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“Then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you.”
Deuteronomy 30:3
There are times when it’s hard to see God’s promises of deliverance when bondage comes so easily amidst this world, and the trials and the tribulations are before us. We want to believe that God will, in His righteousness and His mercy, move for us and our cause but the truth is we can’t help but find that there is this lingering doubt in our minds that it will come.
The children of Israel, they had the same problem. Even having seen God’s deliverance in the most triumphant of ways as He handed them the most glorious of victories over the captivity and the slavery that so gripped them, they couldn’t seem to help but doubt. Perhaps it was a response to the long years they had spent at the end of the taskmasters whip, forced to build for the glory of Pharaoh his great cities and monuments, it might have been the fear that in the next moment they would be once find themselves chained and bound.
Whatever it was they found it difficult to stand fast amidst their faith in God as their deliverer. At any chance they got, had they believed that He had even slightly moved away from them or had, for a second, left them, they would turn to foreign gods and idolatrous deities, looking to immoveable statues that would, through their lifeless forms never leave them.
Yet for all our fears and our doubts, for all of the challenges and the difficulties that may lie before us, God is there, and He is waiting for us to turn to Him through all of life’s struggles and tribulations that He may show His compassion unto us and deliver us from whatever may stand before us.
To us God must represent the path to freedom, knowing that it is from His integrity, from His righteousness that the victory is delivered and His people are set to liberty. Our faith in Him cannot waiver even when darkness seems to so encompass us amidst our lives because, in those moments of doubt we open ourselves wide to greater doubts and to greater uncertainty, shutting ourselves off and distancing ourselves from the love of our Heavenly Father.
As hard as it then may be for us we have to look to the throne of God on High and know that He stands ready to stand with us, when we put all of our hope and all of our trust in Him knowing that it will never be frustrated, come what may, come what must through a world of sin and iniquity where unrighteousness stands so ready to choke the life from us. God will, in mercy and compassion, deliver when we put all trust in Him knowing that it is He who restores our fortunes and lifts us high from all that troubles us even as we have been cast to the pits of despair.
We may not know the time or the place or the way in which God will move for the cause of His children, but we can be assured that when we place all hope and faith in Him amidst His love for us, He will, with strength and love move in the most significant of way for them, never failing them or forsaking them through all the days of their lives.
Let us pray:
May You walk with us O Lord, may You shine Your face upon us that Your name shall be known throughout the nations and Your love shall be revealed through the compassion You show unto Your children.
May You be gracious unto Us O Lord, may Your blessings freely flow that Your hope shall abide throughout the generations and Your mercy shall endure forever in the lives of Your people.
Stand steadfast and firm amidst the promises You have made, girding Your creation with Your strength and guiding them with Your hope through all this world’s dark challenges, showing forth Your tender grace in their lives most difficult place.
Stand vigilant and faithfully that hope may endure even through the darkest bondage and the deepest of captivity, that all wickedness and unrighteousness shall be set to flight that dispersed will soon be the dark clouds of night.
For the twenty three aboard the MV Moscow University, taken by Somali Pirates off the coast of Yemen do we pray, seeking and imploring Your mercy amidst the lives of these people who know find themselves in the darkest of estates. Lift Your hand to guard them and protect them amidst these days of challenge that have now befallen them and give them the strength that they need to endure.
Cast upon them Your Holy Spirit and turn their hearts to You that they may see the hope that lives amidst Your great love for them that they may rest in You, knowing that, in Your time and in Your way, they shall be delivered once more to the green pastures of Your grace to breath the blessed air of liberty.
Stand with hope in Your hands O Lord that by Your compassion Your mercy shall be shown and Your righteousness shall be made manifest in the lives of Your children amidst the enduring love that You have for them as You carry them forward in the blessed assurances of Your Word.
In the name of Your Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You in the Kingdom, one God, world without end, Amen.
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