Isaiah 32:1-2 “Behold, a king will reign righteously, and princes will rule justly. And each will be like a refuge from the wind, and a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry country, like the shade of a huge rock in a parched land”.
Isaiah 25:4 “For Thou hast been a defense for the helpless, defense for the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat”.
Many years ago, while I was in a very severe testing in my life, a dear friend/mentor told me that one day I would be “like the shade of a huge rock in a parched land”. He told me to meditate on those verses in Isaiah. Now years later, as I look at these verses, I see that the testing of the Lord is what forms us. We become conformed to His image and learn obedience through testing and suffering. Even Jesus “learned obedience through the things that He suffered (Heb 5:8)”.
Isaiah 50:4 says, “The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple”.
Oh, to be such a disciple! To have learned of the Lord how to be like Jesus, “to sustain the weary with one word”! To be a refuge and shelter from the storms of this life! To have rivers of water “flowing from our innermost being” (John 7:38). To be like a “shade of a huge rock in a dry and parched land”!
We can be these things to those around us. In our churches, in our lives outside the church and in our families. We have something in us that the world does not have. We have the Spirit, and it can flow out of us to show mercy to all around us. Lord help us to be more like You!
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