365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 108

During some of my wakeful hours during the night, the TV show The Amazing Race ran through my thoughts and I started to see the connections in the show to our lives. For those that may not have seen The Amazing Race, it is a traveling race around the world where pairs of people travel from one country to another and in between have road blocks and speed bumps that they must get through. These pairs of people are all mixed from spouses to best friends to brothers. Now some of these pairs work well together and have no trouble but for others the challenges they face bring out their worst. These road blocks and speed bumps often have to do with overcoming fears such as fear of heights but also have to do with working past something you don’t do well like swim. Some of them can be difficult and you need to have perseverance and patience. Some of these teams get into trouble because they are in too much of a hurry and will not read the clues carefully. Other teams will just make the wrong choices and end up lost or at a challenge they cannot conquer. We are living out our own amazing race. We aren’t necessarily traveling the world but the concept of going through change and seeing new things we do go through. We need to be partnering up with the Holy Spirit for our race. Without the help of the Holy Spirit, we will find ourselves lost, impatient and a whole host of other negatives. But with the Holy Spirit, we will be guided and given all that we need to overcome the challenges we all face in our lives. However, it is a partnership and like any relationship it takes two. We have to do our part in this partnership by praying, studying and reflecting. Take the time today to reflect on how well you are running the amazing race of your life.

Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 76

It's another morning. I am alive and kicking and though it's not the ideal start to my morning with my fragmented sleep patterns I am going to focus on the fact that I am alive and healthy for the most part. I have been reading a book compiled with stories in it from Reader's Digest. It's humbling and really helps put your own life into perspective when you read about the suffering and challenges others have faced or are facing. There's always someone worse off than you. So, I am grateful to God for those challenges he is giving me and will keep praying for strength, wisdom and guidance on pushing through those life challenges I am facing and are yet to come.
Romans 8:10-11 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

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.