This past weekend my husband and I were able to get away for a few days of R & R. We stopped for lunch at a service area on the Ohio turnpike that has Panera Bread which we like. About forty miles down the road after a stop to use the restroom, I realized that I had left my purse back at the restaurant. We turned around at the next exit and hurried back. I used my phone to look up the phone number of the Panera Bread at the service area but when I called they said that my purse wasn’t there. Immediately I began to think about all the things that were in my purse and now assumed gone and started to make the call necessary to cancel my debit card. Since we had already started back, we decided to keep going and double check for ourselves, but I did not have high hopes at all. When we finally got back toward the service area we realized that there were two of them, one for traffic headed in each direction. I had a small glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, I had called the wrong one. When we finally arrived at the right Panera and asked the girl at the counter if anyone had turned in a purse her response was, “No.” Sigh…my hope was gone. “But,” she said, “Let me check with my manager.” 

Hallelujah, he had it! I’m sure you can imagine my relief!

Have you ever had something happen that could have been really bad but in the end turned out okay….and then you wonder why did God let you go through that? I mean, if it’s going to be okay anyway why do I need to go through the stress of not knowing? I have asked that question more than once since this weekend and have come up with an answer….or at least a partial answer.

As soon as the realization that my purse was gone washed over me I started praying….hard! For the whole 45 minutes to an hour it took us to get back there, I prayed. I was stressed, but not overwhelmed and I knew that God had a reason for my purse being gone (or so I thought) I really tried to just trust Him. So that’s one reason….my faith and prayer life received a workout that day.

Another reason, I believe, is found in my response when my purse was handed back to me. I prayed and thanked God….profusely! Then from that prayer of thanksgiving I was reminded of how many things that I have to be thankful for that are so much more important than me getting my purse back.

Here’s a partial list: 
That my eternity in Heaven is secure because Jesus saved me when on the cross He took the punishment of death for my sin.....I am so blessed. 
I have a husband who loves me so much that he willingly and graciously drove back to look for my purse and never once gave me a hard time for leaving it in the first place. (Believe me; I beat myself up a bunch for that bonehead move!).....I am so blessed. 
He and all three of my kids have put their faith in Jesus. As a matter of fact, my and my husband’s siblings, their spouses and all of their kids who are old enough to understand have put their faith in Jesus…oh, my parents too.....I am so blessed. 
I have a best friend who stands by me and believes in me more than I believe in myself…..I am so blessed. 
I have a great church family who loves Jesus and loves us. I have a home to live in, a car to drive, food to eat, and clothes to wear. I live in a country that despite our problems is still great and still gives me the freedom to worship my Savior openly. I am so blessed.

You, my friend, are so blessed too. Go ahead, make a list and you’ll see. I can really say that I am glad that I left my purse at that service area. It was a good reminder to wake up and count my blessings!

In 1967 the BBC commissioned The Beatles to write a song for the first live global television link. John Lennon and Paul McCartney set out to write a song that all nationalities could relate to and came up with All You Need is Love. When released as a single it went straight to the top of the charts in the UK and here in the states.

According to interviews, the simple message that the Beatles wanted to get across was that love is everything. I don’t imagine that they turned to the Bible for their inspiration but the importance of love is seen throughout God’s written message to those who love Him.

John 17 is called the High Priestly Prayer. After praying for Himself in verses 1-5, the apostles in verses 6-19, He prays for us in verses 20-26 (NLT emphasis mine).  

 “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.

“I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began!

 “O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.”

Over and over Jesus prays that we will be one and that we will have unity. I can see a couple of reasons that Jesus prays for our unity. The first reason is so that the world will believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I really think the second reason that He prays this for us is that He knows it will be so incredibly hard for us to do.

Jesus said in His prayer that He had revealed the Father to us and would continue to do so. He does that through the Bible…God’s Word. As we learn more about the love of God as revealed in His Word we see that God’s love is sacrificial and giving. Quite frankly, those are two things that I can sometimes flat out struggle with. I don’t always like to give, and I rarely like to sacrifice, because deep down I can be plain old selfish. And friends, selfishness is a major unity killer.

I would never say these things out loud, but in my heart….I want what I want and if you don’t want what I want then you are wrong and I’m going to make sure you know it. I have the right to do something and I don’t care if you don’t like it. I like this way of doing something and too bad if you don’t. Things go your way and not mine and I’m not happy. Oh, I may not pitch a public fit but I’ll get my feelings out there and you probably will too…. because left on our own we are all selfish, and once those feelings are out there the unity-meter drops to zero.

Aren’t you glad God didn’t just leave us on our own? He gave us His Word to guide us and He gave us the Holy Spirit to indwell us and give us the strength to live out God’s sacrificial, giving love every day.

Dear Lord, I am so grateful for Your love, for Your Word and for the Holy Spirit. Help me to daily turn to and rely on these wonderful blessings so that I can live with those around me in love and unity. I ask that the love and unity that is displayed will show to the world the reality of who You are and what great things You can do through those who love You!

If you were in Sunday School as a child you heard the story of how God miraculously brought the walls of Jericho down for Joshua and the nation of Israel. (See Joshua 6.) Immediately following this great victory you would expect that the nation would be so grateful that they would obey God and look to Him for guidance…. Well, not so much.

God gave specific instructions regarding the spoils of Jericho. One of the Israelites thought maybe he could just take a little, no one would know, right? Add to this sin the fact that the next town on the list to be conquered was small in comparison to Jericho, so the leaders figured, “Hey, we got this.”  “No need to bother God with asking for His guidance.” Bad move. They decide to just take a small portion of their fighting men and they get whooped, they come running back with their tails between their legs. So in Joshua 7: 7ff we see Joshua praying. (Hmmm, maybe he should have done that before the battle?) One line in his prayer really gets me. He says, “If only we had been content to stay on the other side!” (7:7b NLT) He’s referring to the Jordan River that they had crossed just prior to conquering Jericho. They crossed it when God said it was time to go into the Promised Land…..the land that they had been wandering around in the desert for forty years waiting to go into. It finally was time, they went through on dry land because God did a miracle (ch. 3), and they defeat Jericho. And here’s ole Joshua wishing they had just stayed on the other side because they got beat by a small town.

He’s kind of saying, “God, I stepped out and obeyed You. You were with me at first but now things are hard and I just want to go back to what was familiar for me, to what was comfortable.” Now I know that he doesn’t realize that the main reason for their defeat was the disobedience of the one who broke the command about the spoils. But I’m pretty sure that if he had sought God’s counsel before he undertook this little battle, God would have let him know that there was sin to be dealt with first.

I’ve learned some big lessons from this event in Israel’s history. First of all, I don’t want to be content to stay put when God calls me to move forward. I want to see the great things He wants to do in and through me as I move forward in obedience. Also, I need to be on guard against sin getting in and dulling my senses to what He wants me to do.

I need to pray with David,

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
      test me and know my anxious thoughts.
 Point out anything in me that offends you,
      and lead me along the path of everlasting life. (Psalm 139:23-24 NLT)

The other thing I learned is found at the end of verse nine in chapter seven. Joshua prays, “And then what will happen to the honor of Your great name?”The lesson here?  It’s not about me. It’s about Him and His honor and glory. If I sin, it’s about Him and damaging His name among those who see me. If I enjoy success in ministry, it’s not me. It’s Him, for some incomprehensible reason, choosing to work through weak, prone to blow it me….for His glory!

So I’m stepping out and moving forward. I’m not going back, but I am looking in so He can keep me pure. And most of all, I’m doing it all for His glory! How ‘bout you?

“Like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives.” Those words opened the soap opera my Grammy watched a long time ago. Sometimes when I was sick and couldn’t go to school I would stay with her. We would watch game shows and then her soaps while she fed me. Grammy wasn’t a big believer in the whole “starve a fever” thing. Unless you had a major stomach ailment she figured every illness could be helped with food! I miss her….
That opening line came to my mind as I read Psalm 90. Moses is the writer here and he starts with the eternal nature of God and goes quickly into the frailty and hopelessness of man. In verse 12 he asks God to, “teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”  I’ve been pondering what Moses meant by numbering our days and what does a heart of wisdom look like?  I just celebrated my birthday, so it’s fresh in my mind that we number our years. But Moses, having just talked for the last 9 verses about the sad state of man, is asking God to keep him focused on the shortness of his time here so that he will be gain a wise heart. What does a wise heart look like? The answer is found in the following verses. 
1.       We will look forward to eternity (v. 13 Return, O LORD! How long? Have pity on your servants!),

2.       We will be drawn into a more intimate relationship with God (v. 14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.),

3.        We will long to have the hard times swallowed up in the joy of being with Him (v. 15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil ).

4.       We will desire to see Him come through in a mighty way (v. 16 Let your work be shown to your servants,
   and your glorious power to their children),

5.       We will want our time here to be fruitful (v. 17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
   and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!).

So this week I’ve been asking God to help me to number my days. I don’t know how long I will be on this earth or how long God will use me in any one particular place or way. But I do know that I want to fruitful. I want to be focused on eternity and a longing to see Him work in and through me.

I hate to sound cliché, but today really is the first day of the rest of your life. We can’t get back any time that we have wasted. But we can strive to make sure that we “number our days” and make each one count!

 

The other night I took my boys to see X-Men: First Class, the latest release in the popular movie series based on the old comic books. I had not seen the other four movies so my boys, in order to correct my lack of super hero culture, have had me watching the videos this week. Needless to say, I am “up” on superpowers, supervillains, and superheroes!

All of this “superness” brought about a conversation about what superpower we would want if we could have one. For a girl who grew up watching Bewitched and dreaming of being able to wiggle my nose and “presto!”  my bedroom would be clean  or I would have a new bike, this was a subject I had thought about before. In the X-Men movies they do things that no matter how bewitched Samantha Stevens was she could only have dreamed about doing, which presented new options to choose from! After some thought and rather interesting conversation I decided that I would most like the power to instantly transport myself from place to place. Imagine being able to pop down to Florida to sit on the beach with my friend, meet my folks for lunch and be home in time to sleep in my own bed!

Do you want to know something exciting? According to the Bible, I already have incredible powers! If you are a believer, so do you!

How would you like to be able to triumph over evil?
                Romans 8:13 - But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.

How would you like to gain strength when you are at your weakest?
                II Corinthians 12:9 - Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness. So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.”

How would you like to have a supernatural ability to understand the things of God?
                Ephesians 3:18-19 - And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

How would you like to have the power to always do what is right?
                Philippians 2:13 - For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.

How would you like to pray powerfully?
                James 5:16b - The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

For that matter, how would you like to know that you could do anything God asks you to do?
                II Peter 1:3 - By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.
                Ephesians 1:3 - All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.

Okay, so we can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound. I can’t go sit on a Florida beach and still be home for supper. But I have so much power available to me through Jesus. Philippians 4:13, “For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.”

How do we access these powers? As believers we are all fighting the same fight, but some fight harder and stronger. We are all running the same race, but some run faster. We all have the same light of Christ, but some shine brighter. What makes the difference? Why are some Christians just better Christians than others? I believe a major part of the difference would be discovered if we looked at the private life of prayer. In the coming weeks we will be looking more at prayer. I’ve only begun to scratch the surface in my study and already I feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit so strongly. Begin praying now for what God would teach us through our study of prayer.

P.S. I’m still holding on to my instant transport dream…..Jesus did it in His glorified body after the resurrection!