April 1

“My Tender Father, show me the others in my world as you see them.  Show me if I’ve been irritable, or critical, just because I don’t understand your dealings in their lives.  And let me come over to your side, in how I treat them today.”  David Hazard’s Prayer, Hannah Whitall Smith, Safe Within Your Love, pg. 129

I woke up feeling irritable this morning.  I didn’t need to be shown why.  I knew full well.  As I wrote it all down in my journal I felt overwhelmed by my failure to live the life of Christ in me.  I asked God to deliver me from this failure but could see no deliverance awaiting me.  I read through several of the morning’s devotions looking for the key that would unlock Self’s grip on me.  Later, when I returned to finish my devotional reading I noticed I was feeling better just because I’d been distracted from Self for awhile because of my motherly duties.  Then the key was handed to me in David Hazard’s prayer at the end of Hannah’s devotion on the exchanged life.  I had come to realize that while I could accept whatever God had for me directly from His Hand, I was having a great difficulty accepting “second causes” as Hannah calls them.  These trials and sufferings, when brought to me by human hands, seemed more than I could bear.  As soon as I admitted this, God showed me that not all “second causes” were for me.  Sometimes because others are not trusting their lives to God their behavior will affect my life.  It’s in those times that God is teaching ME to trust Him even more.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.”  Proverbs 3:5