“The Lord is with thee”. (Judges 6:12)⁣

Aren’t we told this a lot too?⁣

God is aware of us. ⁣

His Spirit is with us. ⁣

The Savior walks with us. ⁣

But Gideon pushes back on this idea:⁣

“Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? ⁣

“and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of…?” (Judges 6:13)⁣

Doesn’t Gideon’s logic sound familiar, too??⁣

If the Lord is really with me, then why are all of these terrible things happening? ⁣

Where are the miracles you promised? ⁣

The angel doesn’t completely answer Gideon’s question in the moment, other than pointing him toward future blessings. ⁣

But how would you respond to Gideon’s question?⁣

I usually try to focus on one point in each post that I write, but I’ve had a lot of thoughts swirling around on this topic lately, so I’m going to share a few ideas and you can take the idea that resonates the most right now. ⁣

– The reward for being righteous always comes. Always. Usually not when we want it, and sometimes not even in this life. But we have to trust in God’s promise that it will come. ⁣

– The real blessing in the moment is peace and joy on the inside, despite turbulent circumstances. ⁣

– Life can’t just be perfect for those who believe in God and miserable for those who don’t. That would take away the element of faith, and would hinder agency. ⁣

– Although I 100000% relate to this feeling, I can also see how spiritually immature it is to just want blessings all the time. A spiritually mature individual loves God and Jesus with their whole heart, mind, and soul, and the circumstances literally don’t matter at all. ⁣

What do you think? How would you respond to Gideon?⁣

Because Gideon isn’t the only one asking this question.⁣

It’s everywhere. It’s on social media. It’s in our church classes. It’s being asked over and over in our minds. ⁣

And I think there is a whole new level of spiritual understanding available when we start to realize that the angel’s declaration of the Lord being with us IS the miracle we’ve been looking for all along.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post If the Lord be with us…? first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

This is where we keep any shoes that are used often enough to stay downstairs. ⁣

It’s a good-sized basket, which means that sometimes shoes fall to the bottom, making them difficult to find. ⁣

When it’s time for our family to leave the house and put shoes on, sometimes I’ll notice that one of my son’s shoes has fallen to the bottom of the basket. ⁣

I’ll quickly dig his shoe out and place it on top, and THEN I’ll ask him to find his shoes and put them on. ⁣

He will then see his shoes near the top of the basket and put them on all by himself.

He still finds the task difficult sometimes,

And gets frustrated when he can’t easily find his shoes.

But he has no idea that I made his task much easier and much more appropriate for his abilities. ⁣

This is similar to the spiritual foresight that the mighty prophetess and judge Deborah had. ⁣

Barak was terrified to go against the powerful Canaanite army. ⁣

It seemed like a difficult task. ⁣

He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t see the path forward that would end in success.

But Deborah wisely said:⁣

“Is not the Lord gone out before thee?” (Judges 4:14)⁣

She knew that if the Lord was asking them to accomplish a task, then He had made it doable. ⁣

She knew He had prepared the way, removing obstacles that they might not ever be aware of. ⁣

She knew He knew exactly what their abilities were, and what they needed in order to be successful. ⁣

It’s fun to see the obvious hand of the Lord preparing our paths— when the house suddenly becomes available, or that person returns your call, or that teacher has a change of mind. ⁣

But other times we just have to trust that the Lord is preparing our paths in ways that we aren’t aware of. ⁣

He is before us, and He will prepare a way to help us accomplish anything we are asked to do.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Preparing the shoe basket first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

That stoplight had a sign that said “no right turn on red”. ⁣

I despised that sign so much, because I couldn’t see any purpose for it. ⁣

Plus, the light took what seemed like forever to change every time I went to turn right. ⁣

I noticed something interesting about myself, though. ⁣

Whenever I got to the light and there was another car behind me, I would patiently wait until the light turned green. ⁣

But if I got to the light, and there wasn’t a car in sight, I would make the right turn whenever I wanted. ⁣

I thought about this pattern one time, and I realized that I only cared about following that traffic rule when someone was watching me that would judge me. ⁣

But when I was on my own, I did whatever I wanted! ⁣

I had no “integrity” when it came to following that traffic rule. ⁣

I only cared about whether or not other people THOUGHT I was following the rules. ⁣

This reminds me of the Israelites.⁣

They sometimes got a little more righteous because a good judge was with them! ⁣

But then… ⁣

“And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers”. (Judges 2:19) ⁣

As soon as the judge was gone, they went back to their wicked ways. ⁣

They KNEW what was right the whole time, but they only turned to the Lord when someone was there with them. ⁣

Do we only do the right thing when others are watching? ⁣

Do we only say our prayers if our spouse will see?⁣

Watch media that won’t drive out the Spirit if someone is in the room? ⁣

Or do we have integrity to keep the same standards, no matter who is there?

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Red light integrity first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.