Hi Pastor John,
It was really something reading Psalm 18 last night. We get the benefit of the work that you all do in the translations. Thank you, to everyone. In verse 9, you talked about the Father bowing the heavens and coming down in a thick cloud under His feet. You also gave us a scriptural reference in Mathew 27:45, and told us that it was during the hours of noon to three PM during the crucifixion of Jesus, when this took place. I haven’t thought about this until last night, but the Lord brought back to my attention in 2009 when I was in total agony in the hospital room being completely backed-up from the blood clots in my bladder, and not one drop of fluid would pass. (I tell of this in my book,“In God’s Shadow” ,in the chapter titled, Agony, pages 53-58).
Sister Gwen called me about 11:30 AM on the morning of November 10th, 2009 and prayed for me. Sister Gwen was anointed by God to pray for me so that I could endure what was soon coming to pass. After she hung up, I had to go to the restroom, and that’s when the pain really started, at 12:00 noon. The horrific pain that I experienced lasted until three PM, and then Dr. U came. Jesus prayed for us in the garden of Gethsemane, and knew the pain that he would shortly endure before receiving again the joy he once had with the Father, and then share that joy with us. It’s too much to write about here, but it was an amazing feeling during your teaching last night. Those scenes in the hospital are still fresh in my mind.
Reading Matthew 27:45, I can’t help but thinking about the agony that Jesus went through for us, and remember the agony that I went through at the hospital because of a lack of flow in my body, but also remembering the joy and peace after Dr. U comforted me. I know what I went through was just a small snippet of what Jesus went through for us to have joy and peace of the Comforter. Reading about my story again made Jesus’ story come alive more.
There is just a lot of similarities (to a lesser degree) from Jesus’ story and mine; more than I can write here. In short, I believe I went through those things to help me understand better Jesus’ story. There was total agony and then total peace, before and after the story about Jesus’ crucifixion.
I am crying now, because of the love that I feel from Jesus. He cares for and about us. It truly is a story of God, and He will use any means possible to share or act out with men the story about His beloved Son.
Billy M.