Count It All Joy?

Do Not Die Here

Change your stinkin’ thinkin’

This familiar Marine Corps saying phrase to change the way you think shakes you and reminds you that you were not meant to die here! John 6:47–50 tells us below that we have an unlimited supply of life. Our sustenance comes directly from heaven. We are only a change of thinking away from accessing heaven’s life sustaining manna.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.

I am that bread of life.

Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.

This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.

God did not create you merely to dwell on earth with no direction and no desire to do or be. God’s word says in Jeremiah 29:11:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

God knows the plans he has for you and that these plans are for good and not for destruction, but they are to give us a future and hope. To fulfill God’s plans for us, we need to live, to move forward rather than going backward or getting stuck in our past failures.

You cannot stay where you are, because people are waiting for your testimony. They are waiting for your God-given experience to guide them through their own turmoil. If you give up, you will miss not only the lesson but the full experience. Look at it this way—repeating the trial at hand is not an option. You might even make the same mistake again, but this experience is necessary for you to move forward. At this time in your life, you need this knowledge to bring you into a new awareness of who God is and can be to you. The choices are to either die here or live to declare the works of the Lord, Psalm 118:17).

I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD.

You probably don’t want to hear that you are going through hard times for the benefit of someone else. When I was where you are right now, that was not something I wanted to hear. I just wanted the experience over and the lesson learned. I wanted to rush through it, just as you do now, but I am glad that I stood still. Never mind that I felt paralyzed so that I couldn’t do anything other than just stand still. When you are not sure, it is best not to make a decision, especially a decision to give up, which could cost you your spiritual life. It is best to quietly stand still and listen for God to speak.

Psalm 40:1–5 says the following:

I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.

He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.

Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.

Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.

Wait on our Savior to help you. He does hear you, he will answer you. You will not continue in the sinking sand of desperation and need. You will, again, stand on solid ground. A firm ground that will support Wait on the Lord to help you. He hears and will answer your cry. He will lift you out of your pit of despair and mud. You will stand on solid ground again and walk upright.