"Our God is Higher"

"I will extol thee, my God, O King; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever." (Psalms 145:1)

  As some of you know, my wife has been in her current condition for over 16 years now; and I have never given up asking for God to heal her. It really is not for my sake that I ask this, as I have become very happy in my role of caring for her and providing for all of her needs; but it is for her sake, that the Lord would make her able to communicate with us, and share her heart with me. Don't think that I do not have doubts, because I do; but my doubts are not in God's ability to heal her; but they are in whether He will, and that He has a reason not to heal her. Pastor Bryan has wanted me to share my testimony with the church since the end of 2018, when he asked me to pray about sharing Easter Sunday of 2019; but I did not hear anything from God, and I did not feel at all comfortable about doing it. As it turned out, Rod and his wife shared instead; and that was Rod's last Sunday to be part of the fellowship. This time I not only feel that God is saying yes, but it almost feels as though He is pushing me out there; almost like I am the scared kid behind the stage curtain, and He is standing behind me, saying, "Trust me, this is want I want you to do!" Anywho, this verse we are looking at has something hidden within it, that I hope and pray we can all grab hold of and never let go! I can only explain it with a vision that was shared to me by a pastor 25 or so years ago. In his vision, he was laying on the side of the road, terribly afraid and without hope; when all of the sudden he found himself out in the dessert, alone and feeling miserable about his life. Out of nowhere, a man appeared to him, riding a horse, held out his hand, and handed him a scroll; as he said, "You are a son of the KING!" I cannot remember what was written on the scroll, or if he had even shared the details of it; but what I do remember is that his whole perspective on his life had changed. No longer was he feeling alone, or afraid, or without hope; and all of the sudden, his life was spectacular and filled with joy and peace. And it was based upon the fact that he was a son of the KING! In other words, the word, Extol, although it is speaking about lifting up the name of the LORD, it also includes the lifting up of ourselves, in the process. We are God's treasure! We are all sons and daughters of the KING! If there was one verse that could bring this all into perspective, I think of Jeremiah 29:11, where God says, "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." The glorious part in all of that, is that it is His expected end and not our own! I have no clue what He is doing, let alone what to expect of the end; but this much I do know: He is God, and yet He loves me: I have been made, a son of the KING, and that is a pretty good end...

"Blessed be the God and Father of out Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trail of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto the praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:3-9)