{"id":280,"date":"2015-03-02T15:44:53","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T20:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tloah.com\/?p=280"},"modified":"2015-09-19T22:03:37","modified_gmt":"2015-09-20T02:03:37","slug":"expecting-good-from-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/?p=280","title":{"rendered":"Expecting Good From God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0When we lived in West Virginia and our children were young, we would occasionally visit the fish hatchery in Whith Sulphur Springs.\u00a0 As we walked along the ponds, we would sometimes pretend that we were feeding the fish.\u00a0 With a swing of our arm, as if we were throwing fish-food pellets into the water, hundreds of fish would rush to the surface expecting to be fed.\u00a0 They were expecting food, because they had seen the arm of the hatchery attendant swing out many times before, and it always brought them something good.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If a fish can learn to expect good things when they see the motion of an arm, shouldn’t we as God’s people expect good things when we see God move in our life?\u00a0 God has been so good to us.\u00a0 He has saved us from sin, placed us as sons in His family, given us His righteousness, and promised us a home in Heaven.\u00a0 He has given us strength, protection, wisdom, and daily provisions.\u00a0 He has calmed our hearts, answered our prayers, and directed our lives.\u00a0 He has promised never to leave us and always to love us.\u00a0 Then things begin to happen in our life which puzzle us.\u00a0 We see the action of God’s arm, but we do not know what he is doing.\u00a0 We begin to doubt, fear, and even question God.\u00a0 Rather than expecting good things from God and running to Him, we expect bad things and run from Him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In Psalm 81, the Lord reminded Israel of His goodness to them in the past.\u00a0 He had taken them out of Egypt and removed them from the burden of slavery (v. 6,7,10).\u00a0 Then He told them to open their mouth wide and He would fill it (v. 10).\u00a0 They had seen Him act in the past, now they should trust Him for the present and the future.\u00a0 He was ready to bless them, they just needed to expect it and open their mouth wide.\u00a0 But Israel refused to hearken to God’s voice (v. 11), therefore God allowed them to follow their own desires and walk after their own counsels (v. 12).\u00a0 Because they would not obey the Lord and trust Him, they missed out on victories and provisions (v. 13-16).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We should trust in the Lord and follow Him even when circumstances do not look favorable (Proverbs 3:5,6).\u00a0 He has promised that He is for us and not against us and\u00a0will work all things together for good to them that love Him (Romans 8:28,31).\u00a0 When God begins to work in our life, let’s open our mouth wide, expecting good thinigs from Him.\u00a0 He has promised, “I will fill it.”<\/span><\/p>\n

– Pastor Earl<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0When we lived in West Virginia and our children were young, we would occasionally visit the fish hatchery in Whith Sulphur Springs.\u00a0 As we walked along the ponds, Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":489,"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tloah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}