WHAMMO!!    POW!!     SLAM!!

Anyone remember the Batman and Robin TV series of the ‘60’s (only old people remember this so google it if you aren’t old…) when something bad happened you would see animated graphics with the big words “WHAMMO, POW, SLAM.” Instead of seeing all the action, you created a movie in your mind.  Life occasionally sends me a big problem whammy!

I was listening to an audio story with my six-year-old granddaughter in the car. The bad guy came into the story. Later we were talking about it and she said to me, “Grandma, that guy was creepy looking!”

We only listened to it! I would have loved to see the movie in her little six-year-old head!

One of my heroes in the Bible is Nehemiah. He always had a “big” problem going on. In chapter six he had lots of bad guys telling him things to make him feel afraid. People were gossiping about him, and then sending him threatening letters. He listened to their tales, he even told them off in Nehemiah 6:8b, “No such things as you say are being done, but you invent them in your own heart.”

Nehemiah had a secret weapon to staying calm in the midst of big problems.

In Nehemiah 6:9-10 he tells us.

“For they all were trying to make us afraid, saying, “Their hands will be weakened in the work, and it will not be done.” Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands.”

Are you troubled about something?  Fill in the blank, my big problem today is______________.  Ask yourself one question. What work of God is not getting done, because I haven’t given this “big problem” over to Him?

I have had big problems in my life that cause me to kneel, or lay prostrate on the floor, crying out to God to fix them.  In the depth of emotion or the daily troubles of life, I find that in each of these, I don’t need my strength to face these problems, I need God’s.

Cancer. Drug addiction. Homelessness.  Just a few needs I have lifted up to God this year. Things that I know I cannot solve, or change. But I have prayed over these things in people’s lives who are dear to me with great crying out to God. I know in His great mercy He has heard me. I have seen Him answer in ways I would not have thought. And in some instances, I am still waiting.

When you filled in the blank about your big problem, write next to it, “O God, strengthen my hands.” Because there are times we enter into prayer, and are strengthened, but we also wait on God in the strengthening. Because His timing is perfect. Now I wanna say I wait on God in perfect patience. But anyone who knows me knows that I whine a lot. I wish I could wait in patience.

But when I realize I need a visual, when I need to know that even though I feel like life is sending me whammies, I reach for that answer.

 Find strength today in Words that satisfy.