As I read and study God's Word, sometimes God speaks to me through revelation and lessons that He wants to teach me and sometimes the Scriptures bring forth thoughts of something or someone that I need to pray for. Often times, these are private prayers that I begin calling out to God but sometimes God lays things on my heart that I feel others can benefit from.
I know that God teaches us about His ways and about His Word in order for us to help others - to reach out to them and to meet their needs. Sometimes God shows me specific people that needs a specific Word and sometimes I find that God leads me to sharing His thoughts and our conversations through writing - which I do here on this blog or I write down the thoughts and share them at the Bible studies here at my house.
You know - my husband has a beautiful gift of playing a guitar and singing and He does this often - in our house, with friends, and at church. Matter of fact, we all have a gift that was given to us from God that He desires that we use FOR Him. We can know our gift by thinking about what comes natural to us - our gifts our enjoyable to us and we thrive to use them for the Lord. Remember - everyone has a gift - if you don't think you know what yours is - talk to God about it - He will reveal the gift or gifts that He has given you.
For years, I wondered what my gift was - I know that I love to teach - so, yes, that is a gift from God but I also love to write - I always have. Writing is a way that I relieve stress - it's a way for me to process my thoughts and my feelings. Ever since I was a young child, I have kept an ongoing journal - I may not have written in it everyday but when I needed to think through something, I grabbed my journal and begin writing. I have a ton of journals that I wrote in high school, college, and during the early years of my marriage. I haven't always used my writing for God - for years, it was a private way of dealing with life. Then, years ago, I started this blog - again, not for the purpose of spreading God's Word but for my own selfish purposes of journaling the moments in my life and later - Luke's life. But, amazingly, as I grew closer to God, he started showing me that I could use my ability to write and my ability to express my thoughts to help myself grow closer to Him and to bring others to Him. This revelation was AWESOME to me and again, I appreciate God revealing His love and His desire for GOOD for me ALWAYS! Knowing what God wanted me to do with my gift of writing, I have slacked off on journaling just about everyday routines and have focused more on what God wants me to write about. Do I still post pics and updates about our family? Yes, indeed! But...the time that I take to do that is significantly less than what I used to do. Why? Because I don't want to spend too much time focused on ME but instead spend as much time focused on my heavenly Father and my savior as I can. And, oh, how my relationship with God and Jesus has grown in the process.
Now, I ask the Lord - what do YOU want me to share? What does someone need to hear TODAY? And, I follow His lead. Am I perfect? Do I always write exactly what God wants me to write? No, I'm human - but God knows my heart and He knows my intentions so He will always use my good intentions for His good. God WANTS the glory - He DESERVES the glory!
So....I say all of that to say this - first of all, my prayer for those of you reading this is that you find your gift that God has given you and you use it for Him and second of all, I pray - God, help me to always lead others to Jesus through the words and testimonies that I share - I pray Isaiah 50:4, "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know HOW to speak a word IN SEASON to him that is weary. He awakens me morning by morning, he awakens my ear to hear as the learned." - Lord, help me to hear your instruction so that I speak YOUR WORD in the right way, in the RIGHT TIMING, and to the RIGHT PERSON. Awaken me in the morning with your instruction and help my ears to clearly hear.
With this being said, let me share some words from God that I received this week - a week that has been a tough one for our nation - a week that has been an example of how prevalent the enemy is - how evil he is and how much hurt and pain he wants to send.
Let me start with the bombings in Boston. When I heard what happened on the news on Monday afternoon, I immediately began to pray for several things - (1) for protection over our Nation - that the enemies plans and further damage would be STOPPED - that no more bombs would explode, that no more lives would be lost and (2) that Jesus would comfort, heal, and give peace to the families that were dealing with loss, injuries, and fear. I have NO IDEA what those individuals and families are going through and it is difficult to put into words a specific prayer. I called out the above prayers to the Lord and then found myself praying in the Spirit - allowing the Holy Spirit to pray through me in His language.
With that being said, after watching the 2nd suspect get captured last night, I praise the Lord. I don't mean that lightly - we will all see people say, "Praise the Lord" on Facebook and other social media but I when I say, "Thank you, Jesus" I mean it with all my heart. Yes, I am heart broken that in the man hunt another life was lost and another person injured and I pray for the family of the 26 year old police officer that lost his life. I continue to pray that the other police officer that was injured is healed. But, I also THANK God for His protection over the people of Watertown and the law enforcement involved in the gun fire and dangerous man hunt for these evil people. This tragedy was AWFUL, truly AWFUL but I am so thankful that more lives were not lost. Was it an accident that the bombs that the guys threw at the police officers from the stolen car didn't work correctly? NO! It was the protection of God. Was it an accident that the suspects didn't go into someone's home and blow it up or kill more families? NO! It was the protection of God. I believe with all my heart that God heard the prayers for His children all across the country praying that this situation would come to an end QUICKLY and with no more lives lost. The enemy did damage - much damage - but God IS still in control and will get the ULTIMATE victory over this death and evil in the end.
So, this morning, I thank the Lord that the people of Boston and Watertown and Cambridge can rest and I continue to pray for the healing of the families whose lives have been changed forever. May the healing hand of Jesus touch each one of them.
Speaking of the healing hand of Jesus, I want to share a personal victory against the enemy that we have experienced this week in our house. You see, last week, I thanked the Lord on this blog for healing Luke of his spring allergies. Last year, he had to take medicine EVERYDAY because of his constant runny nose, rash, and itching due to the pollen. I publicly thanked Jesus that this year, with pollen all over everything, Luke has no runny nose, no rash, no itching, and NO NEED for medicine. Jesus healed him of his allergies - it was a miracle!
Well, that aggravating enemy still exists in this world UNFORTUNATELY and often times when a Word is planted in our hearts, the Devil will attempt to steal it from us. By this I mean - God planted the truth of Jesus' healing in my heart a long time ago and I have full faith in Jesus' continued healing in THIS WORLD on this EARTH daily! But, the Devil would like for me to doubt that - he would like for me to question that and to get unbelief in my mind - so aggravating! Well, two days after my blog post last week, Luke began to run a low grade fever - for no obvious reason - he woke up in the middle of the night with a fever and no other symptoms. Other people immediately began telling me - "It's because it's allergy season and that sometimes causes a fever." Oh no! I KNEW I wasn't getting in agreement with that word because I KNEW that Jesus had healed Luke of those allergies. So...what do I do? I go to Jesus in prayer - I asked God to rebuke any thoughts of doubt that the Devil was planting. I asked the Lord for strength for me to hold tight to the Word He had planted in my soul and I asked Jesus to touch Luke and to heal Him of his fever. What do you think happened? Luke's fever disappeared! Matter of fact, I know the morning he was healed of it - it was yesterday - the fever had hung around for almost a week and yesterday morning, on my way to work, the Spirit of the Lord came all over me reassuring me that Luke was now healed of this stubborn fever! And, you know what? I checked with my mother in law later in the day to see if Luke had run a fever at all and she said, "NO!" - just as I expected. AWESOME! Totally awesome!
Gang - I share this with you again because I want you to have confidence in the promises that God gives you. If God plants a seed in your heart through the Holy Spirit - believe in that promise - accept it and expect results - don't let the enemy steal your word through unbelief in your mind. Stay strong - call out God's WORD to the enemy and watch Jesus take control! God is so good - gang - so good!
Speaking of God's goodness - let me share a few other quick thoughts God has planted in my heart this week. I believe that someone needs to be reminded of them....
First of all, please remember that when we don't hear God - it is US, not God, that is stopping the conversation and often times we have stopped the conversation because of distractions - being too busy, not studying God's Word, talking TOO MUCH and not listening enough, filling our time with things of this world and not things of God - when we allow these distractions, the enemy has more room to attack with doubts, fear, anxiety, depression - etc. Read the Bible, talk to God all day, get still and listen - I promise God has something to say - it's us and the enemy's distractions that keep us from hearing.
Second - a friend of mine said awhile back, "People are not our problems. People are our opportunities." It wasn't until last Sunday that these words came alive in my Spirit. A guest preacher at our church reminded us to view people like God views them - through the eyes of LOVE. He reminded us not to try to figure out what is going on with others (in other words-don't be nosy) but just reach out and be available to God to meet their needs. We don't need to know everyone's business - we just need to know what GOD WANTS to do THROUGH US to help them. That's what Jesus did - he didn't ask them 100 questions before He met their needs or, even worse, He didn't go asking their friends and neighbors 100 questions before meeting their needs. He listened to the Holy Spirit and did God's will for them - He reached out to them WITH LOVE and a genuine desire to HEAL, COMFORT, and help them. Wow! This is an awesome lesson! A lesson that I need to continue to pray through and apply!
Well, today, I've been blessed already! I was blessed as soon as I had the opportunity to open up the Word of God to see what He wanted me to see today and oh, how He reveals Himself so strong! God makes me DESIRE to get up each day to see what lesson and TRUTH He wants to show me - which, in turn, WE can show others. Thank you, Jesus, for your sacrifice so that I can come boldly to my loving Father to receive these awesome revelations through such a powerful, holy Trinity - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit!
Thank you, gang, for reading! Have a blessed weekend - full of hope - that God IS in control and Jesus is interceding for YOU today when you believe in Him!
Love,
Toddy
Before I go - I wanted to share these photos of last Easter - check out Luke's face - it's swollen, red, and itchy and his eyes are glassy and red - that's what pollen did last year.
This was pictures taken this Easter and in the last few weeks - awesome difference - thank you, Jesus! You can even tell by the smiles on his face in these pictures compared to the lack of smiles above that the allergies were taking his joy his last year BUT not this year! Can you tell how thankful I am? :)
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