Psalm 68:7-10 - July 7, 2009

Ps 68:7-10 "When you went out before your people, O God, when you marched through the wasteland, Selah 8 the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain, before God, the One of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel. 9 You gave abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance. 10 Your people settled in it, and from your bounty, O God, you provided for the poor." NIV

It is the glory of God to turn barrenness into abundance! Do not focus on your circumstances. This is the greatest thief of our confidence. Our eyes must be fixed upon God and His promises that He has made concerning us. The promises that God declares over a person, a business, a church, a community or a nation are the first fruits of God going before us into the circumstances that He is directed us into. God spoke to His servant Joshua and told Him that wherever his feet walked God had given him that land. God leads us into our possessions before those possessions look like something that we could ever possess. When He sent the 12 spies into the Promised Land to bring back a report only two brought back a report of faith. All of the others brought back a report that was focused solely on the obstacles that had to be overcome and the problems became larger in their minds than the power of God to overcome those promises.
It is God’s delight to take that which appears as a wasteland or that which appears unconquerable and bring under the dominion of His kingdom and through that dominion to transform it into land that is producing an abundant harvest for His purposes. God went before the people of God again and again into situations of great need; deserts, wilderness, land inhabited by God’s enemies and in every situation His power shook those settings; abundant showers where there was desert, supernatural provision where there was lack, timely revelation that strategically provided wisdom to win the victory in time of need. All of these outpourings were the source of God’s intervention to release His abundance. In the midst of each season where His servants were growing weary and their faith was tested God sent timely refreshing to establish renewed confidence in the hearts of His children.
Whatever the need today we can know that if we are walking in accordance with the commands of God concerning us the answer from God’s heart is yes! Where God directs, He protects. Where He leads, He also provides. The apostle Paul built up the faith of the church in 2 Cor 1:20 by saying, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ.” We do not have to live in fear that God will change His mind or is unable to perform what He has pronounced. The fulfillment of God’s promises is not dependent upon our perfection. Those men and women that God demonstrated His greatness through in all of the stories of the scriptures were made of flesh and bone just like us. Elijah was a passionate man, given to emotion. David was a man who fell to great sin and yet the testimony over his life was that he was a man after God’s own heart. Joseph was a proud and immature little brother whom God shaped through an extended season of trial on the pathway to fulfilling his ordained purpose and establishing him in all of the promises spoken over him. In many ways God chooses vessels who are just as much barren or desert land as the situations that He sends them in to and even as He transforms the setting He transforms the individual. Moses was transformed into the right man for the calling by responding TO the calling! In the same way do not look at your own inadequacies or the barrenness of your situation. Identify the promises of God that are His words into your situation and let them shape you and make you. Let them become the foundational seeds that establish faith in your heart that God can cause to blossom into the fullness of His purposes for both you and that situation that He desires to transform through your obedience.