I will deliver you

Psalm 50:14-15

"Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."


 
This is the verse of the day that came up on a web site that I go to. When I first read it I found it very exciting. Here the God of the universe has promised to deliver us and that when that happens we will glorify Him. I was so excited that I immediately prayed and clamed this promise on something that I have been struggling with for a long time.

God immediately answered my prayer, by impressing on me to re-read the verses. It seems that I missed the preconditions.

Precondition one: Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. While I had given God praise and thanksgiving for victories that gained in this struggle, I have never thanked Him for the testing in the first place. You see God has designed the test for me in order that I might grow and so that I could help others facing a similar struggle. I just wanted the test to be gone. God just wanted me to depend on Him.

Precondition two: Preform your vows. I think that in a new testament context this could be stated as use your gift as well as preform your vows. I know that God wants me to teach, but I also know that I cannot teach what I do not know. And for the past several months I have been remiss in my studies. And as for teaching, I have my blog but while that is ok that is not what God has for me. I am to be conducting face to face teaching and I have been avoiding that. It is time that I was about my Father's business.

Precondition three: Call upon Me in the day of trouble. I'm hit and miss on this one. Sometimes I do sometimes I don't. Sometimes when I do I don't mean it or don't expect it to help. How sad.

So now I guess I have something to work on.