Wings of Eagles: Practicing Abiding in God’S Consistent Loving Presence in the Chaotic Floodwaters of Life (Devotional)

By Twila Jensen

Going through tumultuous periods can be rough to navigate. Where is God in these times? What does He want from us? We find our bearings as we look to the Lord. His faithful love for us is full of mercy and grace. His love is relentless and unchanging with our circumstances.

Wings of Eagles will guide you to go deeper in your relationship with the Lord during times of struggles or chaos. Peace and joy are within your reach! Rather than surviving, you can thrive and flourishgrowing profusely.

Trusting God through difficulty or chaos is more of an art than a prescription. This author uses her experiences and Scripture to guide you deeper in your relationship with Christ during these times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973619833

Twila Jensen

Twila Jensen earned her masters degree in theology at Brewer Christian College and Graduate School. She serves as an adjunct professor and Director of Academic Operations at the University of Northwestern, a Christian institution. Jensen married her high school sweetheart more than twenty-five years ago; the two have three sons together. Twila Jensen, whose first name comes from the Hebrew word meaning to pray (tefilah), has a passion for the personal transformation that springs from communion with God through prayer and studying scripture. She is also the author of A Life on Gods Terms, a book about letting Gods love transform you and cause you to flourish in all aspects of your life.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 Twila Jensen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture taken from The Voice™. Copyright © 2012 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

Scriptures taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-1984-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-1983-3 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 03/26/2018

Contents

Introduction: Wait For The Lord

Section 1: Trust and Rely on God

1   God is Working Good in Our lives

2   When We Fail, Mercy Upholds Us

3   Finding Rest in The Storm

Section 2: Live In The Moment

4   Entering The Good Land

5   This is The Day The Lord Has Made

6   Dwell in The Shelter of The Most High

Section 3: Let Joy of The Lord Be Your Strength

7   Emptied of Ourselves and Filled With God

8   Longsuffering–Joy in The Waiting

9   Ask Where The Good Way is, and Walk in it

10   There is Light Right Around The Corner

Section 4: Engage With Purpose

11   A Vision for Success on God’s Terms

12   Let Steadfastness Have its Full Effect in You

13   Being Peacemakers

14   The Lord of All Comfort

15   Broken Bread and Poured Out Wine

Section 5: Remember Gratitude

16   The Kingdom of God is Within You

17   Entering in by Praise and Thanksgiving

18   Praise and Gratitude Aligns The Heart

19   Who is Like The Lord Our God

Section 6: Concluding Remarks

20   The Lord Keeps Every Promise He Makes

21   The Beloved of The Lord Rests Between His Shoulders

Dedication

I dedicate this book to Lynn Casale, Tami Koehler, Chris Harken and others who have taught me to navigate through the difficult storms of life.

I dedicate this book to my wonderful husband who has been a constant support and my incredible boys who are a such a joy.

I also dedicate this book to Dave Johnson, Susan Sievers and my mother who gave me a strong foundation in Christ for which I am ever grateful.

Wait For The Lord

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. (Psalm 130:5,NIV)

What does it look like to wait? Wait, Strongs #6960, qavah, that is used in this verse means to look, eagerly expect, and hope. [1]

There is so much that passes through our brain of sights, sounds, and images. How is it that we experience certain things and not others? Our brain will see and experience those things that we focus in on.

In the same way, we will experience in this season what we focus in on. Are we eagerly expecting in hopefulness the presence of God or are we waiting for something else? I think we can walk out our Christian faith without thinking and experiencing it sometimes.

The angels around the throne of God are in continual awe. They sing over and over, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty (Rev. 4:8, NIV). This never gets old for them. Every moment is a new experience of being awestricken with His incredible beauty.

Perhaps if we are not living in awe, we are not looking to the right places with eager expectation and hopefulness. In the midst of the darkness that seems to surround so much these days, He is right in the midst, shining brightly.

He is doing what He always does, working good into our lives. Psalm 146 (NIV) says, He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow.

Do we see it? Are we awestruck?

We can get caught up in the day to day things to get done. Our attention goes toward all kinds of busy work and we lose sight of why we are even doing it in the first place. We forget the bigger purpose of our lives to live with God, the Maker of heaven and earth. We settle for crossing something off our checklist of things to do.

Otherwise we have our eyes on problems and difficulties (ours or others) and lose sight of Jesus in the midst of the waves. We grit our teeth and hope to make it through difficulties knowing that this world is not our final destination. But He is walking directly toward us with a smile on His face. Let our hearts rejoice, trust and be like Peter and ask Him to invite us out on the waters with Him.

With our eyes set upon Him in utter awe of who He is, we can wait. We wait for His goodness, eagerly anticipating and expecting Him to shine forth in all His brightness.

Someone once told me, you need the years of experience with God to really get in your heart who He is. Time after time, God has met me with goodness in the midst of my difficulties. He has been faithful in all situations.

As an example, some eight years ago or so now around this time, my husband found out he had a rare eye condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa. It showed up later in his life and happened very slowly at first so he didn’t notice changes in his sight.

When he was sent to an eye specialist after failing a field vision test, the eye doctor told him of his condition. He was told that within five years he would most likely be fully blind and he needed to get his things in order because it wouldn’t be long before he couldn’t work, drive or do anything he currently enjoys.

Needless to say, we were both devastated about the news. We were beside ourselves for next steps. In the midst of it, my husband also didn’t have disability insurance. Ironically, a month before the news about his eyes, I had received a word from someone who told me, God says, ‘Don’t worry about the insurance.’

When I received the report of his sight, having a word earlier from God about not worrying about the insurance, helped me to hold onto the truth that God saw us in this situation. He had a hold of us. And in the midst of it, things just came together for us to be totally debt free.

Seeing God taking care of us as my husband lost his job and then his ability to drive when his eyes became worse, we began to explore our hearts. We had always wanted to be foster parents but previously were not in a position where one of us could be home full time to do this.

As we began foster parenting, God gave us a gift of this special little boy with some medical needs