This blog is designed to create community for believers and provide support for seekers. I encourage all readers to share their faith in an effort to lift and encourage one another.
“Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty, admire it. Life is a dream, realize it.”
Thank you Father, for the opportunity to be your child and to bask in your love. Thank you for the beauty all around us, so beautiful it can take our breath away.
Such a comforting verse.
I challenge you to pray this scripture today.
Matthew 18: 19-20 “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”
Lord, I thank you for the friends and family who join me in worshipping you and who seek to understand you will. Together, we can utilize your strength and wisdom for good.
Lord, I am so thankful for your word and your faithfulness.
The little soul lived for many years in the same woods. The sun shone on her leafy branches, and she produced much fruit. After many years the trees around this soul grew and their branches met above her head. Those branches provided comfortable shade. She was content in the place she’d always grown. She knew every plant in the woods.
After a time, the little soul felt discontent. When a storm raged overhead, the towering branches swayed and clashed together. Sometimes huge branches broke off the trees and crashed to the forest floor, clipping her own branches. On sunny days, she never saw the sun, for the shade had grown too deep. After a time, the little soul realized she was not being fed; she was no longer growing. She no longer felt the sun’s rays stimulating growth. Even though she was content in her comfortable shady woods, she was hungry. Her leaves drooped. Her fruit dried up and dropped to the ground. She no longer produced new fruit. She had become stagnant.
She pondered her situation. The woods were dark, deep, and comfortable. She wanted to stay, but she longed to grow and once again bear fruit.
After much thought, she made her decision. With great effort and great sadness, she pulled her roots out of the familiar soil and moved from her shady spot. She traveled to another, less familiar location. Here she lived with strangers. Here she was the outsider. Here the summer was harsh and hot with the unfamiliar and the new. But she planted her roots in the sunny spot where she knew she’d appease her hunger. She longed for the challenge of new growth. She looked up at the sun, lifted her branches heavenward, sighed as the breeze rustled through her leaves, and grew once again.
God always seems bigger to those who need him most. And suffering is the tool he uses to help us need him more.”
`~Joni Eareckson Tada ~
Lord, I used to think it was strange that Paul said we should be grateful for suffering. Now I understand that it is through suffering that I draw closer to you, and I better understand how much I need you. Thank you for all the ways you care for me and teach me, even in suffering.
Lord, every day I am hungry and thirsty. Give me that daily hunger and thirst for Your spiritual gifts and for Your presence.
I challenge you to prayer this scripture for your unbelieving friends.
I John3:1
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God.”
Father, I am so thankful that you have adopted me into your family. Thank you for loving all your children and gifting them with spiritual blessings. Today I pray for my friends and family members who do not know your saving grace. Please open their hearts. Open their ears and eyes that they may see and understand how much you love them and long to bless them. May they seek you and find you.
All He asks is that we call on Him.
Father, too often I rely on my own weaknesses instead of calling on your strength. Forgive me and keep turning to You and calling on You in all circumstances.
This morning I cleaned my stove. You
know, took out the burners and the drip pans and cleaned all the accumulated
gunk. Most of it wiped up easily, but a few spots took a little elbow grease
and some steel wool pads. Before long, the stove looked shiny and (nearly) new.As I worked, my mind meandered, as it
tends to do. I thought about all those meals I’d cooked on this stove. Would
you believe it? Twenty-nine years’ worth of meals. That’s a lot of years and a
lot of meals. Any botched meals were the fault of the cook, not the stove. It
endured boil-overs, splatters, occasional burned food, and spills on the
burners.As my mind wandered, I couldn’t help
but compare myself to that stove. Twenty-nine is pretty ancient for a stove.
Now I don’t consider myself ancient, but I am retired, and I am on Medicare.
Even though I don’t like the title, I am officially classified as elderly.In all my years, I’ve botched many
things, said or done the wrong thing to the wrong person. I have boiled over in
anger, regretting words that came out of my mouth. Over the years, there have
been countless occasions where I’ve just made a mess of things. I haven’t always
followed God’s recipe for my life. I’ve been spiritually careless and taken
things and people for granted.I am so grateful that God is always
willing to clean up my messes. No matter what I have said or done, or how often
I have ignored his suggestions, He is willing to forgive. Even when I make a
huge mess, He helps me clean it up, He forgives and offers me grace. He opens
my eyes to truth and wisdom in His word, and He shows me a better way. Are you
ready to ask Him to help you clean up your messes and offer you grace?
Father, thank you for cleaning up my messes. Thank you for sending your son to offer grace
to all of us that we may be sparkling clean in your sight.
Growing Our Faith Together 