GIFTS FOR YOUR SOUL - WAIT FOR GOD -

Welp, here it is, 4:30AM and I am WIDE AWAKE :-(. I decided to make use of my "extra" awake time and read and write down some thoughts from the daily devotional I am reading by Sheila Walsh. I was really blessed by what I read, and thought I might share some of it with you! It is called........
WAIT FOR GOD

"All human love bears within it the seed of betrayal; it is a failure of love........

"When Judas who had betrayed Him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the cheif priests and elders. 'I have sinned,' he said. 'For I have betrayed innocent blood.'"
~Matthew 27:3-4

"What lay under that act of betrayal? Perhaps a deep thirst to right all wrongs now, to grasp hold of justice with his own two hands and pull it into his world.
I see Judas's life as one that spoke of impatience. I see a deep thirst for more than the life he had lived as a young man.......Deep within his soul he was thirsty for a different life, but he wasn't willing to wait for the "something more" that Christ would offer.

Even in the end, after the betrayal, Judas could not hold on. Now he stood with the rope in his hands, clenching the tool that would end his miserable life. His heart thundered in his ears, his stomach retched. What a fool he had been. His mind treated him to a picture show of a thousand memories that had brought him to this moment. He felt he had no choice but to end the life that had tipped the first domino for someone else. He could not bear to think of Jesus now. He could not bring himself to watch what he had participated in. He threw the rope over a sturdy branch.......But if he had waited three more days He would have seen Christ risen from the dead."

" When we abandon ourselves to hopelessness, we remove ourselves from Christ, our only hope.......Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they rest in God, but we try all sorts of things to still that pounding in our heads and the ache in our souls."

"There is no doubt that what Judas did was the ultimate act of betrayal, but I think of the words of Jesus on the cross: 'Father forgive them for the know not what they are doing.' I wonder if Judas was one of the people on His mind."

"Our impatience to have God move now, to act in ways that make sense to us, will drive us to take control of our lives. God is moving in ways that we cannot see or understand. This means we are left with the question, 'Do I trust Him?' We can choose to bow the knee now and ask Him to forgive us for trying to squeeze the answer we want out of heaven, or we will bow the knee later in remorse at our foolishness in thinking that we knew better than God."

"We are all thirsty in different ways, deep down in our souls. It is a thirst as ancient as the hills. But it is a thirst that can be satisfied only in Christ."

~Sheila Walsh

Lord,
Forgive us for our impatience.
In our restlessness give us peace.
In our impatience give us hope.
In our thirst for You refresh us, we pray
Amen.