Fighting for My Pea Patch

In Psalm 22:3, the Bible says, “God inhabits the praises of Israel.”  The word “inhabit” means “to sit down.”  Let me illustrate this:

When you and I go to God and we say, “Lord, I can’t be the type of preacher you want me to be,” or, “I can’t be the type of husband that I ought to be,” or “I can’t be the type of father or grandfather I need to be,” so “LORD, I need you.”  When we begin to recognize and praise God, He comes and “sits down” with us.

I think about Paul and Silas in Acts 16:25, with their hands and feet shackled in a cold, miserable Roman jail cell, yet the Bible says “About the midnight hour,”  Paul and Silas began praying and singing praises to God.

I imagine their prayer went something like this:  “Lord, we have done everything you have asked us to do.  We have been faithful to what you have called us.  Lord, although we don’t understand everything that’s happening to us, we do know ‘that all things work together for the good of them that love God, to them that are the called according to Your purpose.’  And Father, though there is sorrow in this prison cell tonight, we know that “Joy cometh in the morning.”

Maybe Silas began singing a line of “I’d rather be an ole time Christian than anything I know.”  Or Paul could have kicked in with singing “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.  I once was lost, but now I’m found.  Was blind, but now I see.”

And as they prayed and began praising God, the earth began to quake, the walls began to shake, and the chains that bound them fell to the ground and the prison doors swung open.  The Roman guard woke up startled and thought all the prisoners had fled, so he was ready to take his own life.  What he didn’t realize is that the prisoners weren’t trying to break out, God was trying to break-in!  Paul yelled out to let him know they were all there.  That left that Roman soldier with only one question to ask, “What must I do to be saved?”

I pray today, that no matter what you are going through, that somehow you will find the grace and strength to pray and praise God.  I promise when you do, God will “sit down” with you!

As I begin this new journey in the ministry, I thank you for coming along with me.  I have given a great deal of thought lately to King David and his “Mighty Men.”  When you get to II Samuel 23, you find that these are the last words of King David.  Now whether these were his last spoken words, or last recorded words – we do not know.  However, we can assume that what David has to say here is important to him.

And so, with renewed vigor, I have been reading, reading and re-reading all that David has to say about each of these men.  And the truth of the matter is, they were all men – just like you and I.  They were not super-humans, yet each performed what we would consider to be extraordinary acts.  Some of these acts were for great “prizes” so to speak, and some were performed to protect a little, seemingly insignificant pea-patch in the middle of nowhere – yet, no less courageous.

The common denominator with all of these men was a determination to fight for what God had given them.  And so each did what they could, with what they had, right where they were, and by doing so, they are forever remembered as “Mighty Men.”

I believe God is calling people today, from all walks of life, who will determine in their hearts,  that regardless of the size of whatever God has entrusted to you – whether it is 1000 people or 10 people, whether it is the size of a state or a simple little pea patch – you will take what you have, right where you are and do the very best you can.   And maybe, just maybe, God will raise up a new generation of Mighty Men and Women!

Take this journey with me as we fight for the “pea patches” God has entrusted to us!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton