April 14, 2011

WORLD CHALLENGE, INC.

Dearly Beloved:

THIS IS A MESSAGE FOR OVERWHELMED BELIEVERS.

I speak now to all Christians who are overwhelmed by accumulating afflictions. David the Psalmist spoke of being overwhelmed by unbearable troubles: "My heart is sore pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen upon me.
Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me" (Psalm 55:4-5).

Search the Scriptures and you will find that no one spoke of trusting God more than David did. No one preached more on seeking the Lord for strength in a time of need. It was David who testified that though he walked through the valley of death he feared no evil because he knew the Lord was with him.

Yet there fell on David a series of deep, painful distresses that shook his faith. At one low point, when everything seemed hopeless, he cried, "All men are liars!" (Psalm 116:11). He was speaking out of his overwhelming pain and sorrow. David said, in essence, "All the words of comfort and hope I've heard haven't come to pass. It all seems like a lie."

David was enduring an all-out attack on his faith. He wasn't accusing God of lying. He was referring to the many human voices coming at him from every side. David was simply in a place of despair. He looked for an escape: "That I had the wings like a dove, I would fly away from all this despairing and find a place of rest" (Psalm 55:6).

When I talk about being overwhelmed, I know of what I speak.
My daughter, Debi, has just been operated on for cancer. My 29-year-old grandson, Brandon, is undergoing chemotherapy for stage 4 cancer. David was right: "Fearfulness and trembling fall upon us."

What does a believing child of God do in these overwhelming hours? We do as David did. "As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voiceŠ[and deliver] my soul in peace from the battle that was against me: for there were many with me" (Psalm 55:16-18).

Go to prayer. Steal away and get into the Lord's presence.
Even if you do it quietly, cry out your pain and ask for his peace to come upon you. We must do more than trust. We must stay in God's Word and pray his promises back to him.

My family and I are walking in faith and relying on God's faithfulness to his Word. God is good!

Thank you for remembering our ministry worldwide to the poor and needy, the widowed and the fatherless. For information on these efforts and others, go to:
www.worldchallenge.org/missions.

In Christ,
DAVID WILKERSON