When God Raises Up His Word

“Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders.” (Deut 33:12)

I know how hard it can be to stay in God’s Word. I experience many a dry season. And I often get the question asked – How. How do I stay in the Word? And I often get the question – Why? “Why should I? I read it and it doesn’t speak. I read it and it doesn’t take. I read it and don’t feel it.”

If those are your questions, here is my answer.  We read it because we have no idea when the Lord will raise that Word up in our lives to enrich our own experience with Him.  OR, more importantly, we have no idea when the Lord will raise that Word up so that we can be vessels to speak life and love into the lives of others.  This answer is not one that I would have given last week.  This answer comes from my own lessons learned just this week as I asked those same questions.

This past week, Deuteronomy 33:12 “Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders” has been the anchor verse for the devotional book I am using this year.

At first I smiled at this and simply said thank you Lord, for this. The word beloved has personal significance for me in my own life and I always notice it when I am reading. But for the past several weeks I have been working on developing the first part of Beloved to be presented to publishers at an upcoming writers conference. This is scary for me. Quite frankly, it is stressing me out to no end. I am putting a dream on the line and stepping out in faith that this is a calling of the Lord. The timing of this verse serves as a reminder from the Lord that He is with me and that I simply need to rest secure in him, trusting that He is covering me with His protection. Beloved is all His. I am His beloved, but the work Beloved is His too. The Lord raised this particular verse up this week to enrich my own experience with Him.

In my prayer time I realized that this verse is also for me to share with our eldest son, named Benjamin. He had a rough week and has been on my heart more than normal – if that is even possible when a mom is talking about her son! This verse is the blessing that Moses spoke over the tribe of Benjamin as they prepared to enter the Promised Land. I claim this blessing for the life of my Benjamin. I have claimed it in the past but this week the Lord reminded me to claim it anew. My Ben does not yet walk in the total security and joy of his salvation, but I pray that he will. So I wrote what I trust will be words of love and life into his life because of this blessing. I wrote that I pray he comes to know how the Lord protects Him, and I wrote that I pray he comes to know the strength of God as he rests between His shoulders. I wrote that I pray he claims this blessing for himself. I had this visual of a daddy carrying his son on his shoulders. Our shoulders are strong. Created to bear weight. The Lord desires that we sit squarely between His shoulders and let Him bear the weight of our lives. The Lord raised His Word up so that I might pray it into the life of my son.

This very morning I received a message from a friend who is out of town tending to her dying sister. This could happen today. Maybe tomorrow. And as my heart was breaking for her, this verse again was raised up to share with her. I prayed for her and her sister to rest knowing they were each the beloved of the Lord. I prayed that they know his rest and comfort and strength. These are the same prayers as the ones I prayed for my son, but for a different reason. This sweet woman is about to enter her eternal promised land with Jesus and this blessing is specifically for her in this moment. The Lord raised His Word up in my life so that it could be prayed as a blessing into the life of my friend and her sister.

The way the Lord has used this one verse this week overwhelms me. My prayer for you, and me, is that when we start to think our time in the Word is void we remember this other promise that God makes in Isaiah 55:11:

“so it is with my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

May we be encouraged to trust this promise when we begin to doubt the Word speaks, or takes, or feels. It does. And may we be motivated by this promise to read His Word, never knowing when the Lord will raise it up.

Love and blessings,

Denise

Living Holy one day at a time…