Thursday, June 25, 2015

Persecution..Do you care?

Good afternoon  my sisters-

I've been traveling a lot lately, which gives me a ton of time to think.  I also look more at the news briefs on twitter late at night.  One thing continues to remind me to pray and that's the persecution of the church.  Men, women and children are being tortured, beheaded and slaughtered because of hate and a people groups beliefs.  Throughout history people groups have suffered from evil, deception and rage.  Our world is evil and our world is hope.  How can we have both?  We must go back to Jesus' life and times and see how hate, deception and evil gave us life and the hope in our futures.

Is our time just like then?  Although many still enjoy freedoms, there are those that wish to rob us of our freedoms and of our religious beliefs.  Those same people can change.  Any hour of the day, Christ can come in and show them their way. Paul was one of those people.  He was part of people being killed for being Christians and today, he is the father of the church.  What happened?  God of course.  He stepped in and the rest is history.

In the coming days, Islamic believers will be celebrating a time of fasting and prayer.  Let's join them in that journey and pray that hate would cease and that the love of God would impact all our lives.  We only have this day to be faithful to our Lord and Savior.  One God for all eternity.  Please join me in prayer and ask God to change the hearts of men and make them like-minded with Him.

One Voice, One God, One Message!  Our path has been defined by sacrifice, surely we can all take a moment a day and ask God to come into the lives that have been deceived.  It's our time to carry the torch and to love our neighbor more than ourselves.

My prayer today:

O, Lord, God of Israel, come upon your people and guide them in prayer with one voice.  Give us the words to pray for this evil world and for the men and women that are being deceived.  Give us the tools and the fortitude to pray for peace on earth and Your will to reign forevermore.  Love conquers all, so in the days ahead, I pray that Your mighty love will conquer the hearts of those filled with hurt, anger, and destruction.  May we all find peace and understanding under Your wings.  I pray that You would protect Your people throughout the world and that our prayers will count for those that can't pray!  Hear our cries Lord.  In Jesus name, AMEN.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

There's no where to go but up...

Good morning all-

Well little did I know my life was about to turn upside down this week.  I was in Vegas when I got a call no parent ever wants to receive.  I won't go into the details but you can only imagine.  I felt fright, desperation and anger all in one moment.  How could this have happened and what do I do now?  After four panicked phone calls and almost throwing up, I got control of my emotions and began to pray.  It's really the only thing I know to do in a stressful situation.  The strange thing is I had just tweeted the day before, "When everything around you seems bigger than you can handle, that's when you must trust in Christ!"  Little did I know how much I would need to hear those words myself.

So for the last couple of days, I have woke up in prayer and have gone to bed in prayer.  I prayed 30,000 feet in the sky and I have prayed while driving.  I really haven't stopped praying.  My world got rocked this week and I guess I could have done the blame game on myself but what I realized is that sometimes God has to wake up those that are not listening.  My hope is that's exactly what happened.  Only time will tell but I'm not going to stop praying.

The details aren't necessary in this post but the situation is very serious.  It's going to take a miracle and I'm going to sit back, pray and find peace in my God's arms.  I'm going to pray like no tomorrow and I hope you will join me in prayer too.  I have my journey and this is just part of the many challenges in life.  Please join me in praying for our teens.  They are being swayed by all the evil forces on this earth.  Boys and girls are being desensitized to drugs, sex and other more enticing things than Christ.  These same boys and girls can be great leaders for God but we must put our prayer warrior hats on and pray for them.  We must never forget that it's the children that are the next generation of mothers and fathers and it's with our prayer that we will be able to fight evil.  Join with me in this prayer for the youth of the world.

O, Lord, Jesus, we come to You as one throughout the world.  We call upon You and all Your warrior angels to surround the young men and women of the world.  We ask that You will turn them from the dark and that You will light their path to You.  We call on You to right the wrongs of this world and to give us strength to pray for the youth of this generation.  They are fighting against such tremendous pressure and the only one that can save them is You.  We know that they are Your children and that You are their Father.  Come to them now, wherever they live and guide them to You.  My heart breaks for these kids and I know Yours does too.  Unite women all over the world to pray like they have never prayed before.  I believe that these children are being called one by one to You and that You see this lost and confused generation.  Help all of us to put on the full armor of God and cry out to You on behalf of all the children that are being tempted and deceived.  We believe in miracles and we believe in the power of prayer.  We know You have raised some from the dead, delivered others from drugs and turned lives around that seemed hopeless.  Infuse hope into these young people and make them messengers for You.  I stand now with my sisters and ask You to cover our children with Your crown of thorns and the wounds from the nails that were in Your hand's and feet.  Nothing is too large for You.  Please soften the hearts of our teens and help them run to Your light.  I pray this in Jesus name, AMEN!

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Having our eyes on God...

Good morning all-

Have you ever noticed what screwed up people were in the Bible?  I think about that a lot.  Look at all the men that God made His men and they fell one after another, only to be picked up by God.  To start the list there is Adam, fast forward and we have Moses, King David, to top it off we have Timothy, Peter and Paul.  Wow!  Each one of these men were mighty in their own right.  The world  would have seen them as conquerors, trailblazers and powerful.  What happened?  We come to find out they are human, they have flaws and they need a God of mercy and strength.  Fast forward to today, men all over the world are being deceived by their own temptations.  Women are too so I don't want to leave us out.  But our men are the leaders of families, they are the leaders of hate, they are the leaders of power. And between all of those men are the men that are down on their knees praying for all the other men in the world because they know that nothing comes to them by their own power.

Having our eyes on God is a daily struggle.  We toss and turn in our beds because we worry, we wonder and we try to guess the future, which by the way, none of us gets right.  We have faith for our friends but then we turn around and doubt for ourselves.  We begin to believe we have control when we have none and then the worst, we try to be God.  We put games, books, chores, work, and even our kids before God.  We work to worry and then we worry some more.  We all must unite and learn from what some call characters of the Bible.  They were real men and women facing the same things we face now.  Most of the men in the Bible started in humble beginnings and then were made to take on the journey that would get them into the History books.  They were ordinary people with ordinary lives just like us and then one day, God spoke to their hearts and things changed.  God is so much more than even I can imagine and I have a great imagination.  I sometimes think of Him when I'm flying.  I wonder what the choirs of the heavens look like.  I wonder what beauty the little children see when they get there.  I wonder if the streets are really gold or  are they just the most brilliant sparkle. Mostly, I wonder what it's like to sit at the feet of our Savior.  When I really get stressed out from the worries of this world, I like to crawl in my bed and close my eyes and just imagine for a moment I'm in heaven at the foot of Jesus.  It only lasts for a moment but that moment gives me courage to wake up the next day and fight the battle before me.

I have done much wrong in my life.  I have let people down, walked away from what I believed in and worried to the point that I can see signs of that worry in my health.  On the flip side, I have grown stronger in the lord day to day.  I have overcome obstacles by His grace.  I have witnessed miracles in peoples lives an through prayer, I have seen the impossible become possible.  I, like Ann Graham Lotz have been hearing God's call to the women and men of this earth, not just in the US.  All the terrorist groups in the world don't match to our God's anger.  Luckily for us, He is merciful and patient and not like the rest of us that want instant satisfaction and correction.  He is mighty and He deserves our time and when we don't give Him that, we should repent.  He is a jealous God and He should be. He does all things great and small in our lives.  He has provided every need and all He asks is for us to read His word and pray.  You would think that it would be that hard but in this day with so many distractions, it is.

So my call to you today is to allow yourself the time to close your eyes and focus on our Lord and Savior.  In the end as we close our eyes for the last time it won't be about the worries of tomorrow, it will be about the glory of our God and Father.  There are no words to express what that day will be like but I know one thing, there will come a day just like that. I hope when it does, we can say together, that we united not just for the US but for every nation and that we took the challenge and we trudged deeper into ourselves to prepare the desert highway for the Lord.


Quiet time...the search for Christ

Good afternoon all-

I'm sure you've noticed my radio silence.  I have gone through a trial that left me depleted and more aware of my need for Christ.  You might think that it's personal but it actually hit me in my professional life.  I won't go into all the details but I have learned many lessons.  The most important was to remember my worth, through Christ and what I'm meant to do on earth.

It's sort of funny because I have this vision in my mind of what God wants me to do but as the time came closer to me jumping out of the boat; I felt like staying inside, hunkering down and not letting go of the rail.   Why?  Because I didn't get concrete confirmation that my vision is His vision.  I needed  more time, more knowledge and more passion. Where was it going to come from?  I had no idea, so I stopped writing and withdrew.  Not a very wise decision on my part but then again, maybe it was.

I found myself last week at my table with my head down.  It was 6:00 am and all I could do was confess my sin, give it to God  and change my very bad attitude.  It's easy to trust God when everything is coming your way.  It's so much harder when the world seems against you and your fighting yourself more then anything.

I gave up a lot that day.  Mostly, I gave up my pride, my situation and my selfishness.  I began to concentrate on helping my husband with his business, spent time with my kids and just forgot about work and all the things that go with it.  And then, I began to think about Christ more.  That's the best part of it.  He came into focus and I died to myself.

The sermon on Friday cinched my resolve.  In Matthew, Jesus wanted to walk away from everyone after His cousin died but instead, He ministered to 5000 people.  We want to run from our responsibilities but we need to run toward them.  I normally do, but one thing always holds me back and that's the potential to fail. Failure is not an option, it definitely wasn't for Jesus so it can't be for me either.  I apologize for my time away and with much prayer; I hope to continue this blog for a long time.  I also hope that this vision of speaking to women everywhere will come true and that my time away has revitalized my pursuit for His will on my life.  I don't have a publisher or a million people hitting this blog but I do have a God that is so much bigger than me.  I need to trust in Him always and work toward dying to myself.  At the end of me is Christ.  I count on that and I count on the fact that although I took time off, He will bring me back every time.

May God be with you my sisters and may you hear Him calling to each of you.  Our talents are His, Our lives are His but our attitudes, drive and passion are our own.  May God fuel the fire hot in our hearts and remind us to live in faith not in fear.  Thanks for following and have a great day!

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.  To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen   (Ephesians 3:20-21 NIV)