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High Tower

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 5, 2026 Respond

Praise be to you this morning, Lord God, for your wonderful Word:

living, powerful, deep, transforming and encouraging.

It is life-giving, guiding, convicting, protecting.

For instance,  Psalm 94:18,19 says, “When I said, ‘My foot is slipping,’ Your love, O Lord, supported me.” This is so true;

when I have felt abandoned, a failure, useless, attacked or unloved, your Word has supported me.

Your Spirit brought to mind passages of power, towers of Truth to flee to for help and protection.

Such as, when attacked by others, Psalm 37 is my favorite fortress, providing powerful protection and direction:

“Fret not yourself because of evildoers…for they shall be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb” (verse 1).

This Psalm is a beacon of Truth, giving perspective and guidance going on to say: “Trust in the Lord and do good, so shall you dwell in the land and be fed.” (verse 3).

It gives the high and protecting wall of Hope: “Delight yourself in the Lord and he shall give you the desires of your heart” (verse 4).

And as I trusted these verses, the Lord worked things out in multiple difficulties. He is faithful as I stay up in His high tower:

“The Lord is my rock, my salvation and my high tower…” And if I stay in the high tower, “I will never be shaken.” Psalm  62:2

We stay in the tower when we trust, wait for His direction and praise Him for the outcome before it is seen.

Picture: my own blue  tower on my house

May be an image of ski slope

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How are we walking

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 3, 2026 Respond

I’ve been meditating more on Psalm 89:15,

“Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you,”

meaning those who are learning to recognize you in every detail of life,

to be aware of your constant work in their lives and therefore to praise you in every circumstance.

They see frequent “God sightings,” as you clearly meet their needs.

They, “… walk in the light of your presence….”

They are aware of your faithful attendance to them,

of your walking with them, shining your wisdom into their lives, lighting the way.

May be an image of text

What a way to live! A calling to living in the light.

This is a choice, a cultivated lifestyle,

And You are  invited to it.

Picture: living in the light of Jesus

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Praise and Trust in All

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 2, 2026 Respond

While looking at some of my writings from our first year in the Middle East, I came across the following.

One area where we are really encouraged is our health: we are all remaining healthy and strong

in spite of the daily pressures of language study, teaching English nights and bureaucratic demands.

And then there are  the cold temperatures in our apartment. Although it is only mid October,

the temperatures are down in the 30s at night and 40s F in the daytime, not bad if you have heat.

However, by law, the central heating won’t be turned on until Nov 15—a month away!

So we just dress more warmly and heat up one room with an electric heater–when the electricity is on; and it’s off more often than on here.

But, God is our provider and we will praise Him for whatever He allows, even when we are shivering in our apartment!

 

Prayer: “Father, forgive me for my tendency to complain;

help me to reject the natural, negative thoughts that rise up from my selfishness

and help me to think instead of you in all your excellence and perfection,

and of all the good things you provide. Make praise the keynote of my life. Amen.”

Picture: the boys and Barb keeping warm together

May be an image of baby

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Unending Growth

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 1, 2026 Respond

Written in 1980 in  our first year in the Middle East

When all is going well and there isn’t a great deal of pressure, it’s easy to be positive—

but, when things get difficult, thinking on the Lord Jesus and all He is becomes significant.

 

As I read the other day, if we faint in the day of adversity, our strength is small (Pro. 24:10).

So before adversity comes, we need to strengthen our spiritual lives by willfully thinking on what is positively true.

Through this we can nurture our soul, grow strong, deepen our trust of God and will move to praising Him in all.

That will make us ready for the day of adversity.

 

These weeks past have given us a testing ground for our strength (which often proves to be too small).

Taking classes in the local language every day plus teaching English classes every night, along with the preparation for both,

plus my work with the foundation, and other activities have all allowed us to see just how much we must rely on the Lord for strength.

There is certainly always room for growth!  Growth which is nurtured by meditation on Scripture,

in worship, and remembering what God has done in the past,

and offering the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Picture: building our spiritual muscles by offering the sacrifice of thanksgiving

May be an image of body building, activewear and text

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Peace from Above

Published by S.M. Wibberley on February 27, 2026 Respond

God’s Antidote for anxiety from Phillipians 4

Note that the steps God gives here us are all commands, not suggestions.

  1. “Rejoice in the Lord always… (see Habbakuk 3)
  2. do not be anxious about anything  (choose to recognize and confront confront your anxiety and worry by:)
  3. in everything by prayer, supplication and thanksgiving (note the thanksgiving, thanking God for what we don’t like because we know he has a plan for us in this.)

4.present your requests to God… (get out what’s bothering you,, tell God about it, learn what he thinks about it.  Leave it with him.

Result: And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (taking refuge in Him).

  1. Note: this peace is not something we can understand, for it comes by our faith in our heavenly Father.

As one who has been confronted  by many worries, I can assure you that

In obeying God by taking these 5 steps can free you from worry, anxiety, and fear because our focus is now on God, not our circumstances.

May be an image of twilight, lake and nature

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God reaching down

Published by S.M. Wibberley on February 26, 2026 Respond

A day of God sightings! Simple “unimportant” things, but they show that God is intimately involved in my life (as He is in yours!)

First, the sprayer nozzle in our kitchen sink would get stuck, making it useless. Since the faucet was reasonably new, I didn’t want to buy a new one, so I went to several places and finally found one that looked right, but when I got home, it had no threads to screw it on. So today coming home from a doctor visit I stopped in at home Depot to see what they had. They had nothing, but the man told me  to go 3 miles back to a hardware store, “They may have something,” he said. I didn’t really want to go back 3 miles, but did anyway. And the clerk there had the answer: “just unscrew this, take off this C clamp and put this part  on with the new C clamp.” I went home and did that and it worked perfectly!
What was the God sighting? He steered me to the person who had the info I needed, and instead of selling me something, told me how to fix the one I had! A very small thing, but God is interested in small things as well as big.
Second, I came home, changed,  went out and shoveled snow, then came home for lunch. As we sat down I reached for my phone—but it wasn’t there in the holster!
So I called it on the house phone, but when it rang there was no sound from my phone. Then i realized: it was on bluetooth so the sound went to my hearing aids making it impossible to find where it was.
I used my apple “find your phone” and it showed it somewhere in the vicinity of the house, but where? It could be out in the snow. Then the Lord brought something to mind: I’d changed my pants, which had another phone holster. I looked, and there it was! Again, a very simple thing, but a touch from the Lord to help me..
These simple happenings were the experience of “knowing the love of Jesus that surpasses knowledge” as Ephesians 3:19 says, so that we might,  “be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” His desire, our privilege, if we discern those God sightings, which He gives us every day. 
 
picture: the repaired sprayer
No photo description available.
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(Untitled)

Published by S.M. Wibberley on February 25, 2026 Respond

Today was an interesting one for conversations. Twice I used my parable to see where people are spiriutally.

The first was in a talk with a life insurance agent. Since life insurance is really “death insurance” it was easy
to bring up death. So I asked him my hypothetical question, “When you die (and we all will) and you get to the gate of Heaven,
where the angel on duty asks you, ‘Why should I let you in?’ what will you say?”
He paused briefly and said, “I did the best I could!
I continued, “And the angel will say, ‘That’s great, but it won’t get you into Heaven!’ Do know know why?
“No,” he replied.
“It’s because we are all sinners, so if God let us in, we would bring sin in and Heaven will become like earth, full of sin.
But God’s everyone to come to Heaven, so Jesus died for our sins and opened the way for us to go to Heaven. As it says in Romans 10:9,10, if we declare
Jesus as our Lord, surrendering to Him.and believe that God raised Him from the day, we will be saved!”
At this point the agent interrupted, “Yes, I know that. I am born again already!”
Interesting, he was a believer, but didn’t know the right answer! Amazing. But now he does and I encouraged him
to use that question in sharing his faith with others.
Then this afternoon I went see my favorite doctor. Although he grew up in the US, his father was from the Middle East,
as he was of the majority religion, taught him about that and taught him the language I know, so we had a good time chatting in that language.
We also talked about travel in the Middle East and about all the biblical sites there.
 He said he was sensitive to spiritual input, so I asked him ” the question.”  He looked off into space,
and then said, “My father told me that when i die an angel will take one hair from my head and stretch across hell. Then i will
have to walk over it; if the hair breaks because I haven’t done enough good works, I will fall into hell and stay there.”
“Well,” I said, “God wants everyone to to come to Heaven, but He can’t let us in as we are because we are all sinners.”
“So what’s the right answer to the angel?” the doctor asked. A perfect opening to share the gospel. He listened carefully
and accepted the Four Spiritual Laws booklet. As we parted he said, “Call me any time if you need anything!”
Who knows what will  come out of these times of sharing. I will pray that God will use it to bring many into the Kingdom,
including my doctor friend.

May be an image of hospital

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Ready!

Published by S.M. Wibberley on February 25, 2026 Respond

“I will say of the LORD, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’”  Psalm 91:2,3

 

Praise be to you for your great promises, Lord Jesus, fastened at one end to your plans laid out before the foundation of the earth,

then stretched over time as a canopy of protection, and fastened at the other end in the conclusion of history

when all evil and sin will be swept away and confined to Hell and the lake of fire.

Your faithfulness is our shield and rampart, throwing back the attacks of the enemy.

We live every day under your powerful, pure, and persistent protection.

And you give us a part in this process, equipping us with the ever-present protection of the spiritual armor (Ephesians 6:10-18).

I praise you especially for the shield of faith, which we can choose to raise at any time

to quench all the fiery arrows of lies and accusations the enemy shoots at us.

And attacks come everyday: subtle, or direct, or full speed on–the urge to complain, be  impatient, selfish, lazy, proud or fearful.

And in each case we can put on the belt of truth (“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”)

and get up the shield of faith (“Thank you, Lord, for this difficulty because you’ve got it in hand, you’ve got a plan here!”)

With that we can press on in His peace and wisdom, making our way to the conclusion He has for us.

Faith is the key, faith based on Truth, and we’ve got plenty of that in Jesus!

Picture:In full armor, ready for the everyday battle!

May be an image of the Arno River

 

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Freezing Cold

Published by S.M. Wibberley on February 23, 2026 Respond
Today we had a big snowstorm, actually classified as a blizzard, with high winds and heavy snow.
The total is now over two feet, with lots of deeper drifts. And lots of shoveling!
Before the arrival of this storm, we had a very wonderful God sighting.
Friday evening the thought came, “I should check my LP gas tank.”  There’s no reason to do this since we are on automatic fill.
But when i checked, I found it only had 5% left! Since this is our main heat source,  if it ran out in this storm we’d be in trouble.
Saturday morning I called the gas company, no answer. Tried several times more and finally in the late afternoon got an answer.
The person was helpful, and after checking said, “A delivery man will be there tomorrow morning.” That is on Sunday.
Sure enough, he showed up at 8 am and said the take was almost totally empty—just enough left to keep the pilot lights on.
Sunday night and Monday morning the blizzard raged with strong winds and heavy snowfall—
and then the electricity went off–but our little LP gas stove kept us warm.
In fact, I could cook scramble eggs on it and heated water for our drinks.
If the Lord hadn’t prompted me to  check the tank on Friday, we and the others who live in our house would have had some cold hours!
Picture: cooking breakfast without electricity
May be an image of waffle iron
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Weak?

Published by S.M. Wibberley on February 22, 2026 Respond

“…the Spirit helps us in our weakness.” Romans 8:26

 

It is actually good to be weak, at least to realize that we are weak, so we can say,

“O Lord our God…we do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you” (2 Chron. 20:12b).

It is in this weakness that we begin to really see that His ways are far above our ways, and His thoughts much better than ours.

Often when I see a need, my first inclination is to jump in and meet that need with my own ideas, strength and resources.

However, as I am slowly learning, that is not always the best thing,

for I can inadvertently remove a pressure the Lord wanted to use in that person’s life.

Fortunately, most of the time the problems we faced in the Middle East were so large and complex

that there is no way my feeble efforts could begin to solve them.

The only recourse open to me was and is prayer, as well as asking others so pray with us:

“Lord, help me to see my weakness and inabilities as opportunities

to pray more and thereby join you in the great things you are doing,

rather than complaining and feeling sorry for myself. Amen.”

May be an image of cloud, twilight and horizon

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