{"id":20662,"date":"2014-07-11T00:20:27","date_gmt":"2014-07-11T04:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=20662"},"modified":"2014-07-10T16:08:47","modified_gmt":"2014-07-10T20:08:47","slug":"afflictions-deliverance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2014\/07\/11\/afflictions-deliverance\/","title":{"rendered":"Afflictions and Deliverance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SeekingHimLogo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As I read Psalm 34, I noticed a recurring theme. Take a look at these four verses:<\/p>\n

\n

Verse 4<\/span>
\nI prayed to the Lord, and He answered me. He freed me from all my fears. (NLT)
\nVerse 6<\/span>
\nThis poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. (AMP)
\nVerse 17<\/span>
\nThe Lord hears His people when they call to Him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. (NLT)
\nVerse 19<\/span>
\nMany are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord delivers him out of them all. (NASB)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Do you see it? \u00a0Freedom, salvation, rescue, deliverance<\/em><\/strong>…that\u2019s the theme I saw. \u00a0But “who”<\/strong> is our Deliverer and from “what”<\/strong> are we being freed? \u00a0I love the use of the word \u201cafflictions\u201d in the NASB version of verse 19. Other translations use the words \u201ctroubles, adversities, and evils<\/em>.\u201d \u00a0 ‘Afflictions’<\/em> encompasses our fears, our troubles, our desperation, our helplessness, our brokenness our wounds, our pains. Every trial, every struggle, every adversary and enemy is bound up in the word affliction. That is “what<\/strong>”\u00a0we are being rescued from\u2014our afflictions<\/span><\/strong>. From the small annoying molehills we face daily to the gigantic, seemingly immovable, mountains of tragedy and despair.<\/p>\n

“Who”<\/strong> rescues us and saves us from these afflictions? \u00a0The Lord<\/strong><\/span> is our Deliverer<\/strong>. \u00a0The Lord hears our cries, listens to our prayers when we seek Him. Let\u2019s face it, on our own, we are often incapable of finding our way out of a cardboard box. \u00a0Right now I am in the midst of a struggle. \u00a0In the grand scheme of things, it is a molehill kind of struggle. \u00a0But it has left me feeling bereft and abandoned. \u00a0I cannot find my own way out of that box. \u00a0In fact, at times it seems I have placed the box over my head and am encased by it! \u00a0Yet, Psalm 34:2 says if I \u201cboast only in the Lord\u201d then even in my helplessness I can take heart. \u00a0Doesn\u2019t it make your heart happy that the Lord promises to hear our cries and our prayers? \u00a0He alone can provide deliverance from our afflictions. \u00a0Tony Evans sums it up this way:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cPrayer is the hand of faith that transfers the promises of God into the realities of life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

All we need to do is call His name to put it into motion.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0*<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0~ \u00a0 \u2665 \u00a0 ~\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u271e\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0~ \u00a0\u2665 \u00a0 ~ \u00a0 *<\/span><\/p>\n

Father, we thank You for always being there when we seek You, for hearing the cries of our hearts. You alone are our Deliverer. Our hope and salvation comes from You. You have freed us from every fear, every trouble, every affliction and we are eternally grateful. In Jesus\u2019 name we pray, Amen\u2014so be it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I read Psalm 34, I noticed a recurring theme. Take a look at these four verses: Verse 4 I prayed to the Lord, and He answered me. He freed me from all my fears. (NLT) Verse 6 This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":13840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3020],"tags":[6767,6768,5889,6769,1287,425,3515,3174],"class_list":["post-20662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-devotions","tag-afflictions","tag-afflictions-and-deliverance","tag-cynda-cottrill","tag-daily-devotions-god-is-our-deliverer","tag-gch","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-psalm-34","tag-seeking-him-devotional","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-5ng","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20662"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20686,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20662\/revisions\/20686"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}