Our unchanging God...

I took this picture at Hort Park, Singapore

Dear Friends,

Thanks for stopping by. Thank God for seeing us through another week.

This morning, I was pondering over the great changes between my thoughts, feelings and actions in the different phases of my mood swings - manic and depression. Whenever I am well or manic, I am filled with the joy of the Lord, have more energy, more creativity and enjoy relating to people and doing things, and able to accomplish much for the Lord and for others. Whenever I am unwell or in clinical depression, I am the total opposite - so miserable from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed, so slowed down and exhausted that I have no energy to do anything, can hardly get up of my bed, my mind is so empty and unable to focus that I can't get anything done properly, hate to relate to people and just want to be alone. How terribly inconsistent are my behaviours! I must have confused lots of people around me! Thankfully some of them are beginning to understand that with bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness), some of these things are beyond my control. I am trying, by God's grace, to manage this condition better but it is not easy. I do get discouraged at times in the difficulties of managing this condition.

The Lord reminded me that as frail creatures in a fallen world, we are always changing, all the time. So it is not just with bipolar disorder that I experience so much changes, even a normal person experience changes daily, though not as dramatically as I do. The Lord brings this Psalm to my remembrance:

Psalm 102
11 My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass.
12 But thou, O LORD, shalt endure for ever; and thy remembrance unto all generations.
27 But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

Hebrews 13:8 
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. 

Knowing how weak and inconsistent I am, I am learning to look to the Lord daily for grace to live for Him. I realized that I also need to lower my expectation of myself and others as we are forever changing and have many limitations.

I am reminded that though I am always changing and so are the people and circumstances around me, God is unchanging. The Lord is the same yesterday, today and forever. I can rest in His love, mercies, grace and faithfulness. What a mercy and encouragement!

I like the ways Spurgeon put it "The Christian knows no change with regard to God. He may be rich to-day and poor to-morrow; he may be sickly to-day and well to-morrow; he may be in happiness to-day, to-morrow he may be distressed—but there is no change with regard to his relationship to God. If He loved me yesterday, He loves me to-day. My unmoving mansion of rest is my blessed Lord." Amen! Thank God that His love is unchanging :)

Hope this article by CH Spurgeon will encourage you just like the way it has encouraged me.

“Thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation.”
Psalm 91:9

THE Israelites in the wilderness were continually exposed to change.

Whenever the pillar stayed its motion, the tents were pitched; but to-morrow, ere the morning sun had risen, the trumpet sounded, the ark was in motion, and the fiery, cloudy pillar was leading the way through the narrow defiles of the mountain, up the hillside, or along the arid waste of the wilderness.

They had scarcely time to rest a little before they heard the sound of “Away! this is not your rest; you must still be onward journeying towards Canaan!” They were never long in one place. Even wells and palm trees could not detain them. Yet they had an abiding home in their God, His cloudy pillar was their roof-tree, and its flame by night their household fire.

They must go onward from place to place, continually changing, never having time to settle, and to say, “Now we are secure; in this place we shall dwell.” “Yet,” says Moses, “though we are always changing, Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place throughout all generations.”

The Christian knows no change with regard to God. He may be rich to-day and poor to-morrow; he may be sickly to-day and well to-morrow; he may be in happiness to-day, to-morrow he may be distressed—but there is no change with regard to his relationship to God.

If He loved me yesterday, He loves me to-day. My unmoving mansion of rest is my blessed Lord.

Let prospects be blighted; let hopes be blasted; let joy be withered; let mildews destroy everything; I have lost nothing of what I have in God. He is “my strong habitation whereunto I can continually resort.”

I am a pilgrim in the world, but at home in my God. In the earth I wander, but in God I dwell in a quiet habitation.

Taken from CH Spurgeon's Morning and Evening, 27 Feb, Morning

Hope you enjoy the reading of Psalm 102:



Thank you for stopping by. Take care and have a blessed week!

Warm regards,
Nancie