"Gifted Hands"

"A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees." (Psalms 74:5) Don't ever doubt what God is able to do, in any situation, whether it be in your own personal life, or in the world; this might be the devil's playground, but God is still on the throne. As I was watching "The Kelly File" last night, her last speaker was Dr. Carson; who, in case you are not aware, has be given great wisdom and "gifted hands" by God to be able to perform miracles in his field of medicine. Now he wants to take what he has been given and use it to perform a miracle in this Nation. Currently, he is running pretty much last in the poles, and in the primaries; but he is not leaving till it's over, because it's not over till it's over. I saw something last night that I wish I could see more of in our churches, that ability to stick in there, even when it looks like things have come to an end and it's time to call it quits. Interesting enough, but that's how God likes to do His greatest work, when we are at our weakest and when all our human efforts have been used up. I love the story of Gideon, and how God separated his army at the water, by those who lapped up the water like a dog, and those that cupped the water in their hands. Listening to Pastor Jon this last week, he put a new twist on the three hundred men that cupped the water and drank. I can only imagine what his demonstration to his church was like, because I could hear laughter coming from the congregation. The way Jon described them, they were not those that were mighty fighters, or men on alert; but they were old and fat men, men that could not bend all the way down to the water to drink; they could barely get down on one knee; the kind of men that would usually have someone else give them water to drink, in a cup. Even the footnote in my Bible says that those who cupped their hand were men more alert and prepared for the battle, more like soldiers, ready for the battle. First God takes an army of thirty two thousand, and He causes all those how are afraid to go home, leaving ten thousand men willing to fight; then he divides the ten thousand into three hundred, three hundred men who are able to let God fight for them. There is such a huge difference between those that fight for God and those that allow God to fight for them. There is absolutely no way to compare those three hundred men with those of the enemy, who were too vast to be numbered; "like grasshoppers for multitude" the Bible says, which means that they pretty much covered the land. Yet, when God is the one doing the battle, there is absolutely no way to compare multitude of forces against the hand of God; none whatsoever...
"Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people of old earned a good reputation. By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God's command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen." (Hebrews 11:1-3) NLT