One of the popular phrases that I remember hearing in high school and college was:  “YOU NEED TO GET A GRIP!”  Whenever anyone was off base in what they were saying or doing, this was the phrase that was supposed to help pull them back into place!

I was dealing with some stuff this morning and I found myself getting to a place mentally that I did not need to be at and I said to myself:  “YOU NEED TO GET A GRIP!”  And then I thought:  “I need more than a grip, I need the right grip!”

We need to get a grip, but we need to also make sure that our grip is on the right thing.  A grip on the wrong thing is dangerous and could cause you and others a great deal of pain.

The grip I need to get and keep is on God and His promises, but I must admit – this is easier said than done.  This is tough, because life is hard and a hard life causes us to wonder!

Many times we hope God will be faithful, but we don’t know He will be.  We should know He will be, but we don’t always believe it and if we don’t really believe it, then do we really know it?  This is the place where our grip can become weakened and where we’ve got some work to do!

Can we know that God is faithful and will be faithful?  Is it possible for us to assure our faith and get a grip?  Yes!  My faith is my assurance!  Our Bibles are our assurance!  Jesus is everyone’s assurance!

God has given us all we need to be assured that He is with us and that He will not leave us or forsake us.  We need to claim this promise and live in its power!

“Never Will I Leave You; Never Will I Forsake You!”  Hebrews 13:5

“Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”  John 7:38

What is flowing out of your life?  We need to stop and ask ourselves this question every now and then.  We need to answer honestly and then do something about it.  If we ask and answer honestly, we will have to admit that we sometimes have “STUFF” flowing out of our life that is everything but “RIVERS OF LIVING WATER!”

Here’s The Key: If rivers of living water are not flowing into, then they can’t flow through your life and if they are not flowing through you life, then the rivers of living waters cannot flow out of your life.

The place to start is by making sure that you have the good and positive stuff of God’s Word flowing “INTO” your life.  We do this by reading our Bibles and encouraging blogs like this one, as well as listening to messages live and recorded.  You will notice that this is an “INSIDE’ thing:  The Scripture says those that believe in Jesus will have flowing from “WITHIN”!

“Flowing Into” is the first part.  The second part is “flowing through” and if we are not careful this is where we can really mess it up.  We tend to filter with our own ideas, prejudices, understanding and personal preference.  We can re-route the river of living waters so that it has to run through a bunch of junk before it trickles out of us.  Be on guard to not obstruct the flow of the “river of life” with your own personal junk or the personal junk of others.

Let the river flow into, through and out of your life and live a life that gives God glory and blessing to everyone around you!

Some mornings as I am waking up, the devil seems to take great pleasure in feeling my mind with depressing thoughts.  He seems to hit me with his best shots with a desire to take me down for the count.  On these mornings, I don’t want to get out of bed, but know that I must.  On these mornings I want to give up and wonder if it is possible to just quit life?  On these mornings I feel defeated, discouraged and very depressed.  There is no real rhyme or reason.  They just seem to come out of nowhere and there does not seem to be much that I can do to stop their ebb and flow.

This morning was one of those mornings, yet here I am at the blog writing about it.  In fact, I am not just here at the blog writing about it, I am sitting at Grace Place where I have a full day of meaningful ministry unfolding before me.  How do you move through the dark and dismal attacks of life to find light that allows you to travel on?

This is how I do it:  I get up and get into God’s Word.  I allow His word to speak louder and with more authority that any of the words that the enemy tried to speak into my life earlier.

Here is what the Lord reminded me of this morning – it’s found in Psalms 121:1-8

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills— where does my help come from?   2 My help comes from the LORD,  the Maker of heaven and earth.   3 He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber; 4 indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.   5 The LORD watches over you— the LORD is your shade at your right hand; 6 the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.  7 The LORD will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life;  8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

Here is a worship video with The Brooklyn Tabernacle singing this Scripture – One of my favorite songs!  Hope you enjoy: