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.

DAY 2: DRAWING CLOSER TO GOD (Patience Through Him)

God showed me how much I was like the grumbling Isrealites today. By the end of my morning, I was fed up with the lack of listening from the preschoolers in my class, two in particular got me to the point of throwing my hands up in the air. How many times do I have to call your name for you to respond???? Yes, I was frustrated and I grumbled about it. However, tonight with my bible study group, I was reminded of how very patient God was with the Isrealites as they were led out of Egypt and eventually through the desert for 40 years. God had to teach them over and over and over again about obedience. Amazing things happen when we are obedient. I witnessed this in the last two days in my preschool class with one boy who has been trouble since day one with extreme anger issues, running away from the class and even some language that nobody should say especially a 4 year old. But a reward was promised to him by his mom and he has been a delightful and very good child for the last two days. I hope it shows him how being obedience brings blessings. I am praising God for reminding me that my patience will wear thin but he is always with me so I know I have Him within me to get a dose of supernatural patience to be able to handle these days when the children are having lots of trouble listening.
This verse will be my verse to pray in the days to come...
Colossians 3:12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 327

I have read some books about listening but the one I am reading now is about listening to the Word of God. The book is called Expository Listening by Ken Ramey. In the first chapter, he discusses how we are by nature not good listeners. It is because of the Fall and Sin that we don’t have the ability to hear God and obey him. Thankfully, we who believe in Jesus have the power of the Holy Spirit within us who will illuminate the Word of God for us and give us understanding and the power to obey God’s Word. This all makes perfect sense because of my study on temperament and how our soul is connected to our spirit but there is a wall up called sin that needs to be broken down with the inviting of Jesus into your heart. He will take a sledge hammer and break the wall down. But those bricks of sin will keep coming back and piling up so we have to call on the Holy Spirit to clean away those bricks of sin to allow our soul to truly connect with our spirit which is the way to connect to the Spirit of God.

Here is a section from the book:

We are all born without this key component (listening) that allows us to hear God’s Word. It’s as if we have been wired with an AM receiver, but God is broadcasting on FM. Without the indwelling and illuminating presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, all we are able to pick up is static.

 

Lord, help us to dial into your FM channel today and all our days to come. With you all things are possible. Amen.

Psalm 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 267

It is very easy to get caught up in the busyness of life. It is easy to think I am doing all God wants from me by going to church each Sunday. In reality, we are just trying to justify our in-action. God does want us to come to worship but he wants our whole heart every day not just an hour on Sunday and even that may not be whole heartedly. I started reading the book of Isaiah and was drawn to these action words in the scripture below. In all these action words, the song Stand By Me comes to mind. God wants us to stand by each other and assist in making sure that everyone’s needs are being met. This requires our thinking to change from self-related to other-related and it is an on-going process to re-train ourselves to think of others before thinking of ourselves. The likely place to start working on this is in your own environment that you are in the most. For me that is my office and my home. I am going to set a goal to focus on just one person from each of these environments each day that I can stand by and help with whatever they may need, whether it be words of encouragement, a listening ear and heart, a hug or whatever. In doing this, the act of worshipping God is going beyond Sunday and into my daily life. Join me in taking the action that God wants for us.

1Isaiah 1:17 Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 255

**sorry this is long but I hope this will help you**

Keeping your mind clear and maintaining self-control are much harder than it seems. A clear mind and self-control are easy enough when things are good but when faced with not so good things that flood us with emotions, our thinking becomes cloudy and focusing on the Lord is like trying to find a black sock in a dark room. This cloudy thinking problem happened to me on Thursday. I read an email from one of the co-managers and saw red. I tried to temper my reaction and stopped myself from sending a reply email that would not have been friendly and got up and went to get some tea. I got my tea and went and talked about the situation with the other co-manager who I know listens. I felt better having talked to her but that anger was still inside. I went back to my desk intending to try to let it all go but the co-manager that triggered this anger ended up at my desk asking me how I was doing. I started off by calmly telling her that I was angry and began to tell her why but in her typical way she interrupted me. I ended up raising my voice asking her to listen to me and that helped for about 2 seconds and she was back again not listening. Well, that just fueled the anger that I had at this point been able to control. She pretty much said I shouldn’t expect someone to do their job when something is passed over to them. So, my response was anger-filled and I told her than I would no longer trust sending anything to the Texas office and I would send anything that I could not get done myself to the managers here so that I could…It’s a long story but basically the new program that some jurisdictions now run in I don’t have the ability or training to do some of the things I could do in our other program. In any case, the heart of the matter lies with this cloudy anger-frustration-filled thinking and not stopping and praying right then and there for God’s peace. My praying ended up coming afterwards and all night long as I tried to sleep. I kept thinking how I tried so hard to control my reactions and realized that “I” was the problem. Before talking with anyone about this “I” should have been talking to God. With his help, “We” would have overcome this challenge together. Well, with God’s help the next morning the Lord and I apologized to the co-manager for raising my voice. So, my homework on this is going to be finding a scripture that I can memorize that will help me when this cloudy thinking comes into play so it will be in my heart and soul and God’s living word will help me gain perspective and put my focus on Him who will guide me in making godly choices that will bring Him glory.

1Peter 4:7 Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray.

(I read this at lunch time that same day this all happened. God is so working on me)

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 235

Listening is a skill that is essential for success in life and for your relationship with anyone including God. I have heard the complaints at my job about various people’s lack of listening skills.  This complaining stems from not feeling validated or recognized because you aren’t being listened to. Anger comes into play especially if this non-listening is on-going. I dealt with my own angry feelings about the email issue I am having a work that has been very disruptive, taking time away from my productivity and basically driving nuts. I finally thought I need to address this issue with the right people so I put together an email and sent it off. Before the end of the day, I was told it was to be worked on and the next day found it to be true that it is being worked on. It feels good to have been listened to. In reading from chapter 13 in Acts, Paul describes how the rulers and the people didn’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah even though they heard the readings from the prophets every Sabbath. They probably knew the prophets and their prophecies forward and backward in their heads but somewhere along the line those words from the prophets never got into their hearts. You really have to use your heart to truly be listening to what God has to say to you. You can read the bible day in and day out but if your heart isn’t hearing it, it goes nowhere, no growth is happening and no fruit is blossoming. I know that I am guilty of this. Everyone can have bad days when your heart just isn’t into it. Maybe you aren’t feeling well or you are preoccupied with some life issue or task that needs to be done. We have to ask God to forgive us and pray for the Holy Spirit to help us hear with our hearts. Lord, forgive me for my lack of focus, my distracted way of being with you in your Word that does not bring forth the fruit you would like to see with. Help me to find the time and place that will be the best to have that focus and give myself to you completely. With you all things are possible. Amen.

Acts:13:27 The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 334

I have been reading a book called the Dangerous Act of Worship by Mark Labberton for a class at my church. It really makes you think of what worship is, what it looks like and what it should look like. The biggest point so far that I can’t get out of my head is how the author/pastor thinks that most of us are asleep when it comes to God. We are revived and awakened when things get shaken up like when a disaster happens but otherwise we are as a song that I heard puts it “going through the motions”. Life is busy, tough and complicated and we are making “our” worship of God fit into an easy fit thinking if we go to church on Sunday and do our singing, praying and listening than we have done our worship. That is how man has carved it out to be but is that how God would like it to be? I will share more on this topic as I read through this book. I am already pretty sure worship should be an on-going integral part of our lives. What do you think?

Deuteronomy 10:12-22 And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 217

Praising God for my co-worker friendships. Our company has changed a lot since the new owners took over. Unfortunately, although a small part has been good the people aspect part has become terrible. We've lost benefits and are being micro-managed to the point that people are making comments about just walking out. In the breadth of those same negative comments, however, are the comments that its the people we work with that make it worthwhile. Its good to focus on the good aspects like this and let the others go since there isn't anything we can do about how the company is run. I am thankful to God for the friendships with my co-workers, the laughs we share, the listening ears for our venting and for making going to work a good thing. The situations we find ourselves in may not be to our liking but in the midst you will always discover that its the relationships with others that makes it all worth it. Here's a good quote from CS Lewis on friendship: 

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.”

Ephesians 4:29-32 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

365 Days of Praise Challenge-Day 205

Today is the day we honor and celebrate our fathers. My Dad is the kind of guy who doesn't talk much except for those things that really interest him like politics, sports or their traveling adventures. We actually have that in common. I, too, tend to not be a big talker except when it's regarding those things that interest me the most which are God and scrapbooking. My hubbie will testify to the times I get on a soap box about something, too. I do have my talking moments. But in the end it's not the talking that really counts but the listening. How well of a listener am I? I tend to be a very focused thinker. I can multi-task like all women do so well but it's got to be with less-brain focusing activities. This makes my listening a bit more challenging when someone is trying to communicate something to me. My focus has to be directly on the person talking so I can fully take in and process what they are saying to me. To truly be listening to God is very much the same way. We have to have our focus on Him. This, like everything else, has to be an intentional thing that we commit to doing to really receive the blessings that will flow when our listening ears are in-tune to God. What are you doing everyday that puts your focus soley on God? Make today the first day you commit to one way you are going to focus on God, be it in prayer, reading scripture or a devotional, singing worship songs, journaling or faithbooking. Have a blessed Father's Day! Glory be to our God and Father of All!
Proverbs 23:22 Listen to your father, who gave you life...