Coffee With The Lord

I’m reminded today of conversations I’ve had with friends that were going through times of severe trials, discouragement and difficulty … all happiness had evaporated, despondency had set it…

Thought of them this morning as I read Psalm 94.18-19 during my time of “coffee with the Lord”

“When I thought, ‘My foot slips!’ Your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up! When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.” (Psalm 94:18–19 ESV)

It’s a wonderful thing to discover at our lowest moment that the Lord is there! We flail around frantically wondering if we’re going to make it – feeling like there is no hope. Then a cry arises in our hearts… “Help me Lord!” And He’s there … He supports and helps us … and marvel of marvels, we make it! Praise the Lord? Ever have it happen?

“And now, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which He is commanding you today for your good?” (From Deuteronomy 10:12–13 ESV)

ADOPTED! A different birth father and mother… something happened to end that relationship, but then loving parents adopted the child, and legally it became the son or daughter of the parents who adopted them… But there’s a related issue… When and where and under what circumstances does the adopted child REALLY FEEL LIKE THEY ARE THE CHILD of the parents who adopted them?

Based upon my experience as a parent of adopted children, I’ve found that “sense” comes at different times, in various ways, and in an assortment of circumstances! If you ask adopted children when and where they GENUINELY FELT like they were the child of their adoptive parents, they’d probably pause, have to think about it a bit, and probably say “it just happened one day when… and then I felt like I WAS TRULY YOUR CHILD” (regardless of the circumstances of their physical birth)!

I read a passage of Scripture this morning about that issue… as it relates to our “SPIRITUAL RE-BIRTH” and “ADOPTION” as God’s children…

“When the right time finally came, God sent His own Son. He came as the son of a human mother and lived under the Jewish Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, SO THAT WE MIGHT BECOME GOD’S CHILDREN. And to show that we are His children, GOD SENT THE SPIRIT OF HIS SON INTO OUR HEARTS, THE SPIRIT WHO CRIEES OUT, “FATHER, MY FATHER!” So then, you are no longer a slave but a child! And since you are His child, God will give you all that He has for His children!” (From Galatians 4:4-7 GNT)

There it is… all the way from when we were the child of another disqualified parent (the “devil”)… To the time when we were “born again” (a Spiritual rebirth – John 3:3-8), and then that wonderful, exquisite time when the awareness of being God’s child dawned upon us by the Holy Spirit and we found ourselves crying “Abba Father!”

How good is that… the possibility of being an authentic, genuine “child of God!!!”