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When God Is Silent
When David prayed he wept, “Oh my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent” (Psalm 22:2).
Do your prayers ever seem to suspend between your desperate heart and a silent God? The silence of God is like a thick mist, cold and clammy, blurring your surroundings says Leighann McCoy, author of Oh God Please! Help Me With My Doubt.
Praying Through God’s Silence
The Bible is full of stories about men and women who experienced God’s involvement in their lives. In most all the stories these “heroes of the faith” suffered seasons of God’s silence. If you want to learn how to pray through God’s silence, read David’s prayers from the Psalms. As you do so, you will discover some surprising things about prayer (and about David). Consider Psalm 143.
Expect Spiritual Opposition When You Pray
Don’t forget that we invite God to rule and reign in and through our lives when we pray. For this reason, the enemy of your faith is diametrically opposed to prayer. Expect spiritual opposition when you pray. In Psalm 143:3 David listed three ways the enemy was attacking him: The enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground; he makes me dwell in darkness like those long dead.”
The Enemy Pursues You
The enemy pursues you. He is aggressive. He will get up and in your business. The enemy crushes God’s children as often as he can. His ideal way of crushing you is to cause you to question God’s goodness and to challenge His wisdom. He is most effective at doing this when God seems silent. Once he crushes your spirit, the enemy will make you feel as if you are dwelling in darkness like those long dead. To dwell in darkness with those long dead is to live without hope, without faith, without light, without God.
When Your Prayers Seem Ineffective
Leighann McCoy writes in Oh God Please! Help Me With My Doubt : “When God seems silent and your prayer ineffective, take time to remember. David said, ‘I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done. (Psalm 143:5) When God seems silent and your prayers ineffective look around you! Consider the sunrise, the dew on the grass, the birds that greet the morning and the rushing water of the river. When God seems silent and your prayers ineffective look behind you, remember prayers you were desperate for God to answer, and the answers He delivered.”
There Is No Shame In Begging
When God is silent, there is no shame in begging. If there were God would have edited David’s prayer. There is nothing gained by doubting, but there is no shame in begging. David determined to turn to God for relief, then he begged God to give him relief quickly, “Answer me quickly, O Lord…let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you.” (Psalm 143:7-8) David didn’t want to wait forever for God to answer his prayer. He didn’t pray for perseverance or patience; he prayed for God to give him relief.
When you Beg, Beg With Resolve
Just as David begged God to answer his prayer quickly, his tone shifted from one of desperation to a tone of submission. Feel free to beg God for answers but when you do, resolve to trust Him, to wait on Him, to hide yourself in Him, to follow Him and to serve Him. This is what David did (see Psalm 143:8-10). In between the time that you pray and the time that God answers, walk in God’s ways. Be a diligent student of God’s will and follow Him on level ground. To walk on level ground is to let God’s Word lead your way. Don’t let emotions pave your path.
We Pray For Change
Much of our desire for prayer is motivated by a desire for change, and most likely the change we are looking for is a change in someone or something else. We want our husbands to be more loving or our children to be more Christ-centered. We want our work to be more productive or our bank accounts more cushioned. We want health and wealth and the list goes on. David prayed in Psalm 143 for change, or more specifically for relief. As David asked God to change his circumstances and his enemies, God in turn changed David. He was consumed with what was happening around him, but God turned David’s attention to what was happening within (and above) him. And that is what prayer does.
Oh God Please! Help Me With My Doubt
In his book, Leighann McCoy examines the doubts we face when we pray. As we learn to pray through God’s silence, we also learn how to pray through our doubts of His power, His concern, His wisdom and His plan. Oh God Please! Help Me With My Doubt is published by Freeman-Smith, a division of Worthy Publishers.
Our Daily Bread – The Lure Of A Message
Read: 1 Samuel 3:1-10
You’re sitting in a darkened theater enjoying a concert, a play, or a film, when suddenly a smartphone screen lights up as a person reads an incoming text and perhaps takes time to reply. In his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains,Nicholas Carr says that in our connected world, “The sense that there might be a message out there for us” is increasingly difficult to resist.
Samuel was a young boy when he heard a voice call his name and thought it was Eli the priest in the tabernacle where he served the Lord (1 Sam. 3:1-7). When Eli realized that God was calling Samuel, he told the boy how to respond. When God called his name a fourth time, “Samuel answered, ‘Speak, for Your servant hears’” (v.10). This attentiveness to God’s voice became the pattern of Samuel’s life as “the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord” (v.21).
Are we listening for God’s voice in our lives today? Are we more drawn by the vibration of a smartphone than the still, small voice of the Lord through His Word and His Spirit?
May we, like Samuel, learn to discern God’s voice and say, “Speak, Lord. I’m listening.”
As You speak to us today
Through Your Spirit and Your Word—
Help us follow and obey. —Sper
Find Truth
by Joyce Meyer – posted September 18, 2012
And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free. —John 8:32
If you lose your temper easily, you will never enjoy your day as God meant for it to be. Seek God with your whole heart and find out what is wrong. The way to get free from things that upset you is to find truth—the truth will always set you free.
We don’t always want to face truth because sometimes it is painful. Sometimes it shows us that we need to change. If we are behaving badly, we make excuses for our wrong behavior. But excuses will never make us free.
Let God get involved with your day; when you feel your temper flare, ask Him to reveal the truth of that situation. The truth will always set you free to enjoy the rest of your day.
From the book Starting Your Day Right by Joyce Meyer. Copyright © 2003 by Joyce Meyer. Published by FaithWords. All rights reserved.
Push People Up
Today’s Scripture:
Two are better than one…if either of them falls down, one can help the other up… – Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, NIV.
Today’s Word:
We all need somebody to believe in us more than we believe in ourselves. We all need people who will push us up, so to speak. After all, there are enough people trying to push us down in life. There are enough people telling us what we can’t become and how we don’t have what it takes.
I know in my own life, I wouldn’t be half of who I am if it were not for Victoria. She has spoken so much faith into me. She has called out the potential on the inside.
I believe we all have the responsibility to do this for others. Let’s push people up. Let’s look with our eyes of faith and see their potential and tell them what they can become. If you will be that person for somebody else, God will make sure somebody will be that person for you.
Friend, every person has seeds of greatness inside. You can cause your children to rise to a new level. You can be the catalyst for your family to do things they never thought possible. Your words have creative power. When you speak vision, that can be the seed God uses to thrust them to a new level.
Prayer for Today:
Father, today I commit to push people up. I choose to speak life and call forth the seeds of greatness within. Thank You for using me to help others fulfill their destiny in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Our Daily Bread – From Duty To Delight
Read: Psalm 119:41-48
Because of my wife’s busy schedule, sometimes she can commit only a limited amount of time every week to each of our grandchildren. When possible, however, she will rearrange her schedule to spend more time with them—not out of duty, but because she loves them. When I see her with them, I understand what the word delight means.
In Psalm 119, David tells of his “delight” in God’s Word. He uses the word delight eight times (vv.16,24, 35,47,70,77,92,174). He says: “I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your Word. . . . I will delight myself in Your commandments, which I love” (vv.16,47). The psalmist’s words, “I will delight,” indicate that it is a deliberate act of his will. However, it is not a burden for him to delight in God’s Word because he loves it. David’s close relationship with God created in him a desire to know what his Beloved had to say.
In the same way, for us to move from duty to delight in God’s Word, we need to strengthen our relationship with Him. When we remember how much He loves and cherishes us, we will respond with love and we will delight to spend time with Him. “Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day” (v.97).
And take a fresh delight
By day to read these wonders o’er
And meditate by night. —Watts
Our Daily Bread – Correct Them
Read: 1 Samuel 2:12,27-36
Therapist and mother Lori Gottlieb says that parents who are obsessed with their children’s happiness may actually contribute to their becoming unhappy adults. These parents coddle their children, do not equip them to deal with the real world, look the other way when their children do wrong, and neglect disciplining them.
In 1 Samuel, we read that the high priest Eli sometimes looked the other way. We don’t know what he was like as a father when his boys were young. But he failed to properly deal with their behavior as grown men serving in God’s temple. They were selfish, lustful, and rebellious, putting their own needs ahead of God’s Word and the needs of the people. At first, Eli rebuked them but they would not listen. Instead of removing them from service, he looked the other way and let them continue in their sin. As a result of his sons’ sins and because Eli honored his sons above the Lord (1 Sam. 2:29), the Lord warned Eli that his family would suffer judgment (v.34; 4:17-18).
As Christian parents, we have the awesome responsibility to lovingly discipline our children (Prov. 13:24; 29:17; Heb. 12:9-11). As we impart God’s wisdom to them, we have the blessing of helping them develop into responsible, God-fearing adults.
Possessed by Him whose name is Love;
Lent us here to train and nourish
For a better life above. —Crosby
Call Out Seeds of Greatness
Today’s Scripture:
…God…calls those things which do not exist as though they did. – Romans 4:17, NKJV.
Today’s Word:
Very often, we see potential in other people that they can’t see in themselves. When you speak vision into them, when you tell them what they can become, you can help set the direction for their life. Your words have the power to push people into their divine destiny. I believe that the reason some people are not living at their full potential is because no one has ever spoken faith into them. No one has taken the time to say, “Hey, you’re great at this. You’ve got a gift here. You’re going to do something amazing.”
I believe that one of our assignments in life is to call out the seeds of greatness in other people. Look around at who God has placed in your life. They’re not there by accident. Take time to study them. See what they’re good at. What are their gifts? What do they excel at? Don’t just think about it, speak vision into them. Tell them what they can become. Let your encouragement ignite the greatness on the inside. Help them rise up in confidence so they can be all God has called them to be!
Prayer for Today:
Father, thank You for the people You’ve placed in my life. I choose to be faithful, to speak life and call forth the greatness in them. Thank You for bringing me to new levels as I help others rise higher, too, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Copyright © 2012 Joel Osteen Ministries
#WhoDoesThat #SideEye #GimmeABreak
But you suppose to be a church huh? … Suppose to be teaching God’s people on how to love one another as God loves the church. And this is what you put on your message board outside … #WhoDoesThat #SideEye #GimmeABreak
I Declare
Posted by Joel Osteen on 9/14/2012
Our words have creative power. Any time you speak something, either good or bad; you give life to what you are saying. Scripture says, “We will eat the fruit of our words.” That means you will get exactly what you’ve been saying. You are prophesying your own future. That’s why it’s so important to send your words out in the direction you want your life to go. You can’t talk defeat and expect to have victory. You can’t talk lack and expect to have abundance. You will produce whatever you say.
Are you declaring the blessing of God over your life? Are you speaking His promises? Have you ever noticed that many of His promises are in the past tense? For example, in Ephesians God says, “I have blessed you with every spiritual blessing.” In Colossians He says, “I have made you worthy.” In Psalms He says, “I have surrounded you with favor as a shield.” These are all past tense, like it’s already happened. In order to activate His blessing, you have to come into agreement with what God has already declared about you. That’s faith!
Maybe you don’t necessarily feel blessed today. A lot of things may be coming against you in your family, finances or health. But that doesn’t change the Word of God. Circumstances don’t change what God says about you. However, what God says about you can change your circumstances. You are the deciding factor. Instead of talking about your circumstances, be bold and say, “God, if You say I’m blessed, then I believe I’m blessed! My checkbook may not say I’m blessed. The economy may not say I’m blessed. The medical report may not say I’m blessed. But God, I know You are the ultimate authority, and if You say I’m blessed, then I declare that I am blessed!”
When you get into agreement with God like that in your thoughts, words and actions, it opens supernatural doors and sets the blessing in motion. It allows Him to release the promises that already have your name on them! You can pull it out of the unseen spiritual realm over into the physical, seen realm. That’s what the Bible means when it says, “God speaks of nonexistent things as if they already existed.”
I want you to live the abundant, blessed, joy-filled life that Jesus came to give you and understand that the power of your words is a major key. That’s why I’ve written my new book, I Declare – 31 Promises to Speak Over Your Life. I want you to bless your future one day at a time, one month at a time. My hope is that you’ll pick up a copy and take just a moment each day to bless your future with one of the faith-filled declarations. I Declare will be available this week—September 18. So order your copy today and begin to declare God’s blessing in every area of your life!
Copyright © 2012 Joel Osteen Ministries
God’s Tattoos
by Joyce Meyer – posted September 14, 2012
Where could I go from Your Spirit? Or where could I flee from Your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol (the place of the dead), behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. —Psalm 139:7-10
Sometimes we try so hard to get into the presence of God, but the truth is that it is impossible to get away from Him. He is in constant pursuit of us. You may sometimes feel that the Lord is not near, but that is why knowing the Word is so important.
The prophet Isaiah brought a complaint before the Lord, reporting that His people were saying: The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me. [And the Lord answered] “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have indelibly imprinted (tattooed a picture of) you on the palm of each of My hands (Isaiah 49:14-16).
Parents did not originate the idea of keeping pictures of their children handy—God carries a picture of His children everywhere He goes. The next time you question your self-worth, remember that God has your picture tattooed on the palms of His hands.
From the book New Day, New You by Joyce Meyer. Copyright © 2006 by Joyce Meyer. Published by InProv. All rights reserved.
I Am Lady Fab 