Judge yourself that you will not be judged.

            I enjoy reading and study the works of the older evangelist like Smith Wigglesworth and C.H. Spurgeon.  They offer guidance for purity and how to be more like Christ. Their doctrines were not compromising.  They challenged their followers to ask evaluative questions of themselves.  Maybe in this holy season,  it is a good time to ask our Lord how are we doing?

            Today I asked myself, “Has my heart been broken because of sin?”  David asked the Lord that very question and wept in repentance.

            Today I asked myself, “Has my soul been full of true confidence in my hours of trials and difficulty?”

            This morning I asked myself, “How far am I conformed to the likeness of Christ?”

            I fell short on all of these.  My prayer today is,  “ Lord Jesus, help me in this season to have real faith and warmer zeal for reaching out to others.  Help me, O’Lord, to have Your fervent love toward family and strangers. Grant me humility and meekness.  I desire to present the lovely spirit that You constantly displayed.  Make me more like you, Jesus.  Draw me nearer to You in this sacred season.”  Amen

            Christmas is a time to become closer to Emmanuel.  He is with us. I am preparing my heart and home for my Special Guest this season.  May God’s blessings be abundant in your life.  Enjoy your time with Him.

Paris brings opportunity for us to pray for peace.

What’s your rabbit’s foot?

Today there is a great out powering of grief and suffering in Paris.  Explosions and guns were used to bomb Frenchman going to Friday celebrations and living life.  There were other countries represented in the crisis, but it was focused on Parisians.  The terrorist destroyed the beauty of architectural over 200 years old.  The enemy destroyed families, young and old people, spirits, safety, and peace.  ISIS strikes and will continue to strike.  This grief permeates our soils and souls.  We understand the enemy will continue to grow.  We need to a plan.  A big plan.  A prayer plan.  A war plan.  How can this happen in time to save our country or others?

Ancients used lucky charms like rabbit’s feet to ward of evil spirits or create a safety net within if they carried the animal’s foot.  They relied on this to bring them luck and protection.  Some of us still carry rabbit’s feet in other forms.  Sometimes we sit in our warm home in front of the fire sipping tea and feeling so content, secure, and safe.  We push away the thoughts of those grieving from disasters, the hungry and homeless, and those Christians that have been persecuted and killed in North Korea, China, Syria, and more.  Denial becomes our rabbit’s foot.  The burden is so heavy, so difficult to comprehend that we just need to escape.       

What if we used this advent season to pray?   Peace begins with prayer. Choose a specific time to sincerely seek God’s word and pray for our hurting brothers and sisters.  Pray for those being persecuted for their beliefs.  Pray for the heart of a terrorist.  Try to visualize one of the terrorists that make the news and see his heart softened.  Diligently pray every day of advent that Jesus will intercede and safeguard our country and others.  We will create a prayer wall around our brothers and sisters, peace-seeking countries, and our families. 

Do not throw away your confidence with your used tea bag.  Instead, “…my righteousness one will live by faith.  And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.  We are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved. “ Hebrews 10:38,39

We will be richly rewarded if we ban together in prayer every day.  In these times, we need to stand together.

Please take the time to name the time you promise to pray from now through December. Pray for our country and those being persecuted.  Your responses will be an encouragement to commitment and a blessing to all.  Please add your strength to our prayer wall.

Kite prayers

Kite flying

Thinking About Prayer

I know many of us spend time in prayer. We sometimes offer up hurried prayers when we are off and running. Other times we linger over our prayer journals writing each request neatly on the blank page.  Other days, we seem to live in prayer. We pray when washing dishes, driving the kids, cleaning the house, and when gardening. Then there are those kite day prayers.

What are kite day prayers you say? Well, those are the days we linger with the Lord just holding onto a ray of light to the throne room. A thought occurs and a prayer concurs. Another wind thrusts our vision upwards, and we offer a request so big that we know only God could answer such a dire need. We just hold onto the sunbeam in our minds and thoughts and prayers create the weights on the tale of the kite.  The weights are ours and the wind gusts are His. He thrusts forward our words, thoughts, and prayers. 

I love kite prayers because I lose control. My words aren’t fancy or contrived or familiar repetitions. Instead, they freely are released unto the kingdom. He is in charge, and I am making the request, the offerings, and the affirmations of love.  It is free time and indulgence with the Holy Spirit. 

Just as when we fly kites in the spring, there is a refreshing and excitement in this type of praying. It takes time, silence, focus, and an unseen power. The power of prayer comes forth.  Today is a kite prayer day.  How about you?  Interested in flying heavenly kites?

Living life is hard work.

Hurts, heartaches, horrible depression, and more

Art work by Betty Fraley

           

I have been mentoring, encouraging, and learning from friends with bipolar disease and severe depression, a life long depression, or a deep hurt that plagues them every day, every hour.  God keeps sending these folks to me and I hurt for them.  Their daily lives are plagued with unrest, hurt, despair, and unimaginable mental and emotional pain. 

It puzzles me why God sends these people to me because I know nothing about how to fix them.  I do pray for them.  I try to write encouraging messages or share positive thoughts and views with them.  However, I am so inept, so insecure in this ministry that I totally lean on God.  I am weak.  Weak in a way that I just don’t know what could keep these folks encouraged or how to experience daily joy.  My only answer is Jesus, the healer, the provider, the counselor, and the one who is always faithful.  How do I impart that answer into them?

Spending over twenty years as a Young Life teacher and counselor taught me one clear principle.  Begin where they are.  Relate to their life this day.  Sometimes that is so hard for me because God wired me as a positive, mostly happy woman.  I forgive quickly and don’t hold grudges.  Nothing I do; God just made me that way.  I can find silver linings in most lessons and experiences in my life.  However, when I talk with these friends, those silver linings are more difficult to find and explain.  So, I am back to all I know to do.  Pray.

I do know that scripture makes it clear that grace and truth are Jesus’ provisions to us.  He has a plan for our lives. He’s got my hand and I’ve got His.  That is all I know to impart to my hurting friends.  He’s got their hand and all they need is to hold tightly. I think my plea today is for us all to be sensitive to others.  We don’t know their story, hurts, or pain.  Be diligent to pray for those the Lord brings to you.  That’s all I know.  Pray and pray some more.

Soul Work for Writers

Soul Work

Soul work comes in various  forms through different people.  I recognize God's mercy to me because He has sent so many friends and set me in a family that has shaped my soul.

Recently.my meditations are on soul shaping.  I marvel at God's constant interventions even when I am so unaware.  For example, I have been working on the Midwest Writers Workshop .  The event was last weekend.  Each monthly meeting is focused on how to make the next workshop better.  It involves monthly meetings  discussing finances, speakers, authors, agents, and what sessions are needed to meet the needs of aspiring writers as well as published authors.  Sometimes the meetings are filled with laughter, and we munch on cookies made by Barb, one of the committee people.  Other meetings drag on as we get snagged on a detail or budget need.  However, by the time the end of July roles around, we have an organized program, gifted speakers and agents, and tasty food to inspire the participants.  As they walk through the door for the intensive sessions, my heart feels warm and my emotions are high.  I marvel who God sends each year.

I think of the specifics that are involved.  The participant must have this weekend free, have money to register as well as lodging and transportation.  They are hand picked.  This year we had more than a hundred new folks and many  repeaters.  The returning veterans are like family.  We hug and celebrate the beginning of a new understanding of writing, publishing, and  progress.

I have been involved as a participant for over twenty years and have been on the committee the last three years. I never realized when I attended as an eager student how much went into the planning .  Now, that I am on the other side, I perceive that helping the writing community is such a privilege and gives me so much fulfillment.  We hammer away at the statue each month molding it into an art form.  We spend endless hours discussing, writing, searching the internet, and planning.  At the end of this building and organizing process, an opportunity is created for writers. The process brings forth a statue like in the photo.  Many hours are needed.  Many hands are used especially the hands of Jama Bigger, our director.  The sculpting tools are not chisels, but instead, the minds, words, and hearts of the committee.

I know that this is like God's work on our soul.  We make choices.  We pray.  We write, reflect , and meditate.  We study  God's word, and ponder His part in our  own story.  His intervention and grace creates soul growth.  He sends friends, books, movies, and family to use as his "faculty".  Simple objects and gentle folks mold our souls into the image God intended. We are His "workshop" .  He forms us into His image.  All of us are writers involved in life.  God gives us opportunities to share His love through our words.  Soul work.   I realize that my husband  helps God mold me.  Do I know the person ahead of me in a long line just might  be there by God's design?  Soul work is happening each moment of my life.  I realize how much God cares for me.  "He will perfect that which concerneth me."  Psa 138:8

I

Joy Shared Brings Faith To Others

One of the greatest joys of my life is talking about God with friends and family.  I yearn to hear their stories, their miracles, their memories of God.  The recounting of God’s works lifts my faith and helps me know the depth of God.

Yesterday, a former pastor and his wife dropped in for a visit.  They are 87 and 84  now and getting a little fragile.  They still have great God stories to share.  They shared how a pastor in town prayed and asked God to resurrect their son who was born dead and remained dead for twenty minutes.  They prayed.  They believed.  God answered.  They had used their faith to pray for a dead baby early in their ministry and knew God was big, really big.  The baby began to breathe again and both babies are grown men and in careers this day.  

Smith Wigglesworth was an evangelist in the early 1900s in England, United States, South Africa, and Australia.  He is one of my favorite Bible teachers.  He was an ordinary man used in an extraordinary way by God.  He spent many hours each day studying the word of God and praying and built up his faith , so he could expect miracles and know God would answer.  He had great faith in what God could do, and God did great healings and conversions through him.  There is documentation of him raising men from the dead at least twenty times.  He didn’t rest until he saw God move in the lives of those who needed Him.  He prayed fervently until a child was healed.  Yet, in his own life he and his wife had  a deaf child that remained deaf her entire life. Wigglesworth lost a young son and his evangelist wife to early deaths,yet he went on with his spiritual journey.   Regardless of these tragedies,he continued to trust God and be used by God to heal others.  As I read his  biography,  I realized a man who had complete trust and unwavering faith in God and lived by his favorite saying, “ Only believe.”

I desire to be unwavering. I want to be a yielding prayer warrior.  I hunger to know and understand God’s word.  I want to practice that word and encourage others. I fall short of all these goals, but I keep learning from others.  Life is short but grace is long.  I will continue my spiritual journey because of those who take the time to share God’s wonders, His miracles, and His love.

Do you have a God story you would like to share on my blog?  I would love to hear them and share them with others. You could add them to the comment section or be a guest blogger on Sandi's Impressions.  We all are faith builders because of what God has done in our lives.  I am looking forward to your stories.