Tag: prayer

A Prayer for Love, Knowledge and Insight

On By vickleaIn Scripture7 Comments

It has been almost twenty years since our youngest child left home for college. That was the beginning of the end of having children at home, the beginning of becoming an “empty nester.” When each child left, I gave them plenty of advice: finances, relationships, and finding a good church to go to. I prayed for them daily; in fact, their names and a prayer were never far from my thoughts and still are. But this prayer that I found in my devotional this morning is what I should have been praying for all of these years.

It is Paul’s prayer for the Philippians, but it is also a prayer that we can and should apply to all of our loved ones. For it is in this prayer that we find the love, the knowledge and the insight necessary to fulfill a life of promise in Christ. It is a prayer for making good choices and to one day be able to stand before the Lord “blameless.” It’s not enough to know God’s Word; it has to be applied to one’s life. That is my prayer for my children, for my friends, for other family members and for my lost loved ones and friends. Jesus saves. He left us the Holy Spirit to give us insight and discernment, His Word to give us knowledge. If we stay close to Him, we “abound in love.” How can we do any less than love others when He chose to die for all?

Yes, I pray for our children daily. I also pray for others whom God brings to my mind. Prayer is a powerful weapon in the hands of the saints of God. We need to use it as Paul did, to teach and to bless.

Have a blessed day filled with abounding love, knowledge and insight!

A Promise for All Times

On By vickleaIn Scripture5 Comments

www.bible.com/111/mat.18.20.niv

When I feel defeated or discouraged, I tell my husband and he prays. Often, I call our daughter and she prays with us, too. When I am ill, or when I fall and get hurt or when I just feel lonely, I ask my husband and daughter for prayer. I used to call or text our pastor, but we are in the middle of changing churches and the new pastors don’t know me well, so I don’t feel comfortable sharing a lot with them yet. Nevertheless, I do have prayer warriors to call. The best news, though, is that when I am totally alone, I can call on the Lord. Jesus is always with me because He has sent His Comforter, the Holy Spirit who is constantly with me. So, when I am driving and get scared (because I don’t drive very much anymore), I send up a prayer and know that the Lord is hearing me. I don’t have to be in a big crowd or even next to a phone to send up a prayer and know that my Father in Heaven hears me and is working on an answer for me. This morning, I awakened with pain in my shoulder and my hip from my physical therapy yesterday. Balancing on one leg is hard for me, even before I broke my foot. But I have to work on strengthening it, so that is one of the exercises I do. Before I even got out of bed, I praised God for a new day and asked for healing for my aching parts. My husband was sleeping soundly next to me, so I didn’t wake him up to join me in prayer. I just prayed, knowing that the Comforter was with me and would help me get out of bed and start a new day. Two or three isn’t many, and with Jesus with you, that means you can pray all by yourself in your prayer closet.

Prayer requests for you prayer warriors out there: Angie, with cancer on her spine and a friend named John who is having open heart surgery tomorrow

Thanks for the prayers and support. If you need prayer, just let me know in the comments and I will pray for you. God bless you in this new day. Expect great things from God!

When Do We Trust God?

On By vickleaIn Scripture3 Comments

www.bible.com/1171/psa.62.8.mev

The answer to the question that I have posed is in the Scripture–ALL the time! When things are going well, when things are going badly, when you’re well, when you’re ill, basically always. When you pray, it’s okay to tell God that you are having problems with faith. In fact, I prayed this morning for God to help my unbelief. It’s not that I doubt the existence of God, but that just sometimes like many of you, I get discouraged. The pain in my body was overwhelming this morning; there were not enough ice packs to take care of all of it. Nevertheless, I arose, thanked God for a new day, and here I am with this Scripture verse that God gave me in my devotional this morning. Perhaps this verse is only for me, but I’m sharing it here just in case someone else out there in the blogosphere needs it. It’s okay to tell God exactly how you’re feeling because He already knows and provides a shelter for us in His loving arms. God is good…all the time. I repeat that mantra to myself frequently, sometimes to remind myself and sometimes as a praise to Him. I hope that you remember that God wants what is best for you, all the time. He is always there to answer, even when you may be like me and suffering and grumpy. It’s amazing to me that God never gets grumpy with me! Blessings, my friends, for a day that is filled with God’s goodness and a day of trust and amazement at God’s goodness to you!

Any Place He Will

On By vickleaIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Here in the United States, all eyes are on the Congressional meeting on January 6th that will determine once and for all who will be our next President. Guess what? The outcome will NOT be a surprise to God and He already has His hands on the winner. Does that mean that the President (or king or emperor or whoever is in charge of a country) will always make Godly choices? No, because man always has a free will choice. But it does mean that nothing is a surprise to God. After all, He created all men and knows their hearts. Fortunately for those of us who are believers, all is not lost when someone is in charge who does not believe in Godly principles. Look at the part of the verse that tells us that God is in control! “He turned it to any place He will.”

God always looks at our hearts. We may think that our choices are good ones. We may not even realize that they are ultimately selfish, but God looks at our hearts. After all, God is making decisions for everyone in the world, not just me, and not just you. He is not our puppet and we are not His puppets. We are in a relationship together, with God knowing all and my knowing what He allows me to know.

This is a very important verse because sometimes in the past I have thought that if I would only give up something or do more for God, then God would be pleased with me and grant me the answers to my prayers. 🤔 Not exactly how it works in the kingdom of God. God prefers that we choose to do what is right than that we try to make bargains with Him. Just make wise choices!

All of these verses spoke to my heart today as I face a Christmas season unlike any we have ever had before. Our daughter Hope, our first born, has Covid. So do her son and daughter and her husband. The children probably contracted it at the nursing home where they work and brought it home to the others. Meanwhile, here is mom who is very concerned about their health, even though all but Aaron (the daddy) seem to be having mild cases. Nevertheless, I know that they are in God’s hands and the visit that we had planned for Christmas will happen eventually, God willing. I do ask that if you believe in prayer, you pray for them. Aaron is asthmatic and has a severe headache and cough. Well, enough said about the disease that was an unexpected “gift” from China. Let’s remember to glorify God this season and to remember that He has everything under control. We may not see it or feel it, but His Spirit is working on the behalf of our nation, ourselves and our families.

Blessings, my friends, for a weekend filled with His love and His joy that only comes when you know that He alone is King of the earth!

God’s Judgment?

On By vickleaIn Uncategorized10 Comments

I have almost turned off all news yesterday and today. I cannot watch as the election shenanigans continue and the votes are taken away from our President. I do not think that Joe Biden is evil, but I do believe that he is bad for America. Nevertheless, the election process and the legal challenges continue and the stress has been too much for me, so I just turn it off. I did read Dr. Denison’s take on the election and this is part of his forum for today.

In America’s Expiration Date, Cal Thomas makes this prophetic statement: “Given the history of other empires and great nations, the decadence that now is tightening its grip on America almost guarantees our demise, or at the very least a radical decline that will leave the country devoid of the liberties we now enjoy but are rapidly exchanging for a license to do whatever we wish.”

God destroyed the nation of Israel because of its sins (Amos 9:8). The less we fear divine judgment, the more we should (cf. v. 10). If a tiny virus can bring the world’s greatest superpower to its knees, what of the judgment of an omnipotent and holy God?

But as we discern and grieve for the sins of our nation, we must remember that it is always too soon to give up on God. And never too late to intercede for a mighty movement of his Spirit.

Methodist minister Samuel Chadwick wrote, “Satan dreads nothing but prayer. His one concern is to keep the saints from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, he mocks our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.”

Will you make Satan tremble today?

Article taken from:

Dr. Denison November 6, 2020

I was particularly drawn to the paragraph about interceding for our nation. We need to pray as never before that God will be merciful. I must admit that I had a conversation with God last night (or actually early this morning since I couldn’t sleep) and in my discourse, I just frankly told God that I’m angry about everything that is happening. I honestly told him that in the past I prayed for presidents that I had absolutely no real love for, like Clinton and Obama. And I told God that I just didn’t think I would be able to pray for Joe Biden. He calmed my heart and told me that He would give me the prayers to pray and the words to say when I need them.

Again, when I talk to God, I speak to Him from my heart and my frustrations came through clearly. I have not been able to attend church since March, although my husband has been going to our old church. I, in fact, chose to leave that church in August when the pastor kept preaching from commentaries instead of from the Holy Bible. The big issue was that he never makes it clear that what he is saying is from a commentary, so what he spoke was “extra-scriptural.” To me, that was wrong because the pastor is held to a high standard to preach God’s Word and I felt that He was adding things to God’s Word for the purpose of unnecessary theatrics. After speaking with the pastor, I decided that it was best for me to walk away since he does not see that he is erring at all and my heart sees things differently. I have spoken to the pastor since I left the church membership and even helped him edit a story that he wrote, but the relationship is not what it should be between a sheep and the shepherd. With my trust in my pastor fading and then disappearing, I made the only decision that I could, prayerfully, of course. So, I have been pastor-less, and I told God that I was upset about that, too. He has spoken to me repeatedly that He is my Shepherd so I don’t need to fear. Unfortunately, my husband is on the board for the church and is trying to fulfill his duties there, even while he searches for a new church for us to attend. In the meantime, when I have prayer requests, I have two good friends whom I contact as well as my daughter, and it is to them that I pour out my heart. I do miss praise and worship, so I keep worship music on most of the day, as I do my devotions, write this blog and read my books. But I miss the corporate worship in a way that I can’t describe. I miss the people in the church, but not the errors in the message that made me cringe.

I say all this to just say that we all need prayer, but mostly, our nation needs us to stand together in prayer. We need to stand our ground and pray for God to make things right and to protect us from the coming judgment.

Lauren Daigle “O Lord”