He Prepares A Table Before Me
“Then they spoke against God; they said, ‘Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?’” Psalm 78:19 NASB
Wilderness– Can He? Can God prepare a table? Life as it comes to us says, “No! God isn’t able to provide in the midst of our empty places.” And we go on wandering. Looking for the answer to our need. Living with the pain of our desolation. Struggling with the demons.
If God is good, why is there wilderness? Why must I experience emptiness and desolation? Why do I have to struggle so hard to survive? The world says, “No, God can’t prepare a table. I have to do it myself.” Years later I realize how wrong I have been. But years later my skin is parched, my feet blistered, and my hands crippled. Unless God prepares the table in the wilderness, nothing that I do will satisfy my hunger.
“Oh, I know that God can provide for the man who is willing to live on nothing. But I have a family. I have a business. I have responsibilities. I can’t bury my head in the Bible and pretend that God will pay the bills. I have to go to work. I have to earn a living. After all, people are depending on me.”
Is that how you look at God’s provision? God takes care of the spiritual and then pushes you out the door to take care of the physical. If you believe that God is not intimately involved in every single aspect of your life, you are living in the wilderness and shouting to the creator, “You can’t prepare a table for me. After all, there is nothing in this place but work to do.”
Do you know why we don’t see God providing? Because we won’t let Him. We see that we are in the wilderness and we immediately start importing resources, building protection and providing for ourselves. God provides for those who are willing to be emptied. That’s the purpose of wilderness. Emptying us of self-reliance. But we resist. Emptying is scary and painful. Emptying means confronting weakness, confusion, and limitation. But emptying is essential if we want God to be the chef.
What are you doing with the wilderness in your life? Are you trying to construct a city to protect yourself or are you letting God drain you of self so that He can be the chef at your table?
Topical Index: wilderness, empty, Psalm 78:19
“Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.” Prov. 30:8,9.
I don’t think humanists can pray this prayer because they aren’t even up to the starting line: the line that acknowledges that everything comes directly from God (like Seeker pointed out recently on this blog). In the flesh, of, course, we cannot see that, however: we can only see the effects of God’s plan that everything eats from everything else’s fork so I think we can come to the (false) conclusion that all we need is more forks (and folks on the other end of them, of course). But, I digress.
I think the very essence of humanism is the illusion that man is the source of what man needs, and today our society has pretty much infected all of us with at least some degree of this illusion: the illusion that it is up to MAN to redistribute man’s wealth ‘fairly’ lest he be full or lest he be poor, and steal. I think we all are pretty much participating in it, too, with our career paths carefully secured and wages properly set; with our politics and votes; our insurance policies and health plans; our retirement plans and stock markets. It seems our moral fiber is spent largely on the politics necessary for ensuring that all the rest of the crabs in the bucket are continuing to act correctly as not only our own source, but also as the source of justice towards both rich and poor because we have been convinced that, somewhere in the roiling mass of humanity, there must be the sum total of what humanity needs.
To the extent that humanism has succeeded, however, I think we are suffering (because suffering seems to be the only way to bring the flesh to its senses), but I think the curses (source of suffering) are really blessings that keep us from dying instantly when we cut ourselves off from God by looking to things other than Him for our life: they give us time to change our minds. The wilderness – curses – is what is there when we turn ourselves around and quit looking to Him for life (for life can be found nowhere else), but I think the curses are all mercy: a buffer between us and our desire for what would annihilate us: time to come to a different conclusion.
Isn’t it time we start listening to the pain in our lives; all of which tells us just one thing: “turn around”. If our gaze is turned toward Egypt, and there is a wilderness in between us and our desire, wouldn’t that be because our backs are actually up against the Promised Land? Isn’t it time to turn all the way around (repent)? Which hand will I look to for all I need today?
“God provides for those who are willing to be emptied” I’ve always heard it said, “God helps those who help themselves” and there’s just something too American about that, that I thought it could not be biblical.
Psalm 23 – You (LORD) prepare a table before me (a silly sheep, being led by you in the midst of a threatening and hostile evironment)
in the presence of all that is set on vexing and harming me (including the inherent “enemy”…myself)
Halellujah!
Brother Skip I am beyond thankful for you – I was introduced via a friend from South Africa and you are confirming everything that God has been gently seeding in my heart the last year. You are a blessing and answer to prayer <3 Thank you for doing your part in God's cosmic plan – you've impacted countless lives and generations to come.
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Excellent word today. I like the paragraph that starts by saying “ do you know why we don’t see God providing …?”. We would rather have the immediate certainty or provision than to follow after him. As I was waking this morning the thought came to me that the cross is an instrument of death and yet Jesus tells us to take up our cross and follow him. Some type of dying must occur. I’m finding that there seems to be a huge chasm between my ways and God’s ways. I think, truth be told, we are constantly looking for shortcuts or a cheaper plan. Who wants to be empty…..Isn’t that what we’re all running from, emptiness? The newest, the greatest, the latest, anything other than empty! I know I’m repeating myself here but maybe it’s necessary for me to understand what I’m “hearing”. The Psalmist says, “oh taste and see that the Lord is good “. I think once we get a taste of him nothing else compares and yet we still tend to run around seeking other possibilities that maybe won’t cost us as much!?! Jesus tells us what his food was….”my meat is to do the will of God and to finish his work ”.
Just some scrambled thoughts trying to figure it out …. blessings on y’all!
I’m getting used to this group because I feel a lot freer to say whatever even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense. Part of the journey?
I’m glad to hear you say that you are getting used to the group, I have been rather intimidated by all the intellectual level being so above me. I keep reading daily and half the time have to look up the meanings of words and am amazed by the instant responses as it would take me a long time to boil it all down so that it’s presented clearly and be understood. I’ve come to be comfortable with who I am, I understand at a different intellectual level and being articulate isn’t one of my strong points but I still appreciate the content and that’s that.
Now, to the cross issue, a couple of weeks ago ( I’m an artist ) I was given a vision of the Lord to paint and I also get to experience the lessons to receive the pictures. It was Him carrying the cross and I was a ground level when He fell under the weight of the whole world, everyone’s sins all at once. The statement: So you think you would help me carry the cross? and of course, you want to say “of course I would Lord”. But really would you? we like to project ourselves into the picture as the hero and strong against all odds person, the victor that would stand up and carry the weight that we could bear of the cross He is bearing. But the reality is are you doing it NOW? My yoke is easy my burden light. Take up your cross and follow me, die to your life and live mine, lose your life and find it in Me. A New and LIving way, walk in it. Forsaking all others. Empty of self and full of Him and His Spirit to please the Father and be obedient even unto death….daily…in this world but not of it. The exchange made His life for ours NOW our life for HIS. The weightiness of the anointing is a NOW moment. Oh, and it cost EVERYTHING.Blessings.
Good words Sharon! I have found that I can feel a little intimidated especially when things get extremely intellectual but I’m learning to take it as it comes. I can always find some nugget as I continue to search for it. I think it takes a certain amount of skill to break down words and facts so that their understandable and digestible. Thank God for this community of believers, so helpful and healthy! Shalom
Emptiness is everything!
But, oh, the travails we go through to discover
that. We also discover that our real life is eternal.
Our carnal life is temporary and serves as the testing
ground. Most of us don’t like tests and the really difficult
and messy life tests are abhorrent to all.
But God’s wisdom knows that sin is no laughing matter
and requires the sinner to experience the dire consequences
sin effects. In the midst of this necessary process, God shows
His love and provision and the way to higher ground. His table
set before us is right in the middle of that higher ground!
What a discovery! So many tests seem to center on promoting
the false sense that we are in control. And then that big, big day
when He finally shows us it’s OK to let go!
And we’re offered a seat at this magnificent table, with cups
overflowing and goodness and love echoing all throughout
the house of the Lord. Forever.
Amen brother. It’s all about Him living His life through us and us getting out of the way and taking a seat resting in Him in the NOW moment, the only “time” that is alive, as then we step out of it into the eternal where time is no more and there is only Truth.
Just another thought. We want to be “self-sustaining “. We don’t want to be dependent.
For the most part we have totally rejected the concept of our daily bread.
When I really dig deeply into myself, into my motivations and into my heart I realize that The Spirit of God is always at work seeking to bring every thought into the obedience of Christ. Having the mind of Christ.
I wonder what we think we would get if we got into the “ promised land”? Heaven on earth? Nirvana? We are still in the flesh and that continues to create issues in regards to what it means to inhabit the promised land. It would be similar to trying to go to heaven in an earthly body! ???????
I think most of us are struggling today with some measure of physical challenge that affects us mentally as well as spiritually. The nephesh is being challenged today as never before, and I think one reason is because we are so far from understanding or following not only the laws that affect us spiritually, but those that affect us mentally and physically. It’s not just all in our heads: our bodies are not just sick and our spirits are not just in the ditch: all of that happens concurrently, and all of it is in response to violations of law: whether ours or those around us who affect us. We are in a war zone, where the only weapons are forged out of obedience to those laws. It might behoove us to learn more about them!
What are these laws? The people living in the world’s longest-living zones – one of which is in the middle of a city, no less – all follow the 8 laws of health: proper use of sunlight, water, air, diet, exercise, sleep, relationship with ourselves, others and the God of their understanding, as well as trust in that Higher Power (sorry for the generic treatment of God: in the interests of correctness, only one of these groups is Christian). It seems our health is more strongly tied to light – which sets our circadian rhythms – than we knew.
In the interests of this, I want to share truly groundbreaking info; at least for me who suffered from 38 years of Chronic Fatigue, as you all know. I was told that my adrenals were at fault. New research compellingly concludes that energy loss is not an adrenal issue, but a mitochondrial one: that we suffer, not BECAUSE of stress, but are stressed because of this lack of energy, and that circadian rhythms in the body – not stress levels – drive how we respond to reality. We are tied to light in our physiology, it seems, in much the same ways as we are tied to spiritual light, and our spirits suffer when our body circadian clocks are disrupted in much the same way as our bodies also suffer when we are cut off from the Sun of Righteousness.
Think violation of physical laws doesn’t affect you spiritually – that your spirit is not tied to what your body is doing? Look at hormonal neurotransmitters: according to Ari Whitten, lack of seratonin produces anhedonia (difficulty with pleasure), passivity, depression, anger, worry, loss of interest in and ability to find pleasure in relationships INCLUDING RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. Lack of dopamine produces feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness, lack of concern for others, irritability at small things. Lack of orexin (our energy and wakefulness hormone) produces exhaustion and weight gain and inability for “sweet sleep” (Prov. 3:24). Low levels of GABA, which is our calming hormone, produces panic, tension, racing thoughts, lack of focus and free-floating worry. All these hormones are much more influenced by our circadian rhythms than they are by stress or any other factor: in fact, imbalance in our hormones is the definition of stress. Our spirituality, as well as our mentality, would be much easier, to say the least, if our neurotransmitters and hormones were balanced (at peace).
If you wanted to join the current free series by Ari Whitten, the recognized expert on energy (no relation to me: I just found this stuff myself), look up “the energy blueprint new science of energy video one”, and learn along with me how we can obey the correct laws of our physiology to unlock the full potential of our mentality and spirituality. As usual, these free offerings have a 24 hr window that expires, so hurry if you want in on the first episode, y’all. Thank you, Skip, for tolerating these internet sharings: I would hope that you can find some benefit, too!
Thank you, very interesting, we will look it up and hope to get in on it today. Blessings.
Such a good word Laurita.I will spend some time today concentrating on them when I get a chance and then hopefully respond. I really needed what you had to say specifically today. I’m glad the Holy Spirit is watching out over me. Since I’m not in a church body. Ciao