I've been reading a daily devotional book by Max Lucado called Grace for the Moment. I felt led to share today's with you:
"Jesus began to explain everything that had been written about himself in scriptures" Luke 24:7
Max writes:
When the disciples saw who he was, he disappeared. They said to each other, "it felt like a fire burning in us when Jesus talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us" (Luke 24;31-32).
Don't you love that verse? They knew they had been with Jesus because of the fire within them. God reveals his will by setting a torch to your soul. He gave Jeremiah a fire for hard hearts. He gave Nehemiah a fire for a forgotten city. He set Abraham on fire for a land he'd never seen. He set Isaiah on fire with a vision he couldn't resist. Forty years of fruitless preaching didn't extinguish the fire of Noah.....
Mark it down: Jesus comes to set you on fire! He walks as a torch from heart to heart, warming the cold and thawing the chilled and stirring the ashes...He comes to purge infection and illuminate your direction.
From: "The Great Hour of God" by Max Lucado.
In definite companionship with those thoughts came the reading for today from Hope Lives. A talk of the Gifts God has given us, the Skills God has given us and the Heart God has given us.
What I think I can identify for myself are those things.....I shared with God those things this morning and a desire to know how he ultimately wants to use those things.
Please continue in prayer for me to recognize God's illumination of that direction.
So.....what sets your heart on fire.......
Monday, March 15, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Resusciatation Needed
The title of this post was my facebook status today and I have worried my poor friend Nicole I'm including the explanation of my status here.
This weeks readings from the Hope Lives Study is focusing on prayer.
"Pray Continuously" I Thessalonians 5:17. A line in todays study reads: "Prayer is a relationship-a constant relationship, like breathing.
As I read that I was reminded of a conversation I had with a good friend of mine a while back. I was describing a period of time when I just wasn't praying and wasn't reading my bible. I was still going to church and living a decent life. But that daily, purposeful relationship just wasn't there. Her response was "Kelly, you've stopped breathing." Now, everytime I'm going through one of those times and we talk I say; "I've stopped breathing again." When it comes to prayer I am much like the Israelites who have to learn the lesson over and over and over again!
Oh, people call with prayer requests or send and email with a request and I breathe a prayer for them at that moment. I carry them in my heart, I try to respond in other ways. But setting aside that time for purposeful conversation with God where I'm both talking and listening comes and goes for me. I'm not sure why that is......I know that my faith is much stronger when my days include disciplines of prayer and bible reading. Yet, it comes and goes. I have been fairly consistent over the last three months about daily readings. I have whispered prayers here and there but I have realized that when it comes to that constant relationship kind of praying that I have once again stopped breathing. Thus comes the realization that resuscitation is needed! Breathe in me Oh God a new awakening to your presence in my life.....May we be in conversation with one another. May my heart and soul be opened to recieve the messages you have for me.
This weeks readings from the Hope Lives Study is focusing on prayer.
"Pray Continuously" I Thessalonians 5:17. A line in todays study reads: "Prayer is a relationship-a constant relationship, like breathing.
As I read that I was reminded of a conversation I had with a good friend of mine a while back. I was describing a period of time when I just wasn't praying and wasn't reading my bible. I was still going to church and living a decent life. But that daily, purposeful relationship just wasn't there. Her response was "Kelly, you've stopped breathing." Now, everytime I'm going through one of those times and we talk I say; "I've stopped breathing again." When it comes to prayer I am much like the Israelites who have to learn the lesson over and over and over again!
Oh, people call with prayer requests or send and email with a request and I breathe a prayer for them at that moment. I carry them in my heart, I try to respond in other ways. But setting aside that time for purposeful conversation with God where I'm both talking and listening comes and goes for me. I'm not sure why that is......I know that my faith is much stronger when my days include disciplines of prayer and bible reading. Yet, it comes and goes. I have been fairly consistent over the last three months about daily readings. I have whispered prayers here and there but I have realized that when it comes to that constant relationship kind of praying that I have once again stopped breathing. Thus comes the realization that resuscitation is needed! Breathe in me Oh God a new awakening to your presence in my life.....May we be in conversation with one another. May my heart and soul be opened to recieve the messages you have for me.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Stirrings in the depths of my soul
I have been absent from this blog for over a month now.....but God is certainly been at work in my heart in that month. I suppose it started when the reality of my dear friend Nicole leaving for Africa hit me. I don't remember the exact moment it hit me but I do remember the urgency I felt of wanting to see her, talk to her before she left, which did not happen and I remember the fear that gripped me when I realized she was already on the plane. In that fear I went to her blog and read of her anticipation as she prepared for the trip. Tears began to flow. They were not tears of fear or sadness but I was overwhelmed by pride for what she was doing. She was stepping out on faith way out of her comfort zone to do what God had loudly called her to do. I anxiously awaited news from Africa daily. Taking in every picture that was shared by her cohort, Leah, I just couldn't get them out of my mind. Oddly Nicole's last entry in her blog was "I have arrived......." From that point I just don't think she has the words to be able to express her experience. What I know for certain is that my mind is still there and as our pastor put in his blog about our Lenten experience "Hope Lives" My "cages are being rattled."
In the midst of these stirrings I recieved a phone call one night asking me to volunteer one night at the homeless shelter; to play hostess and do a devotion. I do not yet have the words to express that experience. I was humbled. I felt inadequate. Trying to discern what was best to share as a devotional that would have meaning to these folk whom I am very disconnected from was quite the challenge. One i'm not completely confident I met but even if I my human words touched not one soul, the experience of it all has stirred something in me I can't yet explain.
Then just like a neatly woven quilt being patched together another piece of the tapestry was put in place with the beginning of our Lenten study "Hope Lives." A study on the christian response to poverty.
I just read a song on Leah's blog written by Sarah Groves and there is a line that says something to the effect of "I just can't keep living like I was living" and that is exactly what I am feeling right now as I sit in the comfort of my 3 bedroom 1800 square foot home with 5 televisions and more television stations then I can count. I need not worry about what I will eat tomorrow. I will go where I need to go in the comfort of a large vehicle that takes more gas in a month than many people in the world see in a year. I'm busy planning my vacations while others in the world are contemplating where the next meal comes from. I worry about my son having at least a weeks worth of changes of clothes in his closet for each season and each style he enjoys while Esther worried about not being able to get into school because she didn't have one uniform.
I am stirred to the depths of my being and I know not yet what my full response will be. What I do know for certain is that "I just can't keep living like I was living."
Thank you Nicole and Leah for the inspiration you have been to me, Thank you Melanie for asking me to work the homeless shelter, thank you leaders of Longs Chapel for making "hope Lives" the focus of our Lenten study. Thank you God for these lights you have used to illuminate my heart.
In the midst of these stirrings I recieved a phone call one night asking me to volunteer one night at the homeless shelter; to play hostess and do a devotion. I do not yet have the words to express that experience. I was humbled. I felt inadequate. Trying to discern what was best to share as a devotional that would have meaning to these folk whom I am very disconnected from was quite the challenge. One i'm not completely confident I met but even if I my human words touched not one soul, the experience of it all has stirred something in me I can't yet explain.
Then just like a neatly woven quilt being patched together another piece of the tapestry was put in place with the beginning of our Lenten study "Hope Lives." A study on the christian response to poverty.
I just read a song on Leah's blog written by Sarah Groves and there is a line that says something to the effect of "I just can't keep living like I was living" and that is exactly what I am feeling right now as I sit in the comfort of my 3 bedroom 1800 square foot home with 5 televisions and more television stations then I can count. I need not worry about what I will eat tomorrow. I will go where I need to go in the comfort of a large vehicle that takes more gas in a month than many people in the world see in a year. I'm busy planning my vacations while others in the world are contemplating where the next meal comes from. I worry about my son having at least a weeks worth of changes of clothes in his closet for each season and each style he enjoys while Esther worried about not being able to get into school because she didn't have one uniform.
I am stirred to the depths of my being and I know not yet what my full response will be. What I do know for certain is that "I just can't keep living like I was living."
Thank you Nicole and Leah for the inspiration you have been to me, Thank you Melanie for asking me to work the homeless shelter, thank you leaders of Longs Chapel for making "hope Lives" the focus of our Lenten study. Thank you God for these lights you have used to illuminate my heart.
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