God Speaks With His Hand

“For the Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand...”

Isaiah 8:11

How does God speak with His strong hand?   The same way a parent speaks to a child with his or her strong hand.  The parent takes hold of the child’s circumstances with a strong hand until the child will  finally be still and listen.

When God speaks to us by taking hold of us and our circumstances it is unmistakeable.  When God speaks with a strong hand, we find ourselves literally in the grip of circumstances we are powerless to overcome.  We can fight, run, resist and complain but our circumstances hold us.  We cannot move away. We are held too firmly by an unseen hand.

By his strong hand God gets our attention.  We have come to the end of ourselves and we know it.   Finally we grow still and begin to  understand that we are not God,  God’s strong hand brings tears of repentance to our eyes. The tears are the stress of our resistance finally leaving us.

By holding us in the grip of our circumstances God educates us.   Once we have felt the grip of God orchestarated circumstances we are much easier to educate. We learn to be still before God.

When God’s hand has made its point,  we know God is greater than our circumstances. We know we are really in the grip of the hand of His will and voice.

Being stil and knowing He is God is such a relief!

Bud McCord

Abide International

Mary, Did You Know?

The Christmas song “Mary, did you know?”  raises a question every Christian would love to personally ask Mary.

 From the Bible here are a few things we know that Mary knew.

Mary knew she was just Mary from a nowhere place called Nazareth.

Mary knew she was Jewish and was hated for simply being a Jew.

Mary knew she was a virgin and promised to Joseph a descendant of David and this was no one else’s business.

Mary knew she was receiving grace from God, she would be pregnant and give birth to a son called Jesus.

Mary knew her son would be great and called the Son of the most high God.

Mary knew her pregnancy would begin unlike any other that had ever begun and very few would believe her when she claimed she had never known a man.

Mary knew her son would be called Holy and the Son of God.

Mary knew that with God all things are possible and she was about to live this truth.

Mary knew she would called blessed and so would her son.

Mary knew that God had come to her because she was willing to humbly cooperate with Him.

Mary knew that God controlled everything and everyone.

Mary knew a spear would cut through her soul as she watched the plan for her son unfold.

Some say that Mary was only 15 years old when she knew all of this. So much to know for one so young!

Mary, the mother of Jesus was too young. Even so, the One she knew and what He told her made her willing to be what she  could not be and do what she could not do in the Jesus story.

God stills calls those who are too young and too old to do the impossible with Him in the Jesus story.

Click here to see and hear the song “Mary, did you know?” 

Bud McCord

Abide International