NOT A NUMBER
Last week we gave scholarships to high school students. We love to be able to provide ENDURANCE scholarships to seniors especially when it is meaningful. As I listened to Lauren, tell the why behind the scholarships three little words stood out.
She told about the three years these seniors played basketball for Stringer. Their 10th-grade year the beginning, the 11th-grade year the reoccurrence and now the senior year with an opponent that wasn’t on the schedule one that had changed the game plan.
But there was a specific group of young men who have provided Stringer with something no one else can, because for a few hours a day, 5 days a week, Stringer is not the cancer patient, the sick husband or medical record number 2209740, to them he is Coach Stringer, and because of them, despite being up against one of life’s toughest opponents has never given up.
Wow! While he is with those boys on the basketball court, he is not record number 2209740 he is NOT A NUMBER!
To feel not a number is difficult when our lives seem to be in a downhill spiral. How do we step back and realize God is here and doesn’t abandon us or leave us?
FIRST GOD MADE EACH OF US:
Psalm 139:13-15
God made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. God made me so wonderfully complex! His workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. He watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
HE WILL TAKE CARE OF US FOREVER:
Isiah 46: 4-13 Isaiah 46:3-4 New International Version (NIV)
3 “Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob,
all the remnant of the people of Israel,
you whom I have upheld since your birth,
and have carried since you were born.
4 Even to your old age and gray hairs
I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
*EVEN TO YOUR OLD AGE AND GRAY HAIRS I will sustain you, and I will rescue you. God created us and cares for us. He loves us unconditionally. He will take care of us throughout our lifetime.
WHEN WE ARE IN A PIT HE IS STILL WITH US:
Psalm 13 New International Version (NIV)
For the director of music. A psalm of David.
1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me.
This Psalm David wrote while in the cave. He felt that God had left Him that God had abandoned him. He was in a cave of emotional darkness. He doubted Gods plan. David was where Satan wanted him to be. David was in a pit. Satan loves for the seeds of doubt, anxiousness, and hopelessness to take over us.
David begins by asking and inquiring to God look at me and answer. He feels that the enemy has overcome him. But then as we draw closer to the end of the verse, David is singing. David thought that he was just a number.
How are we reminded that God is here that we just aren’t a number? We need to preach the gospel to ourselves regularly. And how do we do this? We open up the Bible. When we are distant from the word is when we feel God has abandoned us.
There are lessons over and over through scripture that teaches us of hardships, and through these, we are always reminded that God is there. He doesn’t abandon us. He never leaves us. We aren’t just a number. Every ONE of us is unique to God.
CHALLENGES OF THE WEEK:
• Keep your daily appointment with Christ
• Dive into the word
• Remind yourself that you are not a number, you were handcrafted by God
• Fill your cup with Christ so you can fill other cups
EXTRA READS:
God Has Not Abandoned You
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/god-has-not-abandoned-you
David’s Darkest Hours
https://discoverthebook.org/davids-darkest-hour-when-david-felt-abandoned-by-god/
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