Week 15 Scripture Memory Challenge

Today begins Week 15 in Beth Moore's Scripture Memory Challenge. I am doing pretty good with all 14 verses so far. I sure don't have the wonderful memory I used to have before the age 50 hormone haze set in :o(

I don't usually use the same verse Beth has chosen for herself, but when I read how this verse is speaking to her, I knew it was just the word from God I need to hear. I have copied a bit to this post, mostly so I can refer to it again and again.

“I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills His purpose for me.” Psalm 57:2 NIV

Here’s what God is using that verse to say to me right now: When I’m in a really hard and hurtful situation, somehow the present difficulty of it overrides my conscious thought that God is going to use it in my life and then through my life. Not one time in my entire tenure on this planet has He ever failed to turn around and use the hardship for good. NOT ONCE. Not when I gave Him enough time and cooperation. Yet, in the midst of it, I often can only hang onto Him for dear life while we ride the wave to shore and then stand there in the aftershock and look like I’ve just been on the spin cycle of a washing machine. Afterward, when He invariably turns it into some kind of maturity, intimacy, insight or ministry, I think, “Why didn’t I just trust Him for that at the time??? Why did I have to take it so personally and injuriously?” I want to learn to CONSISTENTLY claim the victory right there in the worst of the pain or crisis. At the very moment that I’m crying out to God Most High for help, as the psalmist says, I want to proclaim that He’s smack in the middle of fulfilling His purpose for me. Challenging stuff.

That's what I am trusting God to be working in me through this difficult season...maturity, intimacy, insight, ministry--whatever He chooses, it will be beautiful!