Scripture Verses that Have Helped Guide Me Through Tough Decisions

I am a short term missionary. I have been traveling nationally in the ministry since 1995. I've been traveling internationally since 1999. Some of the Bible scriptures that I share in this article have been given to me, for particular trips or jobs, to help guide my direction or to encourage me to not give up. The other scriptures have been given to me to help me through some difficult times in my family's life.

I grew up in church. I gave my life to God when I was very young and was called into the mission field a few years later. My unofficial foster parents were my pastors. I saw the church from both inside views, from the church member and from the ministry point of views.

I didn't read much of my Bible. Nor did I read it very often when I did read it. I still hadn't read much of the Bible when our ministry became official in 1993. I certainly hadn't read through it even once though I had been on the Bible Quiz team for two years as a teen.

I didn't know very much about the Bible that I spoke about. But that changed when God told me that it wouldn't be very helpful to be out on the mission field when I didn't know enough scripture to help anyone. I countered with my frustration over the read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year programs that everyone promoted in church. God told me to read the Bible my way, to read what I wanted to read.

I started opening the Bible and reading what I saw, marking the verses that really spoke to me. I read most of the Bible this way and found that not only was it not scary, but that there were a lot of very helpful and useful scriptures that directly applied to my experiences. Reading the Bible became a treasure hunt. Then God started giving our ministry research assignments for our life and for the ministry. This required our going through the entire Bible to find the answers. We definitely read the entire Bible that way.

Out of this experience I found some favorite verses that have literally taken me through impossible situations. The listed verses are just a small sampling of scriptures that I read on a regular basis:

Deuteronomy 11:11-15 :

This passage of scripture is about the new territory, the Promised Land, that God has promised the Children of Israel. It takes place after He has led them out of Egypt and has already given them the Ten Commandments and other various laws.

God is telling them that He is very careful to watch over the welfare of this land that they are about to enter. He tells them that if they are faithful to follow His instructions, to love Him and to serve Him with all of their hearts He will not only provide for their every need, He will also provide for all of their means of income and for their possessions.

I usually receive this passage when I'm about to go into something that I have not experienced before or when I'm about to go on a trip that involves a lot more than meets the eye. What I find very encouraging about this scripture is that it tells me that I am going in the right direction, to be careful how I go on a particular trip and to be very watchful. It is also telling me that while I am doing this particular assignment that my family and those things that I have left at home are also being cared for. It tells me that God has every part of my life covered in His protection, plans and provision.

2 Chronicles 13:18:

Because the men of Judah trusted God in battle they won the battle.

2 Chronicles 14:7:

Since the men of Judah had a relationship with God they continued to keep their land, received peace from their enemies and became prosperous

I often get these verses when I'm going through a tough or challenging time either in the ministry or in our private lives. It encourages me to continue trusting God and to know that He is working on the situation for our benefit. We have come through many tough situations because we trusted in this scripture and didn't give up. It tells me that the things I fear aren't going to happen even though they certainly look like a done-deal. Every time I get this scripture the things that seem like a certain threat end up not happening and I come through the situation successfully.

2 Chronicles 15:7:

This passage told the king to be strong and courageous and that his work would be rewarded. He took down the foreign idols in Judah and Benjamin restoring the altar of God to the proper worship in Judah

I usually get this passage when I'm about to go out on a trip or I'm dealing with a lot of tough decisions which need me to stand firm despite what others may be saying or what the circumstances may appear to be.

Psalm 50:15:

"Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me."

In years past I used to think that the "shall" in scripture passages was just an archaic term, the same as "will", so I would replace it with "will". Then I learned that the term is actually a legal term which indicates that the item mentioned is a done-deal, unalterable by another and is legally binding. I usually get this verse when I'm going through a difficult situation. It gives me courage to stand firm in refusing to give into the confusion and the panic and to successfully come through the other side because of God's promise.

Psalm 121:2-3:

God, Who made heaven and earth doesn't sleep. My help comes from Him and He makes sure that I don't stumble

I get this scripture a lot when I'm going out on a tough trip or there is something really difficult going on in our lives. This verse helps me to know that my trust hasn't been misplaced. It reminds me that I will come through the situation successfully.

Proverbs 12:14:

"A man will be satisfied by the fruit of his words, and the deeds of a man's hands will return to him."

This verse tells me that what I say and what I do are not wasted, that they aren't going out into nowhere with no effect. It's encouraging that I'm not wasting my time. This helps me to persevere when the situation looks so unfavorable.

Isaiah 12:6:

God is mighty within me.

This is one of my favorite encouragement scriptures because it says everything. I give this scripture out to others a lot. This verse has helped me to successfully walk through injury, panic, danger and impending destruction. This passage reminds me that I am not alone and that I will not be left in harm's way. It also says that I'm not left to just rely on my own strength, which can't help me.

Isaiah 25:4-5:

God defends the helpless and the needy in their time of need. He protects us from the storm and the heat. Even though the ruthless is relentless God can silence them as effectively as a cloud's shadow can erase the heat

This is another scripture that is given to me a lot when dealing with difficult situations or people. What I love about it is the fact that just as the cloud's shadow is unstoppable so is God's ability to save and to protect us from harm. God's help often doesn't come as a rescuing army, but as a change in direction which the enemy can't argue against. It is done right under his nose like the cloud wiping out the heat.

Jeremiah 9:23-24:

We're instructed to not brag about what we have or what we can do. But we are told that we ought to be bragging about how much we understand and know God. We are told that He practices loving-kindness, righteousness and justice on earth as well as taking pleasure in this

This scripture tells me that I can know God, that I need to know God and if I choose to do so I will know God. This means that God is not unknowable, nor is He totally beyond my understanding.

Jeremiah 33:3:

"Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.

The common understanding in this verse has been mainly that if we are lacking understanding that we need to ask God for illumination in a particular situation. But I have also learned that if God is giving me this scripture that it is an invitation for me to ask for what He already has waiting for me. It means that He is already waiting to give me the answer, that I am going to learn about things that I don't know about and that I will not be left hanging in the dark.

Matthew 19:26:

(Genesis 18:14; Jeremiah 32:17; Luke 1:37)

Even though a particular situation may be beyond human ability it's not beyond God's ability because with Him there are no impossibilities.

It's obvious that God really wants to make a point about His ability since this particular sentiment is repeated at least four times in the Bible. Every time I have received this verse or any of the other three whatever I am going through has been resolved in my favor. Sometimes I have gotten all of them just to emphasize God's intent in the situation.

One year I ended up in court due to a false accusation and a misunderstanding. Things looked really bad for me but I was given these scriptures and I chose to believe them. The situation was decided in my favor with my main accuser actually becoming the witness for my defense. She realized that she had been given false information and corrected the situation by testifying to that effect.

Luke 12:11-12:

I don't need to worry about what to say to those whom I come before including those in authority because I will be given what I need to say when it is time

I am given this verse for most trips and it comes true every time. It teaches me to stop worrying and to trust that God will give me what I need to say at the appropriate time. I've also learned that when I am trusting in God's provision for this situation I don't do my common foot-in-mouth thing that I have often done when I've been nervous or not thinking in the past. I'm also learning to use this scripture more when I'm not out on a trip. It's a great cure for the foot-in-mouth disease.

Hebrews 11:8, 11:

God told Abraham to leave his family and everything that he knew to go to a totally unknown place to where he did not know, among people of another culture to receive his inheritance. He obeyed.

Sarah was too old to have a child. But when she believed God's promise that she could conceive, she had a son.

Both of these references have personal application for me. So when I receive them they really tell me something about the situation I am going into, a person I am going to encounter or about the circumstances that I'm already going through. The first verse is usually telling me something about a trip I'm going on or some decisions coming up in our family. The second usually applies to someone I'm being sent to, to encourage them that what they see as impossible is not only possible but will come to pass.

In the first scripture, my husband and I felt that God had told us to move to Florida during a visit to my unofficial foster parents who were then living in Florida. We decided to move from Whittier, California the following year when I'd given birth to the child I was pregnant with and had received the balloon payment from our Hawaiian condo which we had sold four years before. The following year, we paid off all debts, bought everything we might need for the move and new home, rented a moving truck and moved everything we owned to Florida. We drove nine days across the southern region of the USA with our six month old son, cat, plants, belongings and car on a tow dolly behind the truck.

We had neither job nor a home to go to. When we arrived we met a realtor within days of our arrival. Our new home came in on the MLS as we arrived in the office. It was not yet listed publicly. It had all of the particulars that we needed in a home at the right price and monthly payments. Years later the realtor told us what a miracle we had gotten, that it was the only listing like that that she had ever received in over thirty years of business.

We moved into that home ten days after we had arrived in Florida. The manager of the storage units we had our household effects in was also a manager of a convenience store. My husband went to work for him the week after we had moved into our new home.

In the second situation, we were married almost seven years when I gave birth to our son. My pregnancy was considered high risk, not just because I was considered too old to have a child but because I also had complications in both the pregnancy and in the delivery. I lived in fear that I would lose our child because I was told that I could have a stroke in delivery. I was confined to bed rest for the last few months. After our son's birth I lost every child I got pregnant with.

Personal Application of These Scripture Verses:

During two very trying times in my life every one of these scriptures plus some others were given to me to help me through those situations. In the first situation, I lost six family members, two at a time over an eighteen month period from the end of 2006 to the beginning of 2008. Half of them were very unexpected and some of the situations included messy family problems.

In the second occasion, less than a year after the first, my husband along with about half of the approximately 1000 person workforce was fired illegally from his plant with no pension or unemployment. Some of those people were supervisors, 28 and 30 year veterans. We spent an entire year applying for hundreds of jobs. My husband rode his bike hundreds of miles applying for jobs. I worked for hours on the internet filling out applications. I also spent that year hiding out in my office since it was the only room in the house where the mortgage holder couldn't see me.

The mortgage holder would walk around our house and peek in the windows, call at all hours and speak accusations and threats. We also got loud pounding on our door in the middle of the night. For most of that year we had no answers to their questions, so we made ourselves unavailable until we would know what to tell them. We also had to explain to the food stamp office how we ought to still get food stamps even though we had no visible reason for why we could still be in our house. Food stamps were our only income and because we had no other income they did take them away from us for over two months until we got another social worker.

Near the end of that year my husband applied for disability. We figured we would be out on the street before he got it, since it usually takes about four years and an attorney to get it. In February, the following year, we received a call from Social Security telling us that my husband qualified for disability starting in March. He would receive a lump sum after three months for the back pay which they counted from his firing.

We told our mortgage holder, both the local office and the head office, as well as paid some on the mortgage. The local office immediately put us into foreclosure. We received the lump sum before the first monthly payment. On the day that it cleared the bank the vice president from the head office told us what the local office was doing and gave us advice on how to stop them. He took our cashier's check for everything that we owed them and walked it into the local branch and stopped the foreclosure proceedings which were literally being walked to the lawyer's office.

We received a lot of help from family, friends, churches and government agencies during that year. We were about three to four months behind on our bills when we received the disability. I still went on trips because I had already bought the nonrefundable tickets before the job loss. It was a very difficult decision to make but when I chose to go God provided for all of the other expenses for those trips.

The entire year, I spent a lot of time alternating between panic so bad that my heart would beat out of my chest and wearing my Bible. Every time I started feeling the panic I would open my Bible and read the marked verses until the panic was replaced with peace. This helped us to not make decisions that we would regret, to wait and to not give up before we got the answer. When I asked God why we still had our home and why so many others did not. He told me that one of the reasons was because we didn't give up and listen to the circumstances.

I learned about this kind of reading from a devotional that was given to me years ago. It was by Marilyn Hickey. She wrote about how their ministry was financially in a humanly impossible situation and how God helped them to come out of it. He told her to read her Bible. She did. Then He told her to do it again and she did. This went on several times when He told her to read until she was full. Then she did. A few months later their ministry was no longer in financial trouble.

I don't read until I feel full. I read until my eyes want to roll into the back of my head and I no longer feel a need to read. Or I read until I finally do believe what I am reading and do trust the One Who gives me this encouragement.

Sources:

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/deuteronomy/11.htm

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/2_chronicles/13.htm

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/2_chronicles/14.htm

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/2_chronicles/15.htm

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/proverbs/12.htm

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/psalms/50.htm

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/psalms/121-2.htm

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/isaiah/12.htm

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/isaiah/25-4.htm

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/jeremiah/9-23.htm

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/jeremiah/33.htm

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/matthew/19.htm

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/luke/12.htm

http://nasb.scripturetext.com/hebrews/11.htm