365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 255

This Sunday our youth director did the sermon. It was an amazing sermon about how we need to remember how very Big our God is and we can do this and demonstrate this through our prayers. Joshua's relationship with God was such that he prayed for God to stop the Sun it's path. That is a Big prayer for a Big God. Nothing is impossible with God and Joshua truly believed that in praying for this. God answered and the Sun stopped that day for several hours. It spoke volumes to those that were worshiping Sun and Moon gods at the time. Only the one true God of the universe can do the impossible and stop the sun in it's track. Towards the end of the sermon, the youth director spoke about the incident that happened to the high school mission trip to Arkansas this summer that my son was a part of. I spoke about this before on my blog of how they came to find a car off the road in a ditch and as the adults on the mission trip lifted the car and held the head of the driver and spoke to him in Spanish about Jesus, the rest of the youth watched up on the road and prayed. They got the man out who was severly injured and he was put into a helicopter headed towards the hospital but unfortunately died in route to the hospital. God always answers our prayers but they may not always be answered specifically in what we prayed for. The point was made that it's not about the answer to the prayer. It's about the in-between point from the asking to the answer. Our God is a Big God and we can pray for anything and everything but it's not about the answer to those prayers but about our relationship with God. Examine your own prayer life as I will be doing mine and see if there are bigger things that you can be praying about to our Big God. Read this article about this miracle that Joshua prayed for here: http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c016.html 

Joshua 10: 13-14 “So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since…

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.