This is an amazing story, one to which we can all relate. There is spiritual battle that rages for the soul, where the evil taskmasters will do everything to stop someone from having the freedom to worship the true and living God, and having a personal relationship with Him. Furthermore, the hard taskmasters will try to get people to blame God if things go wrong, and try to deflect the blame somehow towards God.

These “taskmasters” will oppress you and try to bring you down to a place where you feel you are stuck between a rock and hard place, and things go from bad to worse, where you are told to make, ’bricks without straw’. Though they beat you and torment you, they want you to come to a place where you would not want to seek the face of God, because you think that it is Him that is doing this to you. But God has only good things for your life. God wants to bless you, and bring you up out of these circumstances, from the place where you are told to make, ‘bricks without straw’, to a land of blessing.

No matter how hard the enemy tries to defeat you, no matter how difficult things get, even though you feel as if you are in a place where everything is going against you, where you are told to make, ‘bricks without straw’, know this, you have something inside so strong!

No matter how hard the enemy tries to pull you down, you WILL get through these times. You will be set free from their taunts, you will rise above it all and move on, because the Bible says in 1 John 4:4 (KJV),“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”

Just as God promised His people that He would deliver them, by His mighty outstretched hand, by signs and miracles, so God will deliver you. By His mighty power, He will set you free from the hard taskmasters who taunt by telling you that you’re no good, you will never amount to anything, you’re worthless, you can’t doing anything right, you’re lazy and beat you down. But God always wants to bless and encourage you, He wants to be the up lifter of your head. He thinks you’re fantastic, you’re the apple of His eye. To Him you’re beautiful, to God you are amazing, and God will bring you a mighty deliverance from making, ‘bricks without straw’, to a place of blessing.

Now listen to this, from the book of Jeremiah 29:10-11 (NIV), “For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.”

God has only good things for your life. It is not in God’s nature to be bad towards you. That is a lie from the enemy, who does not want you to see, that God loves you, so he blinds your eyes to the truth. The enemy wants to beat you down so low, and have you broken inside and down trodden, ‘making bricks without straw’. But the Bibles says in Matthew 11: 28 to 30 (Amplified Bible), from the very lips of Jesus, himself, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls. For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good — not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne.”

My friend, sometimes the storms of life hit us hard, and we can feel as we are making, ‘bricks without straw’. Nothing is going right for us at all, and we are stuck between a rock and hard place. However, do not despair, for God is about to deliver you, and bring you out from the oppression of the enemy. He will bring you a mighty deliverance, by His mighty outstretched arm. He will make a way where there seems to be no way. He will cause a miracle to happen. He will bring you up and out of your, ‘Egypt of hardship’, to the land of blessing, because He loves you.

God bless you my friend.

Matthew

Written by Matthew McDonald
My Thought for the Day
http://peebles.wordpress.com/

‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,’ is a song written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach for the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Recently, as I walked from my car to the front doors of the church, I felt raindrops falling upon my head, ever so gently. That night in church, the Pastor stood up and said, “This week I have felt gentle raindrops from God, fall upon my head.”

In our text for today, God pours out His rain over His people, however the rain this verse is taking about is Spiritual rain. God brings upon His people, rain from heaven, in the natural and in the Spiritual.

In the natural, rain brings refreshing, it washes and makes clean, and then when the rain has fallen on the earth, it leaves a freshness and beautiful aroma. God’s rain from the Holy Spirit brings healing, restoration, cleansing and a freshness in our zeal for God that fills us with the beautiful aroma of Jesus. The Bible says in Proverbs 16:15 (KJV) In the light of the king’s countenance is life; and his favor is as a cloud of the latter rain.

My friend, today let the raindrops of God’s healing, His restoring and cleansing love, and wash over your life in a fresh and powerful way. May the raindrops of heaven fall upon you.

God bless you my friend.

Matthew