Prayer for Our Children's Protection

Lord I come to you as humbled as I can, asking you to watch over our children as they start their school year. Protect them from hurt, harm, danger, and to not fear Covid-19.  Give them the guidance they need to do their best and make the right decisions. The devil is busy but not in my house will I allow him to enter and destroy. I also pray for all my family, friends, and other children that are starting school, that the school year will be smooth as it can be. Protect them give them all strength to not be afraid and know that you are with them always. Be blessed and highly favored!!

Being Obedient

 

Exodus 19:5, “Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine” (KJV).

 

Many times, God calls his people to obey and trust him. There are times consequences are given for our actions for not trusting and obeying God. We miss out on blessings daily due to us not obeying and trusting him. We will not experience the fullness of our cup overflowing with the many blessings he has in store for us when we don’t trust and obey his word. Our obedience is our way of showing God how much we love and trust him. God is after our hearts, when being disobedient we miss out in many ways.

Here’s an example for myself I was asked to do this blog whether it be daily, weekly, every other week, at first, I was like yes, I will do it. I then began to think about what was I thinking agreeing to do this. I thought to myself who are you to try to spread God’s word when you are just starting your journey yourself? I then began to pray about this thing, I prayed and prayed about it. I still continued to say I can’t do this, but I continued to hear this quiet voice telling me you can do it all you have to do is try, but I still continued to say I can’t do this. I finally said no, you have to be obedient to God’s will, if it was laid upon someone’s heart to ask you to do this blog, then it is meant for you to do it. I thought although I am on my Christian journey there is nothing wrong with having others to walk on this journey with me because I am doing something for God.  So, I am being obedient.

Being obedient can be hard sometimes, but it is important if we want to live in agreement with God’s Will. Charles Stanley wrote: If we are going to do all that God requires of us, we must be ready to “Learn to listen to the Lord and take heed to what you hear” (Mark 4:25, KJV). God wants to speak to us, we must be willing to listen; “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29, KJV). There are times when the people of the world would want us to do one thing when God wants us to do another we must be obedient to God; “We are to lay aside all our sinful ways” (Ephesians 4:25-31). We cannot obey God while indulging in sin, we know we may not be perfect, but when God convicts us of sin, our 1^st response should be confessions and repentances; Surrender our will to the Lord “Yet not my will, but yours will be done” (Luke 22:42). We should be obedient just as Jesus was obedient and yield everything to God. We should want to please and honor Him not yielding to his Will, we will be following our own desires and may suffer consequences due to us being disobedient. A true sign of your love for God is obedience to his commandments, the only way you will know you are obeying God is by knowing his word.

A Prayer for Teachers and Educators during the COVID Crisis

 

Since the children, educators, and teachers are heading back to school. I came across this prayer that I felt would be great, to cover them.

Father,

This is the day You have made, we will rejoice and be glad in it. It doesn’t look like we thought it would look, nor will tomorrow and the days to come likely be executed in the way we expected and prepared for. Help us to see the good in each day. Help us to find reasons to rejoice and ways to be glad. Litter our lives with moments of laughter and lightheartedness, even in these extremely dark and trying times. Birthdays are still to be celebrated each day. The sun keeps coming up, and You remain the same. We are created in Your image, God, to do good and great things to bring glory to Your name. Each one of us, both teacher and student, were created with specific purpose. Help teachers to have confidence in their craft. They were meant to teach, educate, coach, counsel and lead. They are needed, appreciated, and loved. Their work and their efforts are never in vain. When it is hard to see the good, grab our attention, Father. When we are sad and miss school, our normal routine, and our teammates and coaches, encourage our spirits. Sustain us through our very real fear of what is and will happen in our world, God. Remind us we are not alone, even when we feel isolated.

Author: Meg Bucher

Am I Doing God's Plan?

 

I know some of you may have a few uncertain things in your life and you don’t know what is to come. You may be someone who loves to get out and do things at the spur of the moment or more of a quiet mellow person who likes to have some type of plan in place. Have you ever gone down a path you thought God has laid out for you, but later on questioned yourself, “Am I doing the right thing”?

What if I’ve taken the wrong path and it’s not the path God was wanting me to take? Just a little reminder for you to keep in the back of your mind that you are not powerful enough to mess up what God has planned for you. We all have choices that we make but what God has set in motion will soon or later materialize.

We at times forget that we must trust what God has for us. His plan may not come when we want it, but it comes when he feels it is our time. Often times we find ourselves jumping through hoops, going through difficult situations because we may have taken a slight left along our path when it should have been a slight right. But its OK, you will be able to get back on track by turning your attention back to God and following his word. This is when we finally realize we should trust what God has planned for us.  God’s plan may not make any sense to us, this is because we can’t see the plan he has in store for us, but we must trust his plan.  Proverbs 3:5 states, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding”.

Broken Pieces

                                   

1 Peter 5:10 “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strength, settle you” (KJV).

The path we take for our prayers to be answered is harder and even longer sometimes. Our path sometimes includes our past choices and the consequences that come with our choices, along with growth, and through our healing, then our prayers will be answered. BUT GUESS WHAT??? GOD IS WITH US EVERY STEP OF THE WAY. God will never leave us. There are somethings we have to go through, but he will always be there to pick up our broken pieces. So, for a little while, we may suffer through our broken pieces, to gain the strength to restore us into whom he wants us to be. I was reading something the other day that stood out to me. It read “There are three key things to remember when you are on your journey getting close to God. We should remember this when we have broken pieces: You are not alone, develop a relationship with God, and believe that God’s word is true”. Now you’re probably saying what does she mean by this? Well, with you are not alone means…YOU are not alone there are others who have broken pieces, although other people's broken pieces are not the same as yours, they too have to suffer through their broken pieces to get where God wants them to be. Developing a relationship with God means just that. We must establish a relationship with God. We may acknowledge who God is, but do we really know WHO God is, not really, not until we begin to study his word, trust that God is working out a plan for us while praying. In addition to all this, we have to remember that God’s word is true. God’s word never changes, he will give us all that we need and help us get through those broken pieces. Psalms 37:4 says, “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart” (KJV). Studying, trusting, and knowing that God’s word is true will help you through those broken pieces.

Is there an Effective way to Pray?

“But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted strengthen thy brethren” (Luke 22: 32, KJV).

Have you ever waited on the Lord to show you how to pray; whether it was for yourself or a loved one? I have struggled with this praying thing often. The question is there really a correct way to pray and how to pray? I began doing a little research and stumbled upon the scripture Luke 22:32 and as I was reading this scripture a light turned on for me telling me in a way how I should pray. Now for me, I got from this verse that I should pray without letting my faith fail me. A lot of times we pray for God to remove the problem, to heal a loved one, bring us out of that situation or make it better for us, but when we pray are we praying with strong faith? By all means, I am not saying there is a wrong way to pray I am just asking is there a better way to pray?  When reading Luke 22:32 we see how Jesus prays for Peters faith to be strong at his time of need he didn’t want him to fail: it is important that Peter face his situation with his own strength. Jesus wanted Peter's faith to be strong and to not let it fail him; we must be strong in faith to help us to get through our problems. When we begin to understand the purpose of God in people around us this is when it is a growing process for us. In order to pray effectively, one must pray not only for ourselves but for others' faith to hold strong instead of praying for the situation to change, praying to help us see through problems with faith. Having strong faith shows there’s God in you because God is the power behind the faith that helps us to move through our situation. Effective prayer comes from the heart and the will of God. It comes from the wisdom we are seeking to learn from God. James 1:5-6 states, “⁵ If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.⁶ But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed” (KJV).  Having God in our hearts and gaining wisdom from him we will then learn to pray and ask in His will that it shall be done. Through my continued journey of learning to pray effectively, I am learning that if I pray according to God's will, I have to seek his wisdom. We must continue to seek his will for things we are praying for and I am learning that I cannot pray with fear in my heart, rather than faith, then I will be praying amiss not seeking it clearly. In order to learn how to pray I (we) must pray in his will, have faith, and seek wisdom from God while having God in our hearts. 

God's Love

John 3:16

“16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (KJV).

When you read the above verse what do you think or what do you feel? For me when I read this verse, I get a good feeling knowing that God loves us a lot to give his only son. That is a lot of love. This means his love for us is unchangeable and we must be grateful for this. When you think of love people tend to think of happiness, a strong affection for another coming from personal ties, and assurance of affection. Love is important in everyone's life…it is essential from the beginning to the end. God’s love for us does not mean he will always give us what we are longing for, nothing will come easy for us. But God’s love for us is when he gives us what he believes we need and is beneficial for us.

We sometimes misconstrue God’s love for us because he does not give us what we are asking for. This may often confuse some and can be interpreted as if he does not love us, which could not be further from the truth. When times are hard it seems, he is not there for us when we feel we need him the most. We must always remember God's love is unlike no other and of our love. God’s love goes deeper. His love teaches us and molds us from the inside out making us go through things to help restore and rebuild what has been broken. He is making us stronger and developing us into what we are meant to be. You must see yourself as God’s beloved child who he is constructing to a better person.
Continue to worship and pray. Do not take God's way of loving us wrong. But know he has never forgotten you, his love for you runs deeper than you may know and can only imagine. He will provide you with all that you need if you believe in love, he has for you. God’s love is real. Be blessed!