Prayer

God is showing me more and more things about prayer. The more I pray and call out to Him, the more I can see His work in my life and desire Him more deeply within. I realize how great He is and the wondrous things He does for us in our good times and our bad times. How He strengthens me, cares for all our needs and guides us in His ways so we may experience His peace. That increases my faith and I do not want to go without talking with Him and seeing and feeling His touch in my life.

I just wanted to share this from the book I am reading. The last part of the book. No more Elizabeth George to share with you. Don't get upset, there will be another book. hehe!

When you step out and pray you guard your mind from thinking unhealthy thoughts.
When you step out and pray you're producing the cure for all your anxiety.
When you step out and pray you're acknowledging your dependence on the all-powerful God and His resources.

When you step out and pray you're being obedient to the Lord's commands.

When you step out and pray you're ready to experience the peace of God that passes all understanding.
When you step out and pray you can be sure you're on God's path through your trial!

Praying through your trials and adversity forces your roots deeper into the fertile soil of God's love and provision. That's because prayer is the way to ask God for His strength so you can withstand the storms life enevitably brings. Trials are painful, exhausting, burdensome, and bothersome (to say the least). At times you won't be sure you can carry on (isn't that for sure!). But it is during these dark times that true faith shines the brightest. Believe Jesus' promise that He will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5). Take courage, child of the King! And remember, you are God's child.

May we not forget that He does listen when we call to Him.

Stepping out in His footsteps

Steph

Worry? Me?

Phillipians 4:6

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Be anxious for nothing? Nothing? In everything by prayer and supplication. Everything? LOL! Ok, so I am not so good at this. I think I am probably one of the biggest worriers. Shhh! I go round and round with the worry but I realize that my focus is not on God anymore but on my own self and my own frustration of the situation I am dealing with. Thinking of the other person and how frustrating the whole situation is and how they are irritating me or what they are doing or not doing. Hello! Is that what God wants?

In the words of Elizabeth George (she's kind of smart), instead of worrying and being anxious, we are to do something positive by praying. I worry about trying to understand and figuring out what I need to do but God gives us the answer already. Be anxious for nothing but in everything be Praying! The way to worry about nothing is to be praying about everything. He supplies you with complete peace of mind and heart (phil 4:7). If your care is too small to be turned over to God in prayer, that care is too small to worry about.

So, all I need to do is pray. Sounds simple. I realize that this is something that gets overlooked. My focus gets taken off of Him. I think I have it handled and there it is right in front of me again. What happened? I was not praying. I thought I had it. That's the problem, I thought I had it. Not allowing God to have it.

Once again, God does not give you anything more than what you can handle and when you have temptations He provides a way out. Those temptations could be the simple irritation that could draw me away from focusing on God. He provides a way from those temptations and that is by praying to Him. I am going to challenge myself to pray to Him with ALL things, especially when the thoughts come reeling in to call out to God and ask Him to put my focus back on Him. To stretch myself more and bring a closer relationship with God. I don't know how strong I will be or consistent but know this needs to be more fervently done.

Praying in His footsteps

Stephanie

God's Perfect Knowledge

I read this story this morning and I forgot that I marked it to reread tonight. duh! Anyway, wanted to share it because it is such an innocent story but with such truth to it.

Another from Elizabeth George.
A saint of another era wrote of a customer in a shop where a small boy stood with outstretched arms while the owner placed package after package from the shelves into the boy's waiting arms. As the pile grew higher and higher and the weight increased, the customer could stand it no longer. He remarked to the boy, "My lad, you'll never be able to carry all that!" Turning around the boy replied with a smile, "My father knows how much I can carry."
Such assurance and trust! Just think, your heavenly Father knows exactly how much you can carry!

This little boy had all faith knowing that his father would not give him more than he could handle. Where does my faith go sometimes? All the things that get blown out of proportion in my head and I think I can't handle it but He knows waaaaay ahead of me that I can handle it or else He would not be directing me the way I am going.

Lately, I have seen him put things to rest in my life and others after conjuring up the situation to be worse than it really is. How do I know this, what if I do this, what are they going to do if this, why do they keep doing that and if I do that are they going to be mad at me? Ye of little faith, reach your hand out to mine and let me walk with you. When I do, the peace is there and I know we have just taken a step together.



Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore, I hope in Him. Lam 3:22-24


Thank goodness I can put my head down on the pillow at night and wake up to know that He is so faithful to me and are new each day.

In His Footsteps
Stephanie

Finding God's Path

All day today I have had this stirring inside me to write but I don't know why or what. Maybe to express that I am human and still have not shaken the fact that I cannot perfect myself through yet another personality trial at work. I thought I had left this behind at my last job. Now, yet again?!

Then, I was reading a book by Elizabeth George, Finding God's Path Through Your Trials. She so eloquently but bluntly says God is going to give us trials and they are not going to let up. eh! But she says that no believer is exempt from trials and no trial is unique. So, that in itself is encouraging because we are not the only ones that have gone through this trial. Maybe different circumstances but the same frustration. Nor is it a trial that God, himself, has not gone through and knows what we are feeling.

I realize I have stood still in my relationship with Him trying to figure out which way to go or what to do. Hearing my own voice inside just wanting a way out of the situation and not walking the path of wisdom with Him. I didn't want to admit to Him that I am back here again feeling defeated. He gives me others in my life to be able to relate to and understand the trial with so I can grow in His strength and wisdom. The circumstance may be different but the feeling is the same.

Then, He opens my eyes in His Word and shows me these verses:

Ecclesiastes 1:8-9
All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

There is nothing new under the sun to Him and He just wants us to come to Him sharing the frustration of the day. He comforts us in whatever we are dealing with in life, friends or co-workers. His Word is a light unto my path.

In His footsteps
Stephanie

Smile

Realizing again, when I take a moment, I can do what I had given up when I thought I couldn't do it. I learn from You, Lord, in not giving up.

THIS is the little thing that puts a smile on my face because I fought through the voice telling me to give up. Yeah!

In His footsteps
Stephanie

My All in All

It could've been so easy to let the moment take me down with frustration in the day. Instead I remembered to just breathe. When others looked at me like I am from another planet as I try so hard to explain something.

Paul says "when I am weak, then I am strong". God fills my cup and gives me strength. As I spoke with a friend today, He filled me when I had no words nor the full heart to speak. It was not me but indeed, Him, who was in me.

How sweet the feeling of knowing that it was Him working in my life.
In His footsteps
Stephanie

....Words to say

How do you communicate with someone when you don't have the right words to say? When they mix up all that you said in their own mind? I heard this song last night which sounded familiar in that my mind wanders away from where I am and miss the voice that I am to hear. I so not want to be there trying to make someone else understand me but it's not me they are to see but the One who speaks through me. May I not be stuck in the moment of frustration but allow Him to speak to me.

"Quiet my Heart"
by Brooke Barrettsmith from the album Brooke Barrettsmith

My mind wanders away
Dreaming of where I could be on another day
I'm always so far ahead
I seem to miss the one that I'm in
And I regret the time I lost
Slow me down before it's gone

Right here in the moment I'm given
I'll treasure the breath that I breathe in
And I'll rest in You
You quiet my heart
Somehow every second that's passing
Is filled so much meaning
As I wait here with You
Quiet my heart

I get stuck in between
Yesterday and all that tomorrow brings
When all that You want from me
Is that I come and sit at your feet
And know that You are God
And with You no time is lost

Don't let me run away
Show me why I should stay
Open my eyes to take in Your beauty
Keep me here in this place
Take me in Your embrace
There's no place I'd rather be than right now.

In His footsteps
Stephanie

The Lord is with me

Today was a good day. Other than a little migraine and some weird numbness going on, today was an overall good day. I come home and a wave of hopelessness hits me. Why does this happen? Why can't it go smoothly and my mind just keep on the right track in thinking of the peace that God has been giving me over the past few days? The utter sense of Him being with me that covered me on Sunday warming my soul. My body now cries out within me and says "why am I here, Lord?".

You are a great and mighty God,

You know me inside and out.

You chose me before the creation of this world.

You knew all my thoughts and the battles of good and evil.

You are always with me.

I am never alone.

May the thoughts that wage within me

Hear the small still voice of your whisper saying "I am here".

Lift my eyes to You as the tears of my heartache are brushed away by your loving touch.

I know this hopelessness that seems to come over me is the thorn in my side You have set in me that reminds me of You.

In His footsteps

Stephanie

Jonah

So, I read the book of Jonah this morning. Funny, the book practically starts off with Jonah running from the Lord because he doesn't want to hear what God wants him to do. Turns the other direction and goes off on a big ship bound for "far away from God". Like a little child thinking he is going to get away as he hides behind the lamp from his parent. No, I am not here. You don't seeeeee me. haha!

How often I do that myself whether I recognize it or not. What? Come on over here and spend time with You? Learn what you have to say to me so I can know how to handle the issues coming up at work? But Lord, why can't you just make HER change what she is doing? She's the one who's not doing what is right. Why do I have to do all the work? Ew! That sounded like whining. Just like what Jonah did. I don't want to do it because you are just going to do what you want in being kind and compassionate to them when they don't even deserve it. Oi'!

Makes me cringe knowing that I do those things but yet makes me smile knowing that He loves me and continues to be the compassionate, loving God that He is. Even when I do something a little different than what He wants.

In His footsteps

Stephanie

too sensitive

I have struggled with these words a good portion of my life. I am too emotional. I fight with them from inside my own inner thoughts and from other people.

I was joking around with a friend from where I used to work. We always joke around but sometimes it is at that point of "that doesn't feel like a joke" anymore. After saying something she said "you think you're funny but you're really not". Wow! That kind of hurt. The whole conversation from the time we started chatting was rather odd in that she was bolder than she normally was. When I got that, I knew it was time to back off. Then she wondered what was wrong and told me that I was tired and I needed to go to bed.

If I hurt you, I never ever intentionally mean to and when someone doesn't want me to joke, I always respect that and don't continue. I asked if I had offended her and she told me "no". I asked the next day about it and was told that I was being too sensitive. Really? Is that too sensitive or is it that I feel someone being rude in their reaction to me? If I am too sensitive it is because I care and what I heard is that what I said was offensive so please don't do that again but in a rude way.

Yes, I may be too sensitive but I think God made me this way for a reason. Maybe to respect people for who they are but also to respect me. If I were not sensitive then I would not have friendships and be able to relate to people with love and concern. God breaks my walls down for a reason and that may be to be more sensitive when it was not there before. Maybe I am a little more sensitive than others but God is not finished with making me who I am through Him.

John 15:1-2

I am the vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch that bears no fruit while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

Show me, listen with me and walk beside me. He will never leave you or forsake you. I went to church this morning and remembered how much I mean to HIM. My emotions sensitive in hearing Him and all.

In His footsteps

Stephanie