That was the comment from my sweetie sister, Kelly, yesterday! The joy of the Lord is my strength, as He finds the sweetest ways to let me know His invisible Presence is always with me. Like this morning, getting dressed to come to work, I felt Him say to me to pay attention to the message written on the outside of my make-up case:
“SHINE BRIGHT LIKE THE STARS”
Fast forward to less than 20 minutes later, I was driving to work and decided to read my meditation book, God’s Promises, and look what incredibly showed up:
“The wise people will shine like the brightness of the sky. Those who teach others to live right WILL SHINE LIKE STARS (Wink! Wink!) forever and ever. – Daniel 12:3
And that was another one of my God winks, with everything lining up again too perfectly to be considered an ordinary coincidence; God Himself revealed another glimmer of His invisible Presence that is always with us. That’s where the true JOY, peace, strength, hope, and courage come from! Knowing that we’re not handling our lives alone; GOD IS ALWAYS WITH US.
Our job is to PAY ATTENTION to His voice, though! Notice how I felt Him say, ‘Nik, read those words on your make-up case.’ Like a strong prompting, a nudge from Him that you learn when you practice listening and being obedient to Him. Then, next in the car on our way, again that prompting said, “Go to the ‘God’s Promises’ meditation book!’ Again, I listened! The feeling was to search for the word “world,” and I was so shocked when the chapter entitled, “Influence Your World’ included that specific verse. God planted it there to reveal His intimate Presence with me. Heehaw!!!
Yesterday He showed up through a beautiful young lady working with us, Ola. Every day she has a word from God for me, and when I asked her to tell me my message from Him yesterday, she pondered and pondered and finally quoted this verse:
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” – Ezekiel 36:26
I started hugging her and thanking her for this verse because it was God confirming a message He spoke to me just the day before through this old post I had written almost four years ago:
“And all day long, I kept trying not to go down that dark road of negative thinking. But then, a late-night appointment with God encouraged me:
““I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” – Ezekiel 36:26
Before You Turn Out the Light
Trust Me to do what you cannot do: remove the little stones that mar the beauty of your heart.” – Jesus Calling
That made me so happy that God was there with me feeling my pain, but I must trust Him to take away those hurts from my heart. I wrote in my notes on my phone: “Don’t let difficulties from the past mar the beauty of your heart.” I went to bed happy.
Fast forward to today, I’m chatting with a customer, and he gives me his card, and unbelievably, printed on the back are these words:
“Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh.” – Ezekiel 11:19
I started crying KNOWING this was a direct message from God to me confirming His message from the night before.. No coincident! This was His way of letting me know that He’s with me and He doesn’t want me focused on past hurts and disappointments but on HIM. And that He does not want me sad. I asked the customer why did he pick that particular verse for his cards, and he showed me there are different verses, but he always asks God that he should give the right card to the right person. In this case, he got it correct!
See the love and intimate attention I receive from God? For Ola to quote of all verses in the Bible, that specific one was God saying yes, “Trust Me to do what you cannot do: remove the little stones that mar the beauty of your heart.” He then had this verse to show up today:
“…in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a PURE HEART.”
Ask God to help remove the stones that are marring the beauty of your heart by pardoning anyone you feel has disappointed you and loving them from a pure and clean heart of genuine love and forgiveness the way God loves and forgives us. Let’s all shine bright like the stars on God’s behalf by being His people in the world! Our reward is with Him!!! Amen!