IT IS A CALL TO PRAY!
Another day has rolled in … another life begun. Another picture of heaven’s patterns is being rolled out as a carpet above our heads. If we would only look up, we would see it. The sun is peeking out from behind small dots of clouds crawling across the skies landscape. Even the moon just went out of sight. Everything seems to be moving … somewhere …
I look outside and I can see squirrels running up and down the tree trunks and jumping from limb to limb. They are not alone for there are robins and one solitary red-headed woodpecker. I have never seen that woodpecker before. Where did it come from? Where is it going? I don’t know, yet it is here following its agenda, searching for insects in the tree.
I hear more sounds around as the neighborhood wakes up. Car engines humming or the occasional va- voom- va-voom- crank- crank start of a rebellious car engine just warming up from its overnight sleep. Something is happening. Things are moving. Even the weather is changing and by this evening we are told that it would be verycold. Brrrrrr …. Cold!!
So, What is our problem? Why aren’t we moving on as well? Why have we allowed ourselves to become as stagnant as the Dead Sea, not moving forward or backward. What caused us to get off-track from accomplishing God-given goals that we know in our hearts would bring success? Hasn’t it become boring jumping in and out of the same gutter of unfilled activities and commitments that are leading you nowhere, fast?
Some say that your lack of success is due to laziness, while others point the finger at disorganization. A few might have even told you that it was not meant to be. But, you know that the brilliant idea that God placed in your heart came from him. You know that ! You read and believed the scripture in the Bible where Jesus said that he would bless you with more than you could even ask or think of.
So you made a list of material things that you wanted; things that would rot in a few years. You asked for those for things, exercised your higher order, cognitive abilities and wrote out your objectives, analyzed them, passed them through a sieve of multiple analyses and reviews by some of your top advisors. They all said that it could be done. You were encouraged and you began on your journey to accomplish this great idea that would bless others as well as yourself. BUT, you did his plan in your way and it is not working.
So, what happened? Why are you where you are today? Still dreaming of accomplishing this great ‘do-good’ plan, but feeling as if it is but a whisper somewhere out there. You no longer sense it. You don’t have your teeth in it, as they say. Teeth … now you are wondering whether you have any left. Teeth to grab hold of your vision, bite into it once more and see it come to pass.
Today we will pray for the person who allowed the well-meaning but negative comments of others to sway him/her to do things their way instead of God’s way.
You might have thought that doing things God’s way took too long. Things seem to move along too slowly. Why put all the effort into a venture that was ‘lumbering ‘ along when it could be done another way and bring quicker results? I have been there too, so I am not just sharing a thought with you. I know .
Listen, when God has his hand on your life, and is deeply involved in your affairs, you’d better be careful about whom you allow to get involved in your assignment. For they can tell you that it’s going to take long too long to be accomplished. If you remove yourself from carrying out the plan in the way that was designed by the creator of the plan, then look out! You would have chosen to package that gift freely given to you, into a box, and sealed it tightly SHUT! Then, what else would be left for you to do? Of course, follow the plan that your friends designed … the plan that they had for you.
What are you going to do? What choice are you going to make? Will you decide to follow God and do things his way?
I know that some of you who are reading this might not believe that there is a God or that if he does exist, there is no way that he can or would communicate with us humans. Maybe he is a spirit out there that cannot meddle in our matters. Some say, “all of this God stuff is not for me. You keep it!”
Well, even if you do not believe the way I do, we will still pray for those who need the help of God to get back on the right track because we know that he is real! Maybe the person I am referring to is you! Your alternate plan B and C … have not worked. What do you have to loose anyway? I am saying to you that God is real and I believe that he led you to this page. Why? One reason could be to encourage you to try doing things his way, for a change.
Today’s prayer is that you would allow God to lead you. Let the same God who would take a shepherd named Moses, give him an unconventional and seemingly strange plan of leading a nation out of slavery, lead you. Yes, Moses literally became a politician leading an often stubborn, ungrateful and forgetful people. Yet, he had to follow the plan in God’s way . That mean’t standing before the Red Sea with nowhere to go but forward since his enemies were gaining ground behind him.
Some may tell you that you got into the predicament that you are now in, by following God. But this God now says to you, to stretch out your rod over the waters of your ‘Red Sea’. For you, that rod might be whatever it is that he put in your hands to use as a tool to accomplish the plan. Present it to him. Pray. Now, watch what would happen, for he will not let you and all this people be destroyed. The rod in your hand, the rod that he told you to pick up and use, is still in your hand.
Today let us pray that we would ’un-box’ the God-designed plans, processes, procedures, and methods that he has given to us, so that there will be success for ourselves, our nation and others around the world.
Let God be our guide! May we do His things in His way!
Let God be our guide as we pray for OURSELVES AND OTHERS!
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BULLETIN #4: Let us pray for FAMILIES IN CRISIS – TORNADO VICTIMS/USA!
Victims of recent tornados in the USA need your prayers! Even as we prayed for the USA and for its protection from the air a couple days ago (see bulletin #2 below), we realize that we have no choice but to pray!
Is your prayer important? Yes, it is! It is not necessary to use grand words, but there is a cry that can go up from your heart to God. Though your words might be simple, he will hear you!
Wisdom speaks and says that it is not wise to depend on your own strength for protection. You need protection from what you cannot even see with your physical eyes, and hear with your physical ears or receive through the airways. Supernatural protection from God!
We are thankful for the lives of the many students and families that were spared.
Let us never take the power of prayer for granted!
Let God be your guide as we pray for FAMILIES IN CRISIS – TORNADO VICTIMS/USA!
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BULLETIN #3: Let us pray for FAMILIES IN CRISES – FIGHTS and … !
