DAILY DROPS ABOUT DIRECTION

Good morning, blogger friends!


This mornings brief blog is about answers to prayer!
The other day we had a major move going on in our family and I was praying and asking God to watch over us and lead in everything that went on.


He gave me a WORD for the day, here it is:

MOVING DAY – JULY 28,2012

HERE IS THE WORD OF THE LORD:

PSALM 31:3 -  “LORD, LEAD US AND GUIDE US TODAY – FOR YOUR NAME’S SAKE!”

PSALM 32:8   “I WILL INSTRUCT YOU AND TEACH YOU IN THE WAY YOU SHOULD GO; I WILL GUIDE YOU WITH MY EYE!”

ISAIAH 30:21 “YOUR EARS SHALL HEAR A WORD BEHIND YOU SAYING, THIS IS THE WAY WALK IN IT,  WHENEVER YOU TURN TO THE RIGHT HAND OR WHENEVER YOU TURN TO THE LEFT!

AMEN AND AMEN AND AMEN AND SO BE IT!!!

Well, I just want to tell you we all stood on this and we had a great day with good travel and wonderful friends who pitched in and made it happen in spite of impossible odds and a great time was had by all.  I, personally, was able to remain unruffled through it all.  

Well, mostly, I think!

Do you have a major challenge going on in your life?  Seek the face of the LORD, He has it all in His hands.  Leave it there and only do your part!  Yes, you have a part and He can tell you what it is!  But, Let Him do His!  He will see you through it in a way that you cannot imagine!  He loves to leave my eyeballs rolling around in my head!!

Oh yeah and keep praying for all your loved ones!  It really works!  It really works!  Did I say, it really works?  Well, it does!  Thank you, for all the direction and protection and provision, Adonai!!!!

That's all for today!  I pray that the Son is Shining in full strength into your life and family today and you can feel the warmth of His love surrounding you!

DAILY DROPS ABOUT CONNECTIONS

Good morning, blogger friends:


Praise God, I have some kind of internet connection this morning and so even though I do not feel as prepared as I like to be when I write and post a blog for all the world to see, I'm writing anyway just because I can.  

This is a picture of the pathways/connections in our brains!  we all know how they work sometimes and sometimes they don't!  lol
Connections are strange things!  Sometimes, here in the mountains, I can get through with no problem, but more often than not, I can't. 


I have been thinking about blogging with regard to another important connection - Prayer!  Thank God, it is one connection that only depends on our willingness to turn our hearts toward home and cry out..ET..phone home!

Ancient means of connecting..lol.

The other day I was reading in Isaiah 59 when verse 16 jumped out at me.  It says "the Lord wondered that there was no intercessor."  Imagine, if you can, something that makes the Lord wonder!!!  


I was struck by the promises that followed in verses 19 and 21.  In 21, "As for me," says the Lord,  "this is my covenant with them:  My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the Lord, "from this time and forevermore."  Contrary to what we might think, this promise is for God's people today as well as for Israel.  It is an eternal promise!

Eternal way of connecting with the real power!!

No wonder that God wonders... such awesome promises and so few intercessors to be praying them in and claiming them for their children and grandchildren.  I go so far as to add even the unborn children that will be coming into this family.  And today, I pray for a revelation to all grandparents about the power we have in prayer for our families.  It is the MOST powerful thing we can do!


Now I know what you are thinking... so much opposition in the lives of your loved ones.  All of Hell seems bent on destroying them, right?  Yes, I see the same thing with my physical eyes.  One friend of mine says in our world there exists a flood of words and visual images coming out of the mouth of Satan. I think he means the TV and the internet and other forms of media so prolific today.  I must add that these are not evil in and of themselves.  They often bring good as well.


Yes, the fact is that the flood of evil often comes from various places, no doubt.  But, drop back a couple of verses to verse 16 which states, "when the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him."   Here is another promise of God that may have some of you wondering, where is the fulfillment of it?  It is waiting for our prayers! 


 It is waiting for us to see with our spiritual eyes that which exists in another realm - the will of God!  For an understanding of what I say, read 2 Corinthians 4, the last verse says "the things which we can see are only temporary, but that which we cannot see (that other realm) is eternal."  We lose heart in our praying because when we only see with our physical eyes we become discouraged, naturally!  


A glimpse into the eternal heart of God will go a long way to encourage us.  An careful study of God's word reveals many wonderful promises which we are not seeing come to pass and we wait and we wonder why?  It is because God has called us to be co-creators with Himself by our prayers.  When we see these things that are not according to God's will for our children, we need to say, NO!!!  That is not what God says about my descendants.  He says that His Spirit and His Word will be our standard!  And I choose to stand in agreement with Him!


Jesus defeated the works of the enemy on Calvary!  (1 John 3:8)  But all of the work of Jesus and the promises of God are waiting for our Amen, for us to say "so be it" in our lives and the lives of our loved ones.  In prayer we can declare our agreement with the will of God and scripture says when we pray in accordance with His will we can know that we have what we ask for and can proceed to be thankful for those answers.  (1 John 5:14,15)

The Gap

This is the work of an intercessor - to stand in the gap between what is and what it ought to be.  (Ezekiel 22:30)  "So I sought for a man among them who would make up a hedge/wall/bridge, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found no one."  Our Lord wonders where those people are who can make the connection with Him and, therefore, connect their world with the eternal will of God.

Our prayers are the bridge between what is and what God says it ought to be!

Now it is my belief there are few intercessors, not because people do not care or would not do what they can to change their worlds.  It is because of ignorance!  A lack of teaching on the tools of prayer.  I know I prayed for years, if it be thy will, please do this or this.  Well, we can know what the will of the Lord is by reading His word and we have the authority and power to pray it in!


I wish I could say more, but this blog has gone on long enough.  For some time it has been on my heart to share some of those tools of prayer.  Pray for me that I will be inspired to do so and then will be freed up to do so.  Pray that I will "Rise up, take courage, and do it."


Thank you for your interest and for reading this blog.  And for those of you who have sent comments, I say a deep, heartfelt thank you!  I pray for all of you that the Son is shining with all of His strength in your world today!

DAILY DROPS OF COURAGE

Today's blog is about Courage!  


What is Courage?  One definition that I am partial to is "it is not the absence of fear, but the ability to act in spite of the fear."  A few blogs back we used a text that stated, "Rise up, take courage, and do it."  What is it that you need to rise up, take courage and do?  For me, it is to somehow overcome all the multitudinous tasks that fall onto my plate on a daily basis, to sort through them all and act on those that are most important and leave the rest alone!


Webster's dictionary defines courage as "the attitude of dealing with anything recognized as dangerous, difficult, or painful, instead of withdrawing from it;" and with this I agree.  It goes on, however, to say it is the "quality of being fearless or brave; valor".  With this I do not agree.  Just Elizabethology, of course, but I do not agree.  


It is very interesting to me that even the dictionary equates courage with heart and spirit having the connotation of having "the courage of one's convictions, the courage to do what one thinks is right."  This is the term that is used in the New Testament - to lose or not to lose heart.  Webster's says discourage means to dishearten, among other things.


If you will bear with me for a short span, I would like to refer to a few scriptures that are very meaningful to me and which encourage me on a routine basis.  Galations 6:9 "let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart."  2 Corinthians 4:16 "even tho our outward man is perishing, yet our inward man is being renewed day by day."  Luke 18:1 & 2 Cor. 4:1 speaks of "praying and not losing heart".


Now, I don't know about you, but I have trouble "not losing heart". When I am faced with ongoing distractions and the daily situations that can present themselves just in the course of life, I tend toward discouragement or to lose the courage of my convictions to do what I know is right!  I'm not talking about doing something immoral; I'm talking about giving up in the face of this onslaught and giving in to the doing of what seems most important at the moment leaving what I know I am called to do undone.  In all honesty, sometimes am just too tired to do anything else when the dailies are over.  I bet many of you can relate to what I am saying.


In my study of this subject, I went back to Moses and Joshua.  The story of spying out the land is found in Numbers 13 where Moses selected the best of the men he could find...fathers and rulers, not inexperienced kids, to go and do the spying.  There were 12 of them and ten of them returned with good news and bad news.  

The good news was the land was indeed flowing with milk and honey and grapes that had to be carried a stalk at a time between two men.  The bad news was that there were giants in the land that they perceived as "stronger".  This word stronger has the connotation of violent or unyielding.  Does that make you think of life as you experience it on a day to day basis?  It does me!  It seems that the daily duties are stronger, sometimes seeming to be violently unyielding in their ability to stop me in my tracks.

Two men, Joshua and Caleb, gave another report, similar, but more encouraging.  Yes, there are giants, but "we are well able to possess the land".  The "well able" term means "goodness".  So they were looking to the goodness they knew they had backing them up, the goodness of God, Who had said the land was theirs for the taking.  Unfortunately, as it often happens, the majority ruled and the people did not enter in at that time.  Joshua and Caleb did get to go after all the others had died away many years later.


So what am I trying to say?  For today, just let me quote Moses who said to the people, "be strong and of good courage, for the Lord is the One who goes before you.  He will be with you.  He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed"!  He is the one who can give us the "courage" we need to do whatever He is leading us to do, whatever He is calling us to, He has already equipped us and made all the provisions we need to go forward.


Let's pray for each other on a daily basis that we will be able to walk this out in our lives and accomplish that to which we have been called!  Thank you for your prayers for me!  My prayers are for you too.

I pray that the Son is shining into your hearts and lives today!  And the strength of His goodness will encourage all of us to do what He promises to empower us to do... His will!

DAILY DROPS CONTINUING

So sorry, Blogger friends, for my absence the last few days.

We traveled uphome to the mountains on Sunday.   I have been “under the weather” with a throat condition that I understand many people have been having  in response to the ozone code orange which has been prevalent across the South in this extreme heat.  I also have been having difficulty with the internet connection. Very discouraging, all of it!  So this blog is about continuing even in the face of discouraging situations.

Therefore, I will continue my attempts to write today.  I just want to check in briefly and hope for better circumstances either tomorrow or the day after the Fourth.  We had a storm here in the mountains the other day with hail larger than golf balls.   My daughter got a picture of it.  I’m including a photo.  I think some damage must have incurred to receiving stations around here that might be interfering with internet availability.  But we will persevere to the best of our ability.

This is a lot like real life, I think.  We have the best of intentions and then life, real life, hits us whether we like it or not.  There are storms in life all the time between the times of sunshine.  Some of them are so minor we hardly notice and they don't slow us down a bit.  Others are like being rained upon by icy golf balls and we think possibly this time we might not make it.  We are sure we are going to die. 

Our kid's little three month old puppy was outside during this storm trying desperately to find a place to get away from that hail.  It was his first encounter with being bombarded from above.  I could only imagine what he was thinking.  Poor puppy!  Then I realized that I did know something of how he might be feeling.  This is what I was thinking. 

I really wanted to put in a picture of this adorable little creature, but again I could not download it or it never got to me.  Here's the pictures of our beautiful "Bo" and friends.

Many times we are hit for the first time with some experience in life and we scurry around looking for a place to hide all the while wondering what in the world is happening.  Where are our caregivers?  Where is God?  Why isn't He doing something about this?  Doesn't He know what is happening to us?  Or worse, doesn't He even care?  He could do anything; why isn't He doing something?  Have you ever felt this way?  I will certainly admit that I have.

Well, the puppy did find shelter until the storm passed and we, his caretakers, were inside watching him learn how to deal with hail.  His answer was found under the shelter of the nearest car where he was almost too big to hide, but he kept trying until he squeezed himself under it.  If he hadn't figured that out, one of us would have ventured out to bring him in to a place of protection.

  

We, his caretakers, could have and would have helped him, but he learned to help himself which is all a part of growing up for animals and humans, even children of God.  The key is learning where to hide…Ps. 91.. Under the Shelter of His Wings, and continue to rest there even when the sun is shining.

So, we are all in the continuing process.  Continuing to live and breathe and overcome the oppressive ozone surrounding us and continuing to learn to deal with new kinds of storms.  We continue on when the storm passes by and learn that we have survived the hail and the ozone and it is a new day.  I look outside and I see the sun shining on the grass and I am reminded that the Son is still shining in my heart.  I pray for all of us today in this continuing process of life even if the drops today come in the form of hail, golf ball sized pieces of ice, raining down upon us unmercifully.

And this is my prayer.  Numbers 6:23-27  "May the LORD Himself bless us and keep us and may He make His face/SON to shine upon us and be gracious unto us;  May the LORD lift up His countenance upon us, and give us His peace which passes all understanding. (Phillipians 4)  And may His name be upon us as His children and may we know that we will be blessed by Him."  (Liberties taken by Me, Sonshine.) 

Let us continue to walk today in His blessing no matter what the course we may have to travel or what kind of drops come our way!