Psalm Prayers

Somewhere in all my research, I learned about reading a Psalm and writing a prayer based on what God speaks to you about. So here is my prayer based on Psalm 50:3 Our God approaches, and he is not silent. Fire devours everything in his way, and a great storm rages around him.
Lord God, You are among us, all around us, in us and yet I confess I cannot hear you. Help quiet my soul that I may hear your voice, see you in my world and in every circumstance and feel you by my side, in front of me, guiding my way and within me giving me peace, love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. Listening is where obedience comes from. May this day and the days to come be filled with hearing, seeing and feeling you with me. In Jesus' name. Amen.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 102

The fruits of the Holy Spirit won’t be within us without first having faith. Faith is the beginning point that we have to go back to over and over again. Faith can be on shaky ground or as is told in the bible seeds in rocky soil. We must be proclaiming our faith through our words and actions everyday and especially in our prayers. Abraham had so much faith in God that when God told him to move his family 800 miles to another country, he did it and when he told him to sacrifice his only son Isaac, he did it but thankfully God stopped him before Isaac was killed and gave him a lamb to sacrifice instead. Jesus displays faith and obedience on an unfathomable scale. He came from his home in heaven, from the very presence of God to become a man on earth.  Why did he seek his alone time with God? He missed him. He missed being in his very presence but he did what God asked of him. I have had a small glimpse of what it must have been like for Jesus to have left the presence of God to be in this world. When I was in the hospital back in 2003 for 4 ½ weeks hoping to keep Faith from being born to early. Those weeks were filled with Spring snow storm, one after another. The snow kept many of my friends from coming to visit me. I was mostly alone in my room day in and day out. Actually, I wasn’t alone. I was communing with God as I had never done before. Without being able to even get out of bed, I was in a situation where all I could do was pray to God, read the bible and think of Him. Many months after this experience, I realized I was suffering from grief from the loss of that extreme closeness I felt with God during my stay in the hospital. How Jesus must have grieved as well! It puts a different perspective on what Jesus did for us. He came from his home down here to be with us in our fallen world surrounded by sin. How willing would you be to leaving your home and everything you have there to follow God and do his will? Faith is a life-long pursuit. Keep at it so those fruits can ripen within.

Hebrews 11:8 By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 72

I find it interesting in Job that all his friends are giving him advice but it is misguided advice. The latest friend, Eliphaz tells him to submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you. Unfortunately, although he got the first part right in turning to God, asking forgiveness and being obedient to him, the second half is not always the case, a prime example being Jesus who was the ultimate in righteous and yet was led to and nailed on a cross. His friend thought Job had sin that he was being punished for. There are definitely consequences to sin but they are not there to punish but rather to direct you back to the Almighty. I was thinking the other day of the analogy of the clay and the potter. We are the clay and God is the potter. He is sitting at his potting wheel pouring water over us which keeps us from drying out and is shaping us into something. When God is not at the potter’s wheel because we have turned away from him, the evil one is going to suck the life out of us leaving us a dark formless lump of clay, nothing.  We must ask God to come back and sit at the potter’s wheel, than the Holy Spirit will be poured into us giving us life and light and God will work again at shaping us to work into his plan. Will we be like a vase that stands there and shows the beauty of the picked flowers? Will we be like a pot that is mixing something up that will be for all? Or will we be like a pitcher made to pour out water? We will discover his plan for us as we journey through our faith. Job’s friend had his assumptions wrong. It is not about sin and being repentant and obedient to God so that we will have prosperity. It is about being in relationship with him. Job is angry at God but he is still talking to him. We too must keep talking to God through our struggles, troubles and tribulations and ask him to pour the water over us.

Job 23:16-17 God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me. Yet I am not silenced by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 8

Demonstrating love comes in many forms; surprising a friend with an unexpected gift, a hug for a co-worker, doing a chore for a family member so they don’t have to, spending quality time with anyone. How do we demonstrate our love for God? It is definitely by loving others like in the examples above but also by obeying God. To obey means complying with the command, direction and request of an authority. We must submit to the authority of God. If he tells us to love others as we love ourselves, than we should comply with His directive. But we all know from trying to obey authorities here in our world like the government, police or our boss; that sometimes the compliance doesn’t happen, it is challenging or comes but with a price. Obedience to God has its own challenges, especially if you are not in the Word of God regularly, worshiping with other believers and generally open to hearing God’s voice in everything. We do have to discern what is it that God wants versus what this world wants or what we want. Thankfully, we have Jesus who has overcome. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can have that discernment to know the voice of God and be able to comply with His requests but it is something we need to pray for everyday.

Father God, you are the ultimate authority figure for us. Forgive me for not listening to your command, for not discerning what you want for me to do, for not loving you and others as I should. I do not have it within me to do it so I ask the Holy Spirit to open my heart today to see you and hear you, to know what your will for me is and to love you and others like there’s no tomorrow. With you all things are possible. Amen.  

1 John 3-5 This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.