Just A Little Kid

Good morning, Dear Friends and Family,

It's a beautiful day here in our beloved NC. There's a wonderful breeze and we're praying for rain. The leaves are just starting to turn. I sat on my deck this morning and saw beautiful hues of yellow, orange, and red.

I spoke with Dad. D. in the nursing home, and he asked me to enjoy them for him..... I also spoke with one of The Treasures, one of our 4 Great Aunts. All of them had hoped to spend a couple of weeks at the Old Farm place again this year, but they are too bad to make it. What wonderful memories we share of those visits!!!

For my morning devotions I read from I Kings 20. Benhadad's great host of an army had been thoroughly defeated the day before by Israel. The next morning, Benhadad's advisers said to him, " Their gods(Israel's) are gods of the hills; therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they."

So now, we find the children of Israel camped like little children in the valley like two little flocks of kids, while the Syrians filled the country. Now, how venerable are "little kids?" Everyone knows that sheep are practically helpless by nature, without a good shepherd. Thus..the odds are against them!

Now(listen to the drum rolls!!!!!!!!!!!), a prophet walks onto the scene with these words for God's people. The Syrians have said, "Your god is only a god of the hills, NOT of the valley! Now God will deliver the enemy into your hands, and YE SHALL know, that I AM

THE LORD, THE GOD OF THE VALLEY!"

Well, I'm sure you know the rest of the story. Israel has a great victory, a wipe out!

Certainly not in their own strength, but of THE GOD OF THE VALLEY! Okay........ after reading that passage, I sat on my swing and talked to God. Lord, this morning, I surely feel like a "little kid." Circumstances and obstacles loom over me, and I'm frightened. But my God, is the God of the valley as well as the mountain. What a wonderful assurance! Once again, God spoke through His living, breathing, encouraging, Spirit filled Word. God's voice........ No, not through a prophet... but as Hebrew tells us, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son......"

Do you feel like a little kid this morning? We really are, you know. But we have a Good Shepherd, a great God! Are you in the valley this morning? Does today's circumstances, needs, proposed plans, events, hover over you with unanswered questions? Look up! Look at Him! Not only is He the God of the mountain, but He is an unchanging God. Whoahoo........what does that mean? That He's engineering and orchestrating all the moments before you on this day! Got that! It is a bit overwhelming, isn't it?

Thank you, God, for today's message. It wasn't in a great wind, an earthquake, or a fire(as Elijah discovered), but through that still small voice, "Fear not, my child........I'll never leave you or forsake you! I'm STILL God!"

Still His child,

Linda