Trust Without Borders: A Study of Psalm 37

Copyright © 2016 Pamela J. Alexander.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-9879-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-9881-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-9880-3 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/20/2016

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Psalm 37: A Psalm of David

Chapter 1: The Dirt on Dirt: Cultivating the Land

Chapter 2: Hurry Up and Wait – It shouldn’t-oughta be this hard!

Chapter 3: Inheritance: Blessings of the Now and Not Yet

Chapter 4: Matchless, Scandalous Grace

Chapter 5: Sweet Intimacy of Prayer: Harps, Golden Bowls and Camel Knees

Chapter 6: Trust without Borders

Chapter 7: Surrounded by Strongholds

Chapter 8: Perfect Peace

Closing Thoughts

Teaching Suggestions

Endnotes

Bible Versions Used

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from The Message. Copyright (c) by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture taken from The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. The Living Bible, TLB, and the The Living Bible logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers.

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™ All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Dedication

Thanks to my Sweetheart for giving me hours-on-days-on-weeks-on-months of time to write this book. Such a wonderful the glass-is-half-full type of guy to release the glass-is-half-empty woman I often am with the freedom to write all hours of the day and night! As iron sharpens iron, my husband Jimmy has been my most inspiring, dedicated and challenging counsel in my life. He is truly the love of my life that won’t let me get by with anything! Most aggravating for years, I am now so thankful he was piercingly pursuant of the Godly woman he knew I could, should and would be. Truly, truly, I can never thank him enough for literally praying me through the deep, dark night of my soul, helping me pick up the pieces of my life and rebuilding it with me. I am thankful to laugh out loud with him on earth and praise the LORD beside him eternally. I love you husband!

Acknowledgements

Through my life many gracious and wise believers have crossed my path, and to all of them I say, Thank You for sharing your love and wisdom with me, grooming me, exhorting me and loving me. Scripture states All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). I would not be who I am without all their input.

Thank you, Paige Henderson, for taking time to write so eloquent a Foreword for this book. You blessed me with your forthrightness that nailed it on the head!

Each and every testimony or story in this book holds a special place in my heart. Many people will be blessed, healed and ministered to, the Lord glorified, and jewels will be added to each of your individual crowns for what has been shared:

Jimmy Alexander

Nathan Alexander

Vickie Boone Watson

David and Karen Mains

Holly Ogden

Karen Jordan

Jennifer Alexander Wright

Suzanne Wallace

Debbie Morris

Majid Babakhanian

Kerry Bond

Austin Lewter

Special thanks to the lovely ladies who helped me edit, review content and study the materials: Cindy Hall, Jeannie Summers Lyons, and Nancy Miller. Your skills, encouragement and comments were blessings to me!

Thanks also to my beautiful granddaughter Megan for the author photography session. And to my beautiful sisters: Billy Rae Montana, who gave love and time to help me with the details of our bed and breakfast and spent so much time with our Mom; and, Patricia Eagle, whose masterful love of writing inspired me to continue on when I despaired to give up.

Foreword

All it takes is faith and trust…and a little bit of pixie dust! One of my favorite animated tales gives a lightweight, cartoon take on trust. Sprinkle a fine dusting of something outside yourself and you’ll have all you need to accomplish all you want. That would be a great plan, if only it worked!

The truth is there is no dust or product of any kind to buy and apply to your heart that will open it up to crossing the border of known and wandering unfettered in a life of pure trust into unknown. To not go with the Lord when He gives a vision, a dream, a new creative idea, or a new way of doing something causes you to miss the Great Adventure, shut down and shut out by your own inability to trust.

Our lack of trust doesn’t keep us safe; it makes us useless in the Kingdom of God. Trust is the bedrock of obedience. We will not obey the Lord if we do not trust Him. And if we don’t trust Him then He will not accomplish on earth as it is in heaven in our lives. We use all kinds of euphemisms and phrases to deflect the truth of why we won’t move, or go, or create, or leave; but in the end it just comes down to a very simple, confining seed: lack of trust.

My husband and I experienced our own head-on collision with trust in 2002 when the Lord interrupted a perfectly bland and predictable life with a wildly out-of-the-box vision for ministry. There we were, minding our own business, living our own lives when God poured out a plan for a ministry that was going to shake it all. Income and insurance, security and personal space were going on the chopping block. I remember sitting in my pantry (literally) wrestling with a deep desire to be both securely normal and wildly obedient.

Been there? Then you know what it feels like to be stunned by the reality that you don’t trust God like you thought you would when you grew up. You understand completely the words of the father in Mark 9:24 who came to Jesus for the healing of his son: Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.

Right there in print is the trust battle. In the same sentence is both belief AND unbelief, holding hands. Wanting to trust, but seeing the circumstances, what we see with our eyes crashes into what we want to see with our hearts You believe fully that God can, but wonder deeply if He will. Knowing very well that what you’ve heard from the Lord is good and true, but also knowing that there is no way you can pull it off. And that’s the heart of the matter: you can’t pull it off. You can’t. But He can.

Trust isn’t trust if you can do the thing. Trust becomes trust when you reach into your pockets of ability and strategy and creativity and favor and find that all you have is the lint of your own limits. If you can pull this thing off, then you don’t need to trust.

Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass, (1 Thessalonians 5:24 NASB). Some of that bringing to pass involves giving you the capacity to believe when you don’t. I wish the record would indicate more pious responses on my part to the directions of the Lord, but more likely mine matches that of the dad in Mark 9 who said I do trust You, but I don’t.

How do you get to a place of trust, real and deep and sustaining? Come clean; be honest. Then pack your want to on top of your I can’t do this and hike out of your unbelief.

And that’s where Pamela Alexander and her story come to help you.

Pamela takes the reader from uncertainty to hope in eight chapters. Her book is the map of the journey of trust from its most fundamental definition to its fullest practice, from point A to point B. Then all points beyond are yours to explore – limitlessly.

This book is not a read for those who are just cerebrally curious. If you just want to peruse the pages and absorb more information about God-things, then put this book down and move on. But if you want to dig in and know that you know the essence of trust, belief and obedience, grab a fork! From the initial chapters that define and clarify what trust is and isn’t to the last that exposes the strongholds attacking and diluting your trust in God, you are in for a fine five-star buffet.

Go as far as you dare, but dare to go all the way. Be honest and be diligent; actually do the work of uncovering the issue of trust. Like the Mark 9 dad, want to believe more than you don’t; and be brave enough to ask for and seek God’s help.

Consider Pamela’s story therapy for the soul as you learn to live with borderless trust. Then hide and watch the glory of the Lord!

Paige Henderson,

Co-founder, Fellowship of the Sword Ministries

Preface

Gardening has been a love of mine since early childhood living on alfalfa acreage fields, with a chicken coop, a mean rooster, and lots of room to explore. Granddaddy always had a garden, telling stories as we walked along, poking the ground with his cane, dropping seeds into the poked hole, and then pushing dirt over them with his foot. Granny cooked, canned and pickled everything the garden produced.

Later I helped Dad with his bountiful garden in the West Texas town of Abilene (no small task in that heat!). Mom wasn’t into gardening, but she cooked and prepared all the delicious bounty that Daddy grew.

Dad retired from the Air Force in Abilene and began driving for North American Van Lines, leaving me to mow our large corner lot yard, care for the flowerbeds and tend his garden. Weeding, watering, pruning and picking became my job, developing even deeper my love for gardening. From early marriage until now, I have always attempted to have a garden wherever we’ve lived. Most were nothing to brag about, but all demonstrate my heart to keep trying! Some were extremely successful; most needed much help, and certainly a greater amount of time than I granted them. God began teaching me many lessons and farming scriptures through these experiences.

My business education degree (with English minor) has only been used twice in very small colleges: a business college in downtown Dallas, and at a girls’ college while living in Tehran, Iran, in the mid- 1970’s. Many short-term and odd jobs have come my way through my life, but my most rewarding job, still on-going, has been motherhood.

I threw myself into mommy-hood 100% loving it all: the good, the bad and the ugly. Rooms were painted, decorated, equipped, cleaned and fumigated! Clothes were sewn, bartered, sold and purchased; hair washed, brushed, de-liced and de-tangled! I was a Brownie leader, Girl Scout leader and Cub Scout Den leader (twice!). We cooked, camped, created, painted, tied knots, sang songs and laughed until we thought we would pop telling stories around campfires. I scolded, sang songs, found special crayons, pencils, paper and lunch boxes (even melting some I had hidden in the oven __ it’s a loooong story!); loved, hugged, spanked, paddled, and made each one a unique baby book, scrapbook and a bound book of blessings. Often I was exasperated, exhilarated, initiated, but always in wonder of the responsibilities God had placed upon Jimmy and me to parent our four children. It was very serious business to me to train up our children in the way they should go, so when they were old they would not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6).

In January 1980 while on our 11th-wedding anniversary trip we felt the Lord spoke to our hearts to open a bed and breakfast, and it was a real diversion to me. While dining at a catfish restaurant in Uncertain, Texas (yes, you read correctly), my husband got a puzzled look on his face and exclaimed, I think we’re supposed to do this. Have a catfish restaurant? I gasped! No. God just spoke to my heart that we are supposed to have a bed and breakfast, he answered.

That summer while visiting dear friends in Clemson, South Carolina, early one morning God led me to read Psalm 37. It spoke of trusting in Him, delighting in Him, and He would give the desires of one’s heart. Repeatedly it mentioned dwelling on the land and inheriting the land. As I read, my heart quickened with excitement that God was confirming through this psalm of finding the land we had always desired and operating a bed and breakfast on it. Doubtfulness jumped right in with both feet: Well, there are probably many psalms that speak of owning, dwelling, and inheriting land. Perusing all 150 psalms in those early dawn hours, I could find only one other that mentioned inheriting land. Psalm 37 immediately became our verse for our calling to operate a bed and breakfast.

We thought it would be immediate but in God’s wisdom and timeline it took years. From the calling to the arriving at the land it was thirteen very long years. In those thirteen years we repaired a broken marriage, grew in leadership of our neighborhood church, adopted our fourth child, helped start the Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church of Dallas, matured in leadership there, and learned how to pray and wait as we never had before.

God blessed me with mentors along the way that cultivated my life by planting seeds, watering, feeding and pruning. For ten years I sat under the Bible teaching of Mrs. Betty Brinson, one of the wisest women I’ve ever known. Often I wished she had not been so repetitive in her teaching – didn’t she realize she taught that last week? But she spoke it over and over and over, and now I speak those same words and phrases repeatedly when I teach and talk and walk along the way. Through her diligent training, I perfected my testimony to share with others in thirty seconds, three minutes, thirty minutes or three days, depending on the situation.

My friend and peer, Suzanne Wallace, wife and co-pastor with John at Redeemer’s Fellowship and later the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Dallas in the 70’s–90’s, shared her practical wisdom and conversational prayers, helping me grow tremendously. She listened well to God and had a heart to obey at all cost. Linda Attaway, our Vineyard associate pastor’s wife, also hears God’s voice adamantly. She is a very practical and no-nonsense woman from whom I gleaned wisdom and am thankful God allowed me to learn from her. My dear friend Sharon Bendy and I were co-leaders of Women’s Ministry at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship for years until Jimmy and I moved to our land. We spent many hours planning Bible studies, retreats and women’s events during those years. Both she and her husband Bob, who built the Guest House and the Main House of our Bed and Breakfast, influenced our lives tremendously. And so with June Hines, Betty Bodine, Bonnie Harlow, Corinne French, Lin Barnes and so many others who blessed me during healing and growing years.

A particular healing ministry that helped shape my life, as well as Jimmy’s, our marriage, and almost every member of our immediate family is Fellowship of the Sword. All these ministries have helped work all things together for good in my life.

Many verses of the Bible are my favorites, but Psalm 37 is the life verse of our land and our bed and breakfast. It is in verse three that God speaks of cultivating (NASB), and thus the title of the first week of study will involve cultivating the dirt of life.

Please join me with my dirty, gardening fingers of life as we explore the Psalm 37 that I love, and learn how to trust in God!

Introduction

Years ago my husband and I had felt God leading our hearts to own and operate a bed and breakfast and were led to Psalm 37 within a short time of that calling. This precious Psalm began to teach us how to wait upon the LORD for the finances to purchase country acreage, how best to prepare and build a B&B, be trained in the art of hospitality, and grow us in His wisdom. We began to learn these things while in God’s waiting room for over fourteen years before we actually purchased and moved to the land to open our B&B! Since that time we have read Psalm 37 over and over year in and year out, praying over each verse as God has groomed us, taught us and stretched us in ways we would have never imagined. It has also given us great comfort and strengthened us beyond our earthly wisdom.

In Trust without Borders I examine how God desires our hearts to trust Him with ALL of our being, showing that when we worship Him in that obedience, He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it (1 Thessalonians 5:24). Studying through Psalm 37 and other scriptures will show that:

• Trust is our gift back to God, and He is pleased by the beauty of a trusting heart.

• Trust defines the meaning of living by grace rather than works.

• "Is it trust only when we get our way?"

• How do trust and entering His rest co-mingle?

• Gratefulness is a foremost quality of a trusting follower of Christ.

My heart is for the deep need of people to learn to pray and to trust God; really trust God through the empowerment of the Spirit. Come fellowship and explore Psalm 37 and God’s word with me in learning how to trust God with everything and every need in your life.

Pamela Johnson Alexander

Psalm 37: A Psalm of David

¹ Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity.

² For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.

³ Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.

⁴ Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.

⁵ Commit your way to the LORD; Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.

⁶ He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.

⁷ Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.

⁸ Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; do not fret—it only causes harm.

⁹ For evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait on the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.

¹⁰ For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more; indeed, you will look carefully for his place, but it shall be no more.

¹¹ But the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

¹² The wicked plots against the just, and gnashes at him with his teeth.

¹³ The Lord laughs at him, for He sees that his day is coming.

¹⁴ The wicked have drawn the sword and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, to slay those who are of upright conduct.

¹⁵ Their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.

¹⁶ A little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked.

¹⁷ For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the LORD upholds the righteous.

¹⁸ The LORD knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever.

¹⁹ They shall not be ashamed in the evil time, and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.

²⁰ But the wicked shall perish; and the enemies of the LORD, like the splendor of the meadows, shall vanish. Into smoke they shall vanish away.

²¹ The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives.

²² For those blessed by Him shall inherit the earth, but those cursed by Him shall be cut off.

²³ The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and He delights in his way.

²⁴ Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the LORD upholds him with His hand.

²⁵ I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread.

²⁶ He is ever merciful, and lends; and his descendants are blessed.

²⁷ Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell forevermore.

²⁸ For the LORD loves justice, and does not forsake His saints; they are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked shall be cut off.

²⁹ The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell in it forever.

³⁰ The mouth of the righteous speaks wisdom, and his tongue talks of justice.

³¹ The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.

³² The wicked watches the righteous, and seeks to slay him.

³³ The LORD will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged.

³⁴ Wait on the LORD, and keep His way, and He shall exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you shall see it.

³⁵ I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a native green tree.

³⁶ Yet he passed away, and behold, he was no more; indeed I sought him, but he could not be found.

³⁷ Mark the blameless man, and observe the upright; for the future of that man is peace.

³⁸ But the transgressors shall be destroyed together; the future of the wicked shall be cut off.

³⁹ But the salvation of the righteous is from the LORD; He is their strength in the time of trouble.

⁴⁰ And the LORD shall help them and deliver them; He shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in Him.

~ Chapter 1 ~

The Dirt on Dirt: Cultivating the Land

Day 1 ~ Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land, and cultivate faithfulness (Psalm 37:3).

God, open up our hearts and minds to Your scriptures today as we begin to dig into Your word and what it means in our lives and how it applies to us personally. We ask for understanding and that You would grant us wisdom. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Cultivate: (1) to prepare and use soil or land for growing crops; (2) to break up the surface soil around (plants) in order to destroy weeds, prevent crusting and preserve moisture; (3) to grow (plants or crops) from seeds, bulbs, etc.; (4) to improve or develop by various techniques;