Pam Padgett - teacher
Psalm 18:27 For thou wilt save the afflicted people; ...
The way that God saves us from afflictions is often opposite
to the way the world, and our own flesh, would try to deal with the
afflictions. God leads us in ways of truth and we are often freed from
afflictions by the truth, while the flesh tries to hide truth which
often keeps us bound to what afflicts us.
An example ... When I was working my manager and his boss wanted to hide the fact that
there were not enough people in our work group to do a project which
upper management had approved to be done. Rather than asking to hire
more people, they assigned me and a few other people to do the project,
but then gave us other assignments which we were told were higher
priority. Status reports were given to upper management which made it
look like the project was moving forward.
It was a terrible situation, feeling pressure in being assigned an
unrealistic amount of work and I was also very troubled by the deceptive
status reports. I spoke with my manager multiple times, urging him to
report the truth about the project. Thoughts came that doing this made
me look like a "trouble maker" and my flesh wanted to quietly go along with what was being done. But when I prayed I was reminded of ...
1 John 1:5 This then is the message which we have heard
of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no
darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk
in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: 7 But if we walk in the
light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and
the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
After continuing to pray about this situation for some months, a vice
president of the company came to receive a report about the project in
person. I prayed asking God to help me speak what HE wanted me to speak
and nothing else. During the meeting, instead of listening to the
presentation my manager and his boss had prepared, the vice president
asked to hear from those assigned to work on the project. I told him
the truth about the project. He immediately took steps to have more
people hired so the project could be worked on.
By the truth coming
forth, I was saved from the affliction of being troubled by the
deceptive status reports, and all of us were saved from the affliction
of pressure from being assigned far more work than could be done.
Considering these things, I was reminded of a dream I had several years ago ... I
was being rescued from a place where I had been held. As we escaped I
was riding on a bicycle with the man who freed me. He was steering the
bicycle down the well-lit center of the street. It was dark on the
sides of the street, and it seemed that it would be safer for us to get
away safely if we rode in the darkness. But he kept the bicycle in the
light, and we safely got away.
We are saved from our afflictions by God, and there is no darkness in Him.