Find the Cool Spot

“Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.” (Ps 138:7 AV)

 

This is quite an incredible promise.  We know this is for the nation of Israel.  God has promised the nation as a whole that her enemies will not prevail.  This promise has born out in the millennia of their existence.  Since the calling of Abram from the land of Ur, almost 4,000 years ago, there has been no enemy that has eradicated Israel from the planet.  With the exception of Egypt, Israel is the oldest remaining nation on the planet.  Even Egypt, the oldest of all nations, could not defeat God’s people.  The question comes, what does this promise mean to the N.T. saint?  Can we ask the LORD to do the same?  Perhaps not physically, for the N.T. saint has been called to fiery trials of faith which might include persecution unto martyrdom.  The church is not Israel and vice versa.  The promises made to them do not apply to us.  At least in the physical sense of the word.  We can, however, claim these promises in the spiritual sense of the word.  Our enemies are three.  The world, the flesh, and the devil.  Of these three, not one of them will have victory.  In this sense, we can ask for revival, and gain it!

My father bought a defunct potato farm and turned it into a camping place.  On that property, he hired someone to dig a two-acre pond.  That pond was spring-fed.  We spent a lot of time in and on that pond.  He stocked the pond with bluegill, sunfish, and largemouth bass.  We must have caught thousands of fish from that little body of water.  The panfish rapidly took over that pond so my father put a bounty on all panfish.  If we caught a panfish, we were to throw it over the dam.  There was rock skipping (which my father hated).  He thought we would fill the pond back in with stones if we kept throwing them into the water.  There were boat races.  We would fabricate boats from anything we could find and race them when the wind kicked up.  In the wintertime, we could skate on the pond because it froze completely over.  What I remember most about that pond was swimming.  We did that a lot.  Remember, this pond was spring-fed.  What that meant was on a very still day, you could swim around and find pockets of cold water coming from beneath.  If it was a particularly hot day, you swam around until you found one.  If not, you avoided them.  When the weather was absolutely intolerable, you learned to take your innertube over one of those patches and stay there to cool off.  It revived the overbeaten brow of the overheated.

This is what God does.  By His presence, His Word, and His church, the LORD provides havens of revival.  When we are weary of well-doing or worn down from life, God provides these little pockets of cool water to revive the soul.  The world, flesh, and devil are defeated.  They just don’t know it yet.  If we remember our future lies in glory where rust and moth doth not corrupt, then we can be encouraged that no matter what trouble comes our way, God provides reviving.  He never intends for His children to be so overwhelmed that we leave off our desire to overcome.  He does not wish to bring us to the breaking point that we cannot recover.  This is not the way of God.  God desires to revive us in the midst of trouble.  Trouble cannot be avoided.  There is no clear path of complete comfort for the saint.  Or for Israel for that matter.  The people of God have been asked to endure through hardships of life.  That is the way of life.  What that does not mean is that we faint in the day of adversity that God cannot be found faithful.  He promises to revive.  We simply have to avail ourselves of that revival.  It is up to us.