Ξ September 30th, 2007 | → Comments Off | ∇ Music|
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Bill Gaither wrote the song “There’s Something About That Name” and probably the best singer to do the song was Danny Gaither. I have to mention that I just love the songs that come from Bill and Gloria Gaither. Many of the praise songs belong to them. It is truly a blessing to listen to the songs of the Gaithers.
If you have any favorites that you would like to see here, please leave your choices in the comments section of this post.
Some time ago, we had a bunch of car trouble. Right after we got the car, it started doing things I had never encountered before. It would be just fine until we went on a longer trip…of about 75 miles on a warm day. At some point, it would stop running. Period. When I pulled over to the side of the road, it would not start right away. A few moments later, it was fine…for a while. I would continue to have this problem off and on for miles. When I got home, I figured the car wasn’t going to go anywhere until we got it fixed.
But it continued to be a problem because the mechanic couldn’t find the problem. It would be running fine…until it didn’t. One day, we were at the doctor’s office for an appointment, regular checkup. It took longer than usual. It was in the afternoon not long before the girls were due home on the school bus. The door was locked and we had expected to be there so there was no way inside without us being there. (We were always there for them. That’s why no key was necessary)
When I tried to start the car, it would not start. I prayed over the car and the situation. It was going to be fine. Thirty five minutes later, I began to think we would not get home. There was no one to be with the girls and they would be scared because we weren’t there. No one to pick them up. The extended family was too far away to help. I sat in that car and cried. Forty minutes after I tried to start the car, I got angry at God. Why wouldn’t He answer us in this? Why do the girls have to suffer for something that wasn’t their fault? Why God, why? Are you even listening to me?
As I exhausted myself in tears and frustration, I asked my husband to go inside and call a tow truck. We did not have the money and weren’t going to have it anytime soon. I had given up. God wasn’t home or He was asleep but what He was not doing was answering my prayers. We decided that we would take some money from our savings (for the rest of the monthly bills) and find a way to get it back…somehow.
Anyone been there? It is a horrible feeling because at that point, you feel so very alone. God isn’t answering. He is not providing, no matter what He promised. Right? Uh, maybe not. God says that before you even ask the question, He is there for you. Want to see?
(Isa 65:24) And it will be, before they call I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.
So, God hears the pleas of His children. Okay, what’s up with Him not answering me then? I asked Him in faith, believing that the car would start because we needed to get home for those children who would be scared if we were not there.
After the incident, God pointed out something about a word I had begun to despise..patience. See, I am not a patient person so when God didn’t pony up like I wanted, He let me alone for a while, letting me try to fix it “my way”. You know, that phrase might work in a Frank Sinatra song but it does not work well with God. He expects us to do it HIS way. He let me know that it was an exercise in patience and I had failed. My assessment, not His. I failed. Sigh. Not again.That gets frustrating too.
Want to know what happened, eh? Well, I settled down and stopped crying when it occurred to me how ridiculous I was being. I started to pray about it. Apparently, it took my husband a few minutes to get a hold of the tow truck driver because he was gone for about five minutes. I began to pray with an eye for praise instead of condemning God for not producing. I praised Him for keeping us safe because it occurred to me that it was possible that we avoided an accident because of the delay. (It’s happened before)
My husband came out to tell me that the tow truck would be a little while…long after the girls would get home. I thanked God that we would be able to get there at all. At that point, I got nudged to try the car again. It STARTED!!!!! My husband went back in to call the tow truck and tell them they weren’t needed. They were happy because they had a load of calls that day. We got home just ahead of the bus so the girls did not have to be scared.
God did answer my prayer. He simply did it in His time, not mine. The car ran pretty good for a while after that too. Eventually, we did get it fixed at a time that we had the money to do it, not before.
(Isa 55:8-9) For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, says Jehovah. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
Our Lord is an awesome God!! And for the record, He most certainly DOES listen and answer prayers. Just don’t try to manipulate Him or make promises that you can’t keep because He will want you to do just that.
Be blessed of God today and thank you for your patience as I try to get back into my routine.
I am asking God to give me the insight and strength to see it through so that I can place another post on this blog. I have to admit that it has been a bit dry just the last couple of days. There is no excuse for my not having posted except that I do not have a thing to write at the moment. That would be why you see me simply doing a blabby fingers.
If we believe that God is in all we do then why on earth don’t we allow Him to run our lives? I wonder about that. I find myself taking back everything I have put in His hands. Of course, I am able to do that better than He can? That’s ridiculous. I guess I thought that He couldn’t do it fast enough. Sigh. Maybe it’s just that He isn’t doing what I want Him to do. After all, I KNOW what I want done. Doesn’t He know that too? That’s why I prayed for it to be that way. Uh huh.
No, we cannot try to manipulate God. He won’t stand for it. He will do what is best for your life regardless of what you think or want. Yes, He does give you the desires of your heart but only if you follow the Word of God that He has provided.
So, isn’t it time to really give it all to God instead of ripping back into your hands to do your thing instead of waiting on Him to do His?
Ξ September 24th, 2007 | → Comments Off | ∇ Family|
For a week now, I have been wrapped up in the difficulties that our extended family was having. The praise report is that my bro-in-law is out of the hospital and doing pretty well. Then, my Mom was also in the hospital around the same time. He went in last Monday. Thursday, we transported Mom to the hospital to stay for a while too. In the meanwhile, my husband needed tests to rule out blockages and strokes in his head.
Well, my husband got his tests done in the same town as the hospital on Friday. We are still waiting on the results of that. On Saturday, bro-in-law came home. Hurray! On Sunday, Mom came home too! Bigger hurray! They are both doing very well. Mom’s fever finally broke last night and she is in full recovery now. My bro-in-law had already had that happen at the hospital. YES!!
I thank each of you that prayed for us in all this. We are believing that no other member of the family needs any of this and that we continue to be healthy.
We praise You, Lord, for Your hand in all of this. We see that You took care of each of us as these things were unfolding. No matter what the situation, You are there! Thank You, Lord!
On my website, Lura’s Bookcase, the most read article by far is the one called “Does God Care?” So many people are trying to find an answer to that very question. I think that when people ask this question they are having a trial of their own. At that point, it may seem as though God has abandon ship but is that true? Is it true that God does not care enough to help the person out of their troubles?
I know that there have been times when I asked where God was, why He did not intervene and take me away from the problems that I faced. So many times, the problems would crop up unexpectedly and there was no way to deal with them at all. None. Or so it seemed at the time. In hindsight, I can see that there were very likely other options. However, that really isn’t the situation, is it? As I see it, the problem came when I didn’t give it all to God to take care of in the first place.
(1Pe 5:6-7) Therefore be humbled under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your anxiety onto Him, for He cares for you.
Part of the problem always seems to be that when I didn’t give it all to God, I was not humbling myself before Him. The promise is that He will exalt me in due time. Not sure what “due time” translates out to but I know that this promise says that I can expect to be lifted up at that time for humbling myself before Him now.
The word “humble” means to bring yourself low…it means to bend your knee to God or bow such as you would to a king. This King deserves this. So when I humble myself before my Father, He will lift me up in due time AND I need to cast all my anxiety or cares on Him since He cares so much for me.
If God cares that much (and He does), that means that if I give Him all my troubles, they may not all go away but it will be possible to deal with them through God. But why can’t He just “fix it and make the cares go away?” I suspect that if He did that, no one would ever learn a thing about caring for others, learn to take what is given by God and be a good steward of it, learn to lean on Him for everything…yes, EVERYTHING or simply give God the credit for what He did do instead of taking the credit one’s self.
These are the times when we need to draw closer to God. He surely wants to draw closer to you!
(James 4:7-8) Therefore submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners; and purify your hearts, double-minded ones.
Is it getting complicated now? Not really. You humble yourself and cast cares off bringing you closer to God. As you are submitting yourself to God, you resist the devil and he flees because he cannot stand listening to scripture from a believer. You are then drawing even closer to God and He is drawing closer to you. The blessings are in God’s hand. Give God your cares and worries so that He can deal with the problems and you can just be in His arms safe and sound.
Normally, I do not endorse any type of commercial venture on this blog unless it’s Christian based and I still am not. But I have come across a company that deserves all the prayer and backing it can get from the Christian community. It’s called One2believe and they are selling Bible based toys on the selected shelves of Walmart and Target.
This venture is worth the time you take to pray for them and for the stores to open up sales throughout the country. They have action figures such as Daniel, Noah, Samson, David and Jesus, all of which are not usually sold in large chain stores. For years, these products have been only sold in Christian stores.
Take a moment to pray for these wonderful folks who believe that children and their parents should have a choice in what type of toys to buy. After all, there are satan dolls and evil things out there too. As we approach the halloween season, wouldn’t it be great to see more Bible toys than the spooky stuff we usually see?
Ξ September 22nd, 2007 | → Comments Off | ∇ Family|
I have to ask forgiveness for not having a post up each day. Part of it is that I am really tired and cannot think straight enough to do this. The other part is that I currently have two family members in the hospital that is an hour and a half away from where we live.
The day before, we had to take one member of the family to that hospital to be admitted. The other member was already in that hospital. We decided to stay overnight there because my husband needed to have some tests done and it worked out that having them done there was more convenient for us.
Today, I have to go back to the hospital to get one of the members of the family because he is being discharged. The other person is still going to be there at least until tomorrow. If she is discharged tomorrow, I will have to go back and get her. I pray that that happens because they will then both be home again and getting better.
Unfortunately, that all means that I have little time to study for my entries into the blog. When the smoke clears, I will most certainly be back writing my almost daily entries again. I thank each one of you who is praying for my family especially during this time.
Please continue to pray for my bro-in-law who is coming home today, my Mom, who is still in the hospital (age 79) and my sister, who is getting over this bug and fighting it off at home. Please also pray for the other members of my family who do not have this and that they won’t get it.
I thank you for helping us during this time. Thank you for reading my blog.
For more information on becoming a Christian or just maintaining as a Christian, please visit Lura’s Bookcase. There are many articles to help you.
Have you ever noticed that we tend to accept things as they are especially if we’re used to it? You know, things like health conditions, financial problems, family difficulties? We accept it because someone has told us that it’s that way, period. For instance, we got a phone bill that was not what was supposed to happen when we upgraded a service. Our bill should have gone up by $15 and a charge for some shipping which amounts to about $15. In fact, it was over $50 higher than it should have been beyond that. I called to inquire about it and a young lady told me that it was accurate and that’s what I had to pay. Period. End of story.
Now, a few years ago, I would have hated it but accepted that she was right. After all, she’s looking right at the bill on the computer. It’s right. It would have been awful trying to pay that bill, a major struggle. That was then. This time I insisted that the bill was wrong, I was NOT going to pay that and if she could not help then I needed to talk to a supervisor right away. I was pleasant and firm. She put me on hold for about 5 min. When she came back the bill had dropped over $50. Why? Because I did not accept the status quo.
Often, we accept it when health problems and financial problems come on instead of taking a stand. If we are going to live by what the Bible tells us, then we must begin to believe what it says instead of what we see. Weird concept but very necessary. “Believing is seeing” may make no logical sense in this world yet that is exactly what God wants us to do. We need to trust God to take care of us instead of us dealing with our problems ourselves.
(1Pe 2:24) He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that dying to sins, we might live to righteousness;by whose stripes you were healed.
So, instead of accepting the health problems, we need to take a stand, say that this is enough!! This should not be happening! God said “by his stripes you were healed”! That’s past tense. It’s now up to us to believe, receive and live it as though it had already happened. Just because we see it does not mean that it’s true. When we are willing to accept ONLY God’s best are we living as God intended. Now, do not get me wrong. Bad things will still happen. But if we will only accept God’s best and nothing short of that will do, then that brings trust in God. When we trust Him for everything, we are living the life God intended for us.
Ξ September 18th, 2007 | → Comments Off | ∇ Family|
Our family is having an emergency situation. Because of that, I may not be able to post a devotional or post today.
Please pray for my bro-in-law (age-43) who has had numerous health problems in the last several years. The problems he has include rheumatoid arthritis, heart valve replacement (2), leaking valve on one not replaced, vasculitis from the arthritis. These things he has daily. Now, he has gotten pneumonia or possibly something else that they are not sure of as yet. He is in the hospital in the intensive care unit. His blood pressure last night was 60 over 34. It has improved considerably. He is awake and feeling a bit better.
Please pray for him and his wife, who is dealing with what appears to be bronchitis herself. She gets very little sleep while he is in the hospital. She is unable to be with him.
Our Lord tells us that we can be healed. In fact, the scripture tells us that we are already healed. Sometimes, that can be hard to believe when we don’t feel that good. Please help us pray for my bro-in-law who is feeling really sick and needs all the prayer support he can get. We do thank you for all of your help and prayers.
(1Pe 2:24) He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that dying to sins, we might live to righteousness; by whose stripes you were healed.
The subject of honoring God came up recently in my prayer and Bible study time. What does it take to honor God anyway? First, those who wish to honor God will accept His Son, Jesus, who died on the cross for them by asking Him into their hearts after asking forgiveness for their sins. Then, it follows that to go back to the old life doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because if they have asked for the forgiveness, then it makes more sense to change the lifestyle.
When I got into all this, the scripture about presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice came to mind.
(Rom 12:1) I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service.
Now, if we need to do that, it makes sense that we would want to do everything we can to honor God. Going back to an old lifestyle seems to be counter productive. Heading forward means to be doing those things pleasing to God. But how can I give back to a Lord Who is not seen, who has everything? It’s a good question and one that I struggled with for many years. When the answer came to me, it was too simple. Everything we do should be to please God. Everything!
But all I do is sweep the church and pick up garbage. If that’s your job, do that to honor God. How? Well, when we were kids, we used to try to get by with doing just the smallest amount of our work as we could. It was sort of to get away with it and sort of because we were lazy and didn’t want to do the whole thing. It really did not dawn on us that we were spending more time avoiding the situation than it would have taken to simply do whatever IT was. Like, cleaning my room was something I hated doing and avoided it like the plague. The problem was that my room could actually be fixed in about 20 minutes, give or take a couple of minutes. But I thought it should take hours, so instead of cleaning my room, I read comic books in my closet.
As I grew up, I still wanted to avoid things like the dishes and dusting, ironing my Dad’s shirts for work. Those were tasks that I got handed to me because I was out of school in the summer time and Mom and Dad both worked. I was 16 and didn’t want to do that stuff. So, I avoided it until the last minute. It really only took a portion of a day and I could have spread it out over a couple of days but I wanted to avoid it. Such silliness.
If we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, then we should do all things to honor God. If I had known to just do the work to honor God, it would have taken a few moments of my time but it would have been done to the best of my abilities. THAT is what honors God. Willingness to to do the work and do it to the best of our abilities. When we grumble and complain about what we do to earn our wages, that does not honor God. In fact, it’s counter to that. If we complain about the co-workers or the boss, we are not honoring God regardless of what they are doing to us.
So, today and everyday, make the choice of honoring God with your lives by going to work and do the best job ever. If that means going the extra mile, that’s what it means. Doing things to the best of your abilities does not take that much longer and the reward is great, whether you see it here or with God. Take the time to enjoy what you do. If the job is a drudge and you hate it, either change jobs or pray while you work at the one you have. I have had jobs I hated but when I prayed while I worked, everything seemed to work better, be brighter and eventually I was able to have the job I loved.
Today is the day that God has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it!!
