Today, we're going to take on a posture of peace by leaning in to our friendship with God.
Hi, I'm Lindsay Van Zale. Posture is a podcast that serves as a short audible fist bump to remind
you that God is in everything. Together, we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture
of perfect peace. Well, welcome to my front porch. I could not stay inside another minute
with this beautiful spring weather, and I wanted to just share it all with you today,
coming at you live from the front porch of my home, which is affectionately known as Haven Hill.
Let's jump in today. I'm really excited about what I have to share. In Psalm chapter 16,
verse 11, David writes this to the Lord. He says, You make known to me the path of life.
In your presence, there is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures
forevermore. Kind of like the pleasurable spring weather that I'm enjoying right now with you guys.
In episode 33, I shared about my own season of transformation that happened last year and how I
learned to embrace the radical change, both good and bad, that was happening in my life
by being led in a revelation of who my never-changing God actually is.
When we don't know what to expect from the circumstances in our lives, we can always
place our expectation on the goodness of God. And it's taking that action, that step of clinging to
what we know about who God is, even in the midst of our unknown circumstances, that's what builds
our trust, and it grows our faith, and ultimately it produces a lasting, perfect peace in our lives.
And we begin to live this lifestyle continuously that empties Satan's hands and runs hell dry.
But you know, you have to know who God is in order to, well, know him. And I know that sounds
obvious, but so often I have sought to know more about God through intellectual study instead of
seeking to know him more through relationship. And you know, looking back, I now realize that
I have been in some of my deepest pits of despair when I have had to face those unknown circumstances
and hardships of life without a revelation of who God really is. You know, without knowing his nature,
his characteristics, without knowing his voice. You know, think about it. We don't expect our human
relationships to flourish only through head knowledge, only by knowing about each other.
So why would we treat our relationship with God like that? You know, I think about my relationship
with my husband Bruce. I know Bruce's voice. Like, when he calls and he says hello, I know it's him.
I don't have to look at the caller ID for confirmation or ask, Bruce, is that really you
talking to me right now? No, I don't doubt my ability to hear Bruce's voice or to understand
what he's saying to me because after all of these years, I can so easily recognize his voice on the
other end of the phone. And not because I know a lot about Bruce, even though I do, but it's because
I know him. Through an 11-year relationship, my relationship with Bruce is not based on me
reading a lot about him on someone's Facebook post or having a lot of people tell me about who he is
or reading a lot of books about him. No, I know Bruce through my experiencing him,
my conversations with him, my speaking to him face to face, all of these years.
And that's how my trust in him has grown so much. In fact, I trust him so much that if someone were
to come today and wrongly accuse him of something, I wouldn't even have to spend time questioning
whether or not it was true because I know Bruce. I can easily shrug off any accusation about him
because I know how Bruce would respond to someone. I know what Bruce would say in a given
circumstance. So I don't have to live in this torment of wondering whether or not Bruce is good
or whether or not Bruce is going to be good to me because I have experienced his goodness to me
all of these years. And you know what? God is so much more trustworthy than Bruce because Bruce,
like you and me, is human and ultimately imperfect. But yet so many of us place the bulk of our trust,
the bulk of our well-being in our human relationships, and we hold God at arm's length
questioning his goodness anytime a circumstance is not good. We find ourselves questioning whether
he loves us, whether he cares.
for us, whether he hears us, whether he wants to speak to us today or not. And
whenever the accuser comes trying to lie to us about him, we often spend our
energy struggling to maintain our belief in his goodness instead of just simply
shrugging it off. And you know, I could tell you so much about God like all day
long and I love doing it, and of course I'm going to continue to do it through
this posture podcast, but I realize if you never experience him for yourself
you're going to forget what I tell you when the accuser comes to lie to you
about him or tries to leverage a horrible circumstance in your life to
explain God's nature. No, no, no. So instead I want us to spend time as a
posture community deepening our friendship with the Lord this week. And I
realize we're all unique individuals, so I unfortunately cannot offer a one size
fits all formula for how to build a friendship with God because your
expression of friendship with him may be different than mine, but what I can
do is I can share from some of the fruit of my friendship with him to inspire you
in your own walk with him. Because here's what I do know, without a shadow of a
doubt, when you seek God you will find him. And what stirs me about Psalm 1611,
which is David, by the way, who was a friend of God, writing about God, it's
this reminder that it's in God's presence where we find fullness of joy.
In his actual presence, not in just our study of him or in our intellectual
knowledge of him. So today, maybe before we seek to figure out another thing
about God or seek another thing from him, let's just simply ask God to make us
aware of his presence, to make his nearness known to us. And this week, let's
expect a deeper friendship with God to emerge. The promise of perfect peace is
found in Isaiah 26 3, and in Hebrew it is shalom shalom, meaning complete wholeness.
Nothing missing, nothing broken. This is who you are in Jesus. Let's declare this
together. Today, I am kept in perfect peace. With my whole heart, I trust the
Lord. I am strong. I am victorious. I am whole. Remember, friend, you are a living
testimony of Jesus's ultimate win. Not because of anything you did, but because
of what he did for you. With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus's
victory on display and Satan's defeat on replay.