Luke 4:23 “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘“Physician, heal yourself.”

After conferring with a trusted source it is apparent that the parable referenced here is not a biblical proverb but is a saying commonly used by Jews in social situations. An antidote as it were. Which brings me to the issue today, good advice is good advice even if we cannot find it in scripture.

I had a nightmare two nights ago and it was so upsetting I refused to go back to sleep for fear it would come back. Eventually I talked to the Father about my deep seated fear and His answer came back to me as it often does in the issues of remembrances of scripture.

Psalm 17:8 Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings,

This was the Father’s way of telling me “Trust me!”

A memory of my past comes to mind when I prayed about my fear in Vietnam. When I went to “the garden” and prayed there was no scriptural remembrance, that night I was wounded and taken to a hospital. I know that does not sound like being under the shadow of His wings but then while in the hospital a fellow soldier came to be a patient there.

While I was in the hospital safe and sound with a minor wound my unit had their first nasty encounter with the enemy and I had been spared a worse fate that might have happened. His wounds were devastating and others had died. At the moment I was shot, it did not feel like God’s protective covering, but later it appears it was exactly that.

Whatever fate befalls us we need to trust God. We must not allow fear to drive us to anything except prayer.

I know this present danger is fraught with possibilities but we must not allow fear to control us.

Trust God for the possible in view of the probable because Jesus has overcome the world and everything is in His capable hands.

John 13:3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God,

He is seated on the throne where the enemy cannot come and since our lives are hidden in Him, we have nothing to lose. Trust Him.

Colossians 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Psalm 32:8-9 English Standard Version

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.

A bit is not fitted without the bridle. He reigns. We might hear and be chomping at the bit to speak and waiting for His timing can be exasperating.

I found that the spirit passed freely throughout Sunday School classes as an adult and the bit pulled at my mouth to keep silent and wait to see if others heard Him and would share.

The leader would say to me after an awkward silence some time, “I hear you thinking.” At that time the pull on the bit was loosened and I would be released to share what I heard.

I was trained that if I could see God at work, it was an invitation to join in that work. While it was true in some cases it was not appropriate in all cases. Maturity is a process of becoming comfortable with the bit and knowing whether we are withstrained or encouraged.

Now in the later years of my life I find myself writing to others and oftentimes I will find myself waiting for the bit to tell me what and when to release a word. You have no idea how many times I have deleted complete efforts because my mind and hands were unbridled.

James 3:2 For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.

Just because one hears does not mean he has been given a tongue.

My tongue tends to jest without the bridle and bit. The gospel is a serious matter and jesting is inappropriate.

Proverbs 26:3 A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of fools.

Which scripture applies to us is in the hands of He who reigns. 

Yes, that is a play on words. If this doesn’t get posted, I’ve been reined in.