Feed on His Faithfulness
Recently I was with some friends waiting on the Lord. As I thought about what a struggle it can be to be still and enter His presence, I moved to delighting myself in the Lord and was prompted to go to Psalm 37:4. As I was reading it, I backed up and read verse 3 also. “Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.” Feed on His faithfulness. How do we do that? What does that even mean?
*Nourish yourself on His faithfulness.
*Chew on His faithfulness. Chew on it like a cow chews his cud.
*Ponder His faithfulness.
*Meditate on His faithfulness.
Feeding on His faithfulness helps us to remember all the ways God has been trustworthy in our lives. The miracles, big and small. The times we have felt His love and encouragement. It isn’t just dwelling on His faithfulness to us personally, but His character of faithfulness across the generations.
Psalm 119: 90 “Your faithfulness flows from one generation to the next; all that you created sits firmly in place to testify of you.” TPT
Psalm 40:10 “I have declared your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great assembly.”
Lamentations 3:21-25 “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; “Therefore, I will wait for him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him.”
As I was contemplating feeding on His faithfulness, I was reminded of the time while in college, I was hired to tutor a blind student in trigonometry. The study of trigonometry is about “seeing” the relationship between the sides of a right triangle and the angles of the triangle.
When I first started working with him, he was having a very difficult time “seeing” and understanding these relationships and how things worked together. I can’t remember how the idea came forth, but I had my boyfriend make a peg board with nails driven in a 10”x10” grid. Next, we used some rubber bands to stretch over the pegs to make triangles. He was then able to use his sense of touch to “see” the relationships that he couldn’t see with his physical eyes. We had to bring trigonometry from a realm that was dependent on “seeing” the correlations to a realm he could operate in using his sense of touch.
If we as Christians are honest, one of the most difficult things for us to understand is the ways of God. What is God doing? Many times, we can’t see the connection or relationship between what we are experiencing and what the Bible tells us of God and who He is and what He desires. This is especially true when circumstances are different from anything we have ever encountered or are very challenging. We often can’t see how there is a connection between our situation and what God has promised. When we can’t see the relationship, we can fall into doubting the goodness of God, thinking God has forgotten us or disqualified us in some way. We are vulnerable to succumbing to disappointment or fear.
Just like the trigonometry student needed to be pulled into a different realm so he could “see”, we too need to be pulled into a different realm, the realm of His faithfulness. If we will feed on His faithfulness and drive into the pegboard of our spirit the faithfulness of the Lord, we then use His faithfulness to help us understand His ways.
If instead we use traumatic events, disappointments and our judgements against the Lord as our pegs, we get a very distorted view of God and His ways. We open ourselves up to a spirit of disappointment and hope deferred.
It seems that most often the assignment of the enemy against us is to destroy or hinder our faith. The devil knows without faith it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6). When Jesus told his disciples they were going to go to the other side of the lake (Mark 4:35), they encountered a huge storm. He silenced the storm and then said to the disciples, “Why are you so fearful? How is it you have no faith?” He had told them they were all going to go to the other side, but the storm caused the disciples to doubt and wonder what was going to happen. Their eyes fixed on the storm instead of what the Lord had spoken. We can do the same thing.
The Lord has spoken some things over our nation, but we are also encountering some storms. Has He spoken some things over your life or your family that haven’t occurred yet? This is why we must feed on His faithfulness. When the storms rage, we look at His faithfulness to us individually as well as His faithfulness across the ages.
Take some time to make a list of ways the Lord has been faithful to you and your family. You can add to your list ways God has been faithful to others you know or occurrences you have read about. When the storms appear on the horizon, pull out the list and feed on His faithfulness.