Yank the Chains Out!

I heard something on the radio that put in my mind an image of a chain. The radio host was talking about the power of our thoughts and how if we think of something negative and not pleasing to God like hateful thoughts toward someone who has hurt us in some way or derogatory thoughts that put ourselves down and make us feel less than who we are in Christ than we are falling under the influence of the enemy. These kinds of thoughts and others that are not pleasing to God need to be yanked out of our minds as soon as we think them. This takes some intention in reminding ourselves through our prayer time with God that we have that tendency to think things that are not good. Some temperaments will have this tendency even more so but the fact is we are all guilty of negative, sinful thoughts, even the most godly people you know have had thoughts come into their minds that did not make God happy. He knows because he knows every thought, feeling and action we have done and will do. The Bible tells us to guard our hearts and gives us the tools to do that with the Word of God, with prayer and with the name of Jesus. There is power in these to help us conquer those thoughts that want to come into our head that are sinful, negative, degrading, mean and hateful. That first thought that comes in is the first link in a chain that can ultimately bind us and keep us from being all God wants us to be. Take your thoughts each day to the God of the universe who will help you guard your mind from being corrupted.
Romans 6:14  For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 336

I have been pondering the word rely since Monday when I got through my day without calling on God for help. I resorted to doing it my way and I was frustrated, angry and even said something that offended someone. To make matters worse, I knew I was not being a very good example of Christian love and the fruits of the Spirit had turned sour. I was a mess and instead of taking my stress to God and dealing with it in godly ways I went home had a glass and a half of wine (that is a lot for me these days) and then proceeded to let go of self-control and ate too many chocolate almonds. I woke up the next morning feeling very sorry for my pathetic display and asked God for forgiveness and help on being better prepared to handle my day at work that is extremely challenging right now. That word “rely” popped in my head so I tried looking it up in the concordance of my bible but it wasn’t there so I did a search on line for scripture about relying on God and was led to what I needed. I gave me a good visual and for me a visual works so well. God led me to another visual too of a father walking with his daughter holding her hand and as they go down the path they encounter a big pile of sticks in the way so the daughter looks up to her father and asks what they should do. My pile of sticks is my current workplace and the challenge of dealing with another culture and a communication barrier in the middle of 5 butt-loads of work that keeps piling up. Prayerful preparation with my Daddy and the visual tools helped me get through my day with patience and gentleness and my self-control was focused on what would glorify God.  The visual brought me instant peace and a smile to my face every time. If you have encountered a pile of sticks in your path, look to our Daddy and let him help you decide the course you should take.

Jeremiah 17:5-9 Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 150

I think there is a misconception that when you choose Jesus and become a Christian you are saved and that is it; nothing else needed. Yes, we are saved and that doesn’t change but God calls us to grow in our relationship with him through Jesus. I have grown more in these last two years of being in the Bible everyday than in all my years before that combined. We have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit within us but must enable the power of Holy Spirit by fostering our relationship and knowledge of Jesus. This is when you will start to see the power of the Holy Spirit changing you from the inside out. All those bad habits and negative things that we learned can be weeded out of our soul. We can also pluck the sins we will commit everyday from our hearts with God’s grace and draw on the Holy Spirit to sin no more. It is all a process that will keep going until you go home to be face to face with our Lord. Be in the Word, pray, meditate and take action for God everyday and this growth will bring wonderful blessings.

2Peter 1:3-8 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness; knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 22

This last verse of 1 Corinthians 13 is probably one of the most known: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. My home, like many homes, has these three words displayed in a decorative way. I picked mine up at a garage sale and was thrilled to get them for only a couple of bucks and got them up on the wall at home as soon as possible. I am so a “word” person so having them on my wall meant so much. It is not only a reminder to me but my family and everyone who comes into our home.  These three words are the core of our Christian faith with love being the absolute central part that everything else revolves around. If something seems amiss in your life or you are feeling stuck, take a look at the core of you and your beliefs. Is love shinning out of your center? Or has it been pushed outward and has sin taken root in your center? Just as the Sun is the key to our solar system and our life on Earth, love is the key to our relationships with each other and our amazing God. Have you ever looked up the word “love” in the concordance of your bible. There are over 300 verses regarding love. Love is the most written about topic in the bible. Love is everything. God is love.

1 John 4:16b God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 321

I am currently reading four books, one for my ladies group bible study, one for a new study at my church, another for personal growth and finally one just because I am a fan of Max Lucado. I was thinking about this and realized how awesome it is to be able to read. That is a gift! Thank you Lord for the gift of being able to learn to read and having an abundance of reading material provided for us without restriction. There are places in this world where people don’t have the opportunity to learn to read or they are restricted by what they can read. I learned in my bible study group last night of a country where they are only allowed to have one Christian bible in the home and there are consequences if any other Christian reading material is found in the home. One such family was found to have the one bible but also a couple of other Christian books. The government came in and took every bit of furniture they had and to make matters worse they had just had a baby. It is stories like this that remind me of how good we have it here in the United States. Never take our freedom for granted and always remember there are those out there that we have to pray for and stand up for that don’t yet have these freedoms.  Learn more about helping people get bibles at this site.  http://www.bf.org/biblenet.htm

Romans 15:14 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 317

My awesome God gave me another classic analogy that is 21^st century relatable. We are like cars. Each car is unique with its own way it runs, looks and is. Every car has certain needs to make it run properly, look good and be right. Every car needs gas. For us our gas is love. Without it we will be running on empty and eventually get stuck, we won’t be moving forward. Love makes the world go round and is what every car craves. Secondly, every car needs oil. It makes all the parts in us run smoothly. The oil in us is the Holy Spirit.  And thirdly, every car needs to be washed. The things of the world will make it dirty. So, it is with us. We need to be washed in the grace of God everyday so we can be made new, clean and right. So let’s go back to gas/love. If we don’t make the choice to go to a gas station and fill up our gas tank we are not going to get what we need. We have to make that choice to go to the gas station and fill up our tanks. We have to seek it out and connect with the source. Now the oil/Holy Spirit is something we have to ask for. Can I get an oil change, please? The Holy Spirit will give us the things we need like strength, patience, kindness, peace and so on. The better we are at getting our oil checked regularly the better off we will be running with all those fruits of the spirit in us. Lastly, we need to take the grace of God that he has given us and let that wash over us each and everyday. Make ourselves clean, new and right with God. Cars cannot just run on their own. They need a good driver, a complete owners manual and a good trusted mechanic to keep it running well. First off, to be a good driver, one needs to be taught well. We have to get our wisdom, guidance and be prepared for what the road ahead of us will bring by going to God who is the Master Driver instructor. Secondly, we come with owners manuals like our cars. The Word of God is the universe’s best and only complete owners manual for everything our cars need. We have to be in our owners manual to ensure we are operating our cars correctly and doing what our cars/selves need to maintain them and keep them moving forward. Lastly, Jesus is our ultimate mechanic.  He loves to love and serve and will give us all that and more if we take our cars/selves to Him to get our oil changed, our plugs checked, our radiator flushed and so on.  If you are feeling stuck in life, perhaps your car is stuck on a road somewhere. What do we do if our cars fail us and leave us stuck on the side of the road. We get out and call the mechanic to come fix us and than get back into our owners manual to ensure we don’t get stuck on the road somewhere again. We strive to learn from our Master Driver Instructor how to be a clean car that runs smoothly and is always moving forward. Today wash Your car, get an oil change and connect with our Master Driver instructor for another driving lesson.

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 293

As I was driving to my church for the final interview, the rain was coming down very steadily and had for the last hour or so. The roads were getting very saturated. All of a sudden the car in the lane next to me who was just a car length ahead of me hit a big patch of standing water. All that water flew directly onto my windshield, blocking my view of the road in front of me for about 5 seconds. This has happened to all of us. I knew there weren't any cars directly in front of me or behind me but in the fear-filled seconds, I put on the brakes to slow down. The windsheild cleared and I uttered a nice sentiment to the driver of the car. Than I apologized to God because it really wasn't the driver's fault. As I continued to drive to work, the incident spurred some thoughts and I grabbed on to them and found another great example of something in life and how it teaches us about God. We learn from the bible that God is here with us. We have to have our hearts, eyes and ears open to hearing, seeing and feeling God's presence in our lives. Like the water hitting our windshields and blocking our veiw, life and the evil one can block our sight of God, can put too many voices in our ears blocking the one voice we should be listening to and can put a barrier around our hearts keeping us from feeling God's presence. But He is ALWAYS here! And like I did in the car, we have to put the brakes on our lives, slow down and rest in Him. Our brakes for this are our prayers, quiet times, reading of the scriptures, studying of the bible, bible study groups and other Christian-minded groups and worship in church and everywhere. If you haven't been feeling God's presense, seeing Him in everything in your life, hearing his voice giving you wisdom, strength, guidance and everything you need, than it may be time to put on the brakes or put on the brakes a little bit more. Praises to my AWESOME God who shows me these connections and gives me the motivation and drive to share these with others that they might help them. Thank you Lord for another great analogy that connects life to you!

Matthew 28:20 "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 284

This weekend I had the opportunity to connect with my father-in-law. They had driven down in my brother-in-law's new GrandAm so hubbie and son wanted to go for a ride. We opted to drive to church in two cars so my father-in-law got to go with me and my daughter. I have to say I did not look at it as an opportunity to connect but more negatively like I have to be in conversation with this man for a 20 minute drive. I have never really had this situation come up before when my hubbie wasn't there to steer the conversation. How do you connect with someone when you know they aren't interested in your stuff and you aren't interested in there stuff? I ended up starting by digging, digging for something that we could connect with beside the weather, the road conditions and other trivial conversations. I asked him if he could tell us about Nathan as a kid. I found a connection through the past! They used to go hiking. Now that was something we had in common. I was feeling good about how the conversation was going and the thought came to me to ask about how often he was able to read the bible. There was Satan on one of my shoulders telling me that might not be the best converstaion to get in and there was the voice of the Holy Spirit saying, "Don't be afraid". So, I pushed Satan off my shoulder, took a deep breath and asked him how often he had a chance to read the bible. It was an answer that I am sure a lot of people would say..."not as often as I probably should". He said reading always puts him to sleep after 20 mintues or so. I suggested he try a read the bible in a year plan because it breaks up the reading and he could do the reading in that 20 minutes each day. I told him how much I learned from reading the bible in this way. I was very happy the holy spirit had helped me by giving me the courage to speak up to someone about God. You never know what your words and actions will bring. I am not going to say I am there yet but I am working on being able to be fearless for the Lord. Baby steps....

1 Peter 4:11 If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 257

I am a sucker for a happy ending. I just don't like much the bizarre or negative endings that movies and books can come to. As I was finishing up my book yesterday, I wasn't sure what the ending was going to bring. It ended up being a happy ending or maybe I should say the ending that I wanted it to be. Our life is like that with God. We will go through lots of struggles, illness, grief throughout our life but in the end our story has the happy ending. We will go to be with Jesus and no longer live with pain, fear or stress. Our life will be the fairytale ending we always want for ourselves in heaven with our Lord. Are you like a book with a bizarre ending or a negative ending? Don't know what the next life will bring you or do you even believe in the next life? You can change the way your story is written and change the ending simply by looking to and believing that Jesus came to earth to save us from our sins and is the son of God. Living your life knowing you have that happy ending won't take away the fear, pains and stress of our lives but it becomes that much easier knowing you have a God who loved you so much he sent his only son to save you so you could have eternal life in the happy-ending place.  It's your choice how you want the ending to be and like all choices it should be done thoughtfully and with all the information you need to make an informed decision. Go to the Word of God in the bible and find what you need to make your decision if you haven't already.

Revelation 21: 6 He said to me: "It is done." I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give the drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 256

Today I am going to praise authors. What a gift you have to imagine a story and put it into words that captivate. I am reading a book called The Pact and am getting close to the end. I almost stayed up late to finish it but decided I better not. It's a good feeling to be sucked away into some other lives than your own sometimes, to just not think about the stress of life, the pain in your body, the greiving on getting old.  But books also not only can take you away from your own life but make you think about your own life. They make you think about things you might otherwise not think of. I read a little bit of the bible every day but its not grabbing me like it has before. A reading slump. Yep, that's what it is. And just in the nick of time, I get an article about bible reading slumps from YouVersion. One suggestion was to try reading it in a different version, another to read with others. I am sure with my creative mind I can come up with some creative way to start reading the bible. No matter what you are reading whether its a good book or THE good book, I hope you will be inpired, thought-provoked and blessed from the words written by others and especially by God.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 224

My daughter has really gotten into music lately. She will listen and see along to a song of Taylor Swift's all morning long over and over again. It always puts a smile to my mouth to hear her voice singing a song. Her repetition of playing the song and singing it over and over again is a good example of what we should be doing with our Bible. Have you ever listened to a song and finally realized what they were singing about? You have been singing it a certain way for months, maybe even years and a light goes off moment occurs and you hear it for what it really is. It can be like that reading the bible. We can read the same verses over and over again but at some point a light goes of moment may occur giving you a nugget of truth you didn't hear before. Persistence always pays off. Keep at it and God will give you those light goes off moments as you read his word and while your at it sing a song of praise. My sing over and over again song is by Chris Tomlin, The Passion-White Flag. Hearing and seeing it on the blog was a whole new powerful experience. Take a listen and enjoy some of your own worship time with God.  Chris Tomlin-The Passion-White Flag

Psalm 100:2 Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 202

Sometimes you just need to get in bed and read a good book! Camping out in front of the television night after night just doesn't work for me. I have my coach potato tendencies but I do like to mix it up a bit. Mostly, I will either go out in the hot tub or go down in my studio and do some creating but every once in a while a good book crosses my path. Several family members recommended 19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult. If a book doesn't grab me in the first 20 pages it isn't going to make it. Okay, this one has me hooked. I am to the point now where I want to read more to see what's going to happen. I am praising the Lord for the gift of writing that he has given to some people. Words can take you somewhere other than your own reality, make you think and inspire you. The bible does this for me everyday giving me words of wisdom, words of inspiration, words that make me think and takes me to a place with just me and my saviour. I wanna go back to it again and again because it gives me something every time. Thank you Lord for your words and for using others in their writing to bring out truths about you.

Psalm 1:2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 149

I am on vacation and I have had time to just breath and pray and let God work in me without all the cares of life and my work weighing me down. I am praising God for these retreats where one can get away from it all and just have fun, love and be with God and each other. God gave us a retreat every week with the Seventh day being our day of rest. Take this day and open your heart to ways you have never done before. Not a journaler, try it! Singing not your thing, turn on the worship music and do it! Not big on being on the phone, call a believer and catch up!Haven't read the bible in who knows how long, open up Psalms and just read one! Take this day of rest and devote it to God.
Psalm 77:12 I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 110

Yesterday in church, our pastor was on fire with lots of passion. He will be leaving our church soon which is sad but he has to go where God is calling him. He was continuing with a sermon on the Gospel of Matthew which we have been into since last fall. We were at the part when Jesus is arrested. Pastor Singleton suggested that like him most of us at some time or many times have thought about 'what if'. What if Judas didn't betray Jesus? What if Jesus didn't have to die on the cross? And the what if's in our own life... What if I communicated better, we wouldn't have had that fight? What if I was more on top of Faith's homework, she wouldn't have missed doing and turing in a big assignment? And the list could go on and on... Singleton shared a story of his from 20 years ago when he said to his congregation 'you need to be bringing your own bible to church'. Later he was reamed by his congregation because as Presbyterian we don't bring our own bibles, we just use what's in the pews along with some other excuses. He doesn't remember why he said that or what context it was in but in his mind he had made a big mistake saying that to his congregation. Fast forward 20 years later... A man who was at that sermon 20 years earlier by chance ends up in our town at our church now and sees it's the same pastor from 20 years earlier. He goes up to him and tells him this story: I was not true believer when I was in church that day 20 years ago when you told us we need to bring our own bible to church. I went home and your words stayed with me. I finally went and pulled out my old bible from my childhood. It opened up to a page in Proverbs and out fell a letter from my mother explaining more about the verses on that page about God's love. I became a believer and have gone on to have a wonderful family and have adopted multiple children. What Singleton had thought was this mistake he made, God turned into something very good. There are probably thousands of stories around the world of examples like this. God can take the worst that happens, the worst we could do and make something good come from it. What we say or do no matter if in our minds comes out good or not so good, God will take it and use it for his good purpose of bringing others to his Kingdom. We don't have to beat ourselves over and over again for our past mistakes. God has used them for his good. No more 'what if's'.
Proverbs 19:21 Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 101

I have to confess I have a hard time with mistakes. When I make them, the world turns up-side-down. I treat each mistake like it's a deep canyon that I have fallen into and I have to try to climb my way out. Thankfully, I have my faith and all the tools that God provides to help me climb my way out. That first tool, is the bible. I found myself deep in the canyon the other night after choosing to react in a disrepectful and not-listening-to you kind of way to my husband. To make a long story short, I let the stress in my life direct my actions. After storming out of the room, I flew down straight to my bible. It was already open to Pslams so through my tears, I read and started to feel myself calming down. Prayer is another tool God give us to help us get out of those canyons but sometimes our minds are not capable of even forming the thoughts directed to the Lord. That's where I found myself the other night, trying to analyze the situation but not getting anywhere and just needing to cry out to God. My bible was opened to Pslams so I just started reading and came to Psalm 121: 1-2 which I know from a Christain song on the radio. That became my prayer, singing it in my head over and over again until I could relax, breathe, listen and finally head back to bed and to sleep. I am thankful to God for three things based on this experience the other night: the tools he gives me to help me, knowing that he loves me no matter what, and a forgiving husband. This, unfortunately has been one of those mistakes I have made over and over again so I am praying for God's help to just love my husband in all ways, respect him no matter what and let my love and respect direct my actions. Are you using the tools God has given us when you make those inevitable mistakes in life?
Psalm 121:1-2 I lift up my eyes to the hills--where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 99

Ever feel like someone is trying to keep you from doing what you are supposed to do? I have been getting that sense a lot lately with all that has been dumped on me. It seems like when one body part that's been hurting starts getting better another starts hurting. I discussed this a bit at my mastermind group as we talked about any obstacles that are getting in our way. I know the devil is working overtime to stop me from moving forward with this ministry. And when you are really trying hard to work for the Lord, the devil does that much more to you. Having an awareness of this is probably the most powerful piece to keeping my sanity at this point. My Lord can give me all the strength, peace and resilience that I need but I have to be continually asking for it and putting my focus onto God. It's tough to do when you have too many phone calls to return, emails to go through, answers to find, training others to help you and keep it all organized and keep them prioritized. Ugh. It a giant juggling act and things are going to fall to the ground but I have to keep my focus on God and let his strength and peace fill me so I can be the best juggler I can be. Do you feel pulled at both ends? Open your bible and find the strength and peace to endure.
Phillipians 4:13 I can do everything through him who give me strength.
Phillipians

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 65

I was reading the story of Noah last night to my daughter at bedtime and the part at the end about the rainbow gave me an "ah-ha" moment. It says the rainbow is a reminder to us of God's promise to never flood the earth again. The word that popped out to me was 'reminder'. If you have never read through the entire bible you will find it's a major problem for us humans. We have this natural tendency to forget. God was helping us out by creating the rainbow as the symbol of his promise to us. He's given us other symbols at well like the dove with the olive branch, circumcision, miracles, the cross and Jesus, himself. He is always putting out there a trigger that will help us remember Him, who He is and what He promises to us. I love that word 'reminder' because it has been a central part of "me". My memory seems to be a little worse than the average person's and that is probably why I love scrapbooking so much because it give me a way to concretly put down the memeories so I can remember them and be reminded of things I have learned. That is why I love faithbooking so much! Each faithbooking page I create becomes another reminder of something about God that I will forget or will become buried in the mess of life. Keeping our focus on God has to be our number one priority. Blessing will flow if we keep our eyes on God. So, if you haven't yet tried faithbooking, I would love to help you out. I have a few kits thus far for you to come and make at an FTLC workshop or you can order a kit and do it on your own time at home.

This kit is about "Treasure" that we can store in our hearts just like Mary did with her memories of Jesus. I am betting she would have loved to faithbook them if they had scrapbooking at that time. This is done with a new paper pack from Close to My Heart called Florentine but it can also be done in any of Close to My Heart's paper packs. You can pick the colors that suit you and your photos. Order online anytime at www.ctmh.com/janinerobertson and I will mail you the instructions and embellishments to complete your project.
My prayers to you that you start to see all the reminders God has given us and that you may keep your focus on Him.
Genesis: 9:15-16 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 62

God gave me an idea this week. You know how an idea can just come to you out of the blue, yeah, that's God. After my experience with my new friend who came to the first FTLC Crop and my conversations with her, I could see how crucial it is to get people to try out faithbooking and that what was going to really convince them of it was actually going through doing their first layout. So, how do I get in front of women to do that? My new friend suggested to do a workshop at a Women's retreat which is an awesome idea and a day or two later God popped that little idea into my head. Women's bible study groups. Oh yeah, and I have one that I am in. So, yesterday as our bible study group was wrapping up for the evening, I conquered my fears and made the pitch to them. It will be an experiment and they are my guinea pigs. LOL! They were agreeable and I left feeling on top of the moon with excitement and amazement that with the Lord's help, I let go of my fear of rejection or 'what are they going to think' and kept saying to myself just as Jesus says to us over and over again in bible, "Don't be afraid" He was right there with me, I knew it. So, I am So praising him for the enlightenment that I got last night. Like Max Lucado says in our bible study Fearless, you can't do anything about the storms that may come your way but you can choose not to fear. How about you? Do you have a fear that needs to be knocked flat? Look to the Lord and he will help you take that fear and shove it.
Mark 5:26 Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, "Don't be afraid; just believe."

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 35

The bible doesn't promise us an easy life or to not have challenges, difficulties, grief, fears and pain but God does promise to always be there. Today I am praising God for this promise that he will always be with me. Despite the extreme pain both my shoulders were in yesterday, I managed to tearfully make my way through the afternoon at my work desk. Focusing on my work and intermintent prayers when I was waiting for the computer program to do it's thing kept my mind from totally caving into the pain and just sobbing. I did a little research on surgery for shoulder bone spurs and found a lot of people wished they had done it sooner. So, my plans for things are a little up in the air until I go to the doctor on Jan 3rd and talk to him about surgery. It looks like a few days to a week out of work kind of thing and many months of physical therapy. My greatest concern at this point is that both my shoulders are hurting but I don't think that both can be done at the same time and that could create a lot of problems if I can't use my arms for any length of time. I am in God's hands at this point and we shall see where he leads me and this ministry.
Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 33

Today I am praising God for giving us some visual symbols that remind us of him. The cross is the most obvious one but as I sat in my hot tub last night reflecting on the events of our Christmas day here at home, I found myself just in awe of the stars out shinning and thought of how Jesus is the bright morning star. I wondered where that term came from exactly. In my study of the bible I couldn't recall where it might be written but thanks to the concordance in the back of my bible I was able to look for 'star' and find the scriptural reference. It is from Revelation 22:16 I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star. I thought about this symbol of a star and realized that it was the perfect symbol for hope. Morning star is the name given to the planet Venus when it appears in the east before sunrise. Jesus is this star that brings hope. They say that it is darkest before dawn. Jesus, The Morning Star is like a beam of light coming across the sky going off in the darkest of night and helping lead us to God who is the brillance of the rising sun. The star is our hope in our dark world. I am thankful to God for the gift of Jesus and putting that into a visual of a brillant star that we can hold on to. May our Morning Star bring you hope this day and all the days to come.
Numbers 24:17 I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob, a scepter will rise out of Israel.