“If you find your life is not flowing out as it should, you are to blame; something has obstructed the lower. Keep right at the Source, and — you will e blessed personally? No, out of you will flow rivers of living water, irrepressible life.
… It is not a blessing passed on, not an experience stated, but a river continually flowing. Keep at the Source, GUARD well your belief in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow for other lives, no dryness and no deadness.” (emphasis added by Randi)-Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, September 7.
I have found this exceptionally true. Being married to not only an unbeliever, but someone who is antagonistic to God–and then has some outside influences that have gone so far as to send websites and writings claiming Yahweh is Satan!… But I digress–I find I have to really guard and protect both my dedicated time to God and my relationship with Him.
One thing I’ve had to learn was to protect and guard myself my belief and my relationship, but not God, not any part of the Trinity. God doesn’t need me to protect Him. Thank goodness!
I exhausted myself trying, that’s a lot of ground to cover! God is huge, and sort of similar to my defense of my sing through my good looks, intelligence, and charming personality, my ability to defend Him was sorely lacking in appearance, smarts, and tact.
I did buy and Apologetics Bible, but I don’t anticipate making it into it for about another one or two years. The little bit I’ve read was great, but I’m certainly not knowledgeable or articulate enough to defense God–I never will be.
Apologetics will hopefully allow me to better-articulate defense for my belief in real, solid terms, rather than, “I believe God because I have experienced Him way too much to not believe.”
I will also add, blessing is commonly used as a term for things we consider good, pleasurable. Someone once referred to blessing as God working in our lives, which isn’t always pleasurable, but it is always good–even if it takes 25 years to see it as such. I much prefer the working definition, as it helps change perspective–I’m an eternal, die-hard optimist.
This definition also lets me be thankful for blessings always–since I know God is always working in my life, even when I’m down in the mud, wallowing with the swine. (Which I must add, this always made me wonder, since pigs are actually the smartest and cleanest animal on the farm. That doesn’t seem to be common knowledge, though. So I guess the analogy holds.)
Isaiah 33:19
19 You will no longer see the barbarians,
a people whose speech is difficult to comprehend—
who stammer in a language that is not understood.
This is not just foreigners, this is people who don’t know God–the same as the person I tried to defend God from. These people don’t know their Shepherd, don’t know His voice. Pray for these people!
As happened on Pentecost, all will hear in their own language, so all will understand. Babel will be reverted, everyone will understand each other; but everyone will be reliant on God, not on themselves or humanity.