaan

No one is hopeless whose hope is in GOD.

...hope desires what God is going to do- and we don't yet know what that is.... Wishing has to do with what I want in things or people or God; hope has to do with what God wants in me and the world of things and people beyond me....Hope means being surprised, because we don't know what is best for us or how our lives are going to be completed. To cultivate hope is to suppress wishing- to refuse to fantasize about what we want, but to live in anticipation of what God is going to do next.

Hope affects the Christian life by making us expectant and alive....People who hope never know what's coming next. They expect it is going to be good, because God is good. Even when disasters occur, people of hope look for how God will use it for good. A person of hope is alive to God. Hope is powerful. It is stimulating. It keeps us on tiptoe, looking for the unexpected.

...waiting does not diminish us,any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Romans 8:24-25, The Message

Believers must be aware that most of the time discipline feels dull and dead. We're impatient if we have to wait a long time for something....Simple desire for more in our Christian lives is sufficient evidence that the life is there. Be patient and wait. It's the Spirit's work. We simply put ourselves in the way of the Spirit so he can work in us.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. Romans 8:26, The Message

Waiting may seem a time of inactivity, as far as the outer world is concerned, but it can, and should, be a time of great activity in the inner life, and the surrounding material plane.

And as of today, HE has used Matthew 5 for the third time. I first read Matthew 5:13-20, On Wednesday, October 24, in "Our Daily Bread." That same day "God Calling" used Matthew 5:13 and added: Power which maintains the salt at its freshest and best, and also preserves from corruption that portion of the world in which I place it. And, to top this three fold off, the lesson this week in Bible that my class will be learning is from Matthew 5:1-20, The Beatitudes, Salt of the earth, and Light of the world. I could not have planned this at all.

Oh, what is HE trying to tell me? What is going on in my life right now?