God Didn’t Answer My Prayers

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Wednesday night during my Sermon on the Mount Precept study as I sat and watched the accompanying Kay Arthur video with the rest of the class the Lord spoke to my heart. He has a way of doing that in His still small voice. When He thundered from the top of Mount Sinai from His cloud of glory the people shook with fear, so today in and through Christ by His Holy Spirit He chooses the still small voice… which means only those who have ears to hear will hear. So beloved, make sure your ears are open when you are asking.

This past Wednesday Kay was teaching us from Matthew 6:1-18 and the majority of this passage of Scripture is on prayer. As Kay covered the index sentences of the Lord’s Prayer I was writing my allegiance is to Your Kingdom, Your will be done… and in that moment the Lord spoke and I wrote His words to me, “I did answer your prayer, just not with your will”

What I have learned clearly this past year is how often we say, “God didn’t answer my prayers” when what we really mean is “God didn’t give me what I asked for.” The two simply are not synonymous.

Just because I didn’t get what I asked for does not mean that God didn’t answer my prayers. God did. I asked him to heal my Daddy, and He answered, “I have” (from Psalm 30:2)

I asked God to let them see Ashleigh get married and He answered, “No… in My book were all written the days that were ordained for them, when as yet there was not one of them” (from Psalm 139:16).

Just because God didn’t do my will, does not mean that He was deaf to my prayer or that He didn’t answer.

In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.

Hebrews 5:7

Jesus WAS heard, but He STILL went to the cross.

saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.”

Luke 22:42

Prayer is about open communication with the Creator and Sustainer of the entire universe. Prayer is having the freedom to sit down and chat with the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Prayer is the opportunity to be first in line, every time, and with all the time needed to meet face to face and one on one with the Wonderful Counselor and the Great Physician.

Prayer is not the fast food window where I put in my order my way and get exactly what I asked for in 30 minutes or less or the next meal is free.

He is God and we are not.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?

Psalm 8:3-4

 

Ready Yourself

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Last night I gathered with some of my fellow sisters in Christ and watched the webcast of the beginning of Kay Arthur’s Fall Conference. The theme of the conference is about being ready today for what will come tomorrow. I am also in the midst of facilitating a Precept study through the Sermon on the Mount. This week we are in the midst of digging into Matthew 6:19-7:5 which so happens to be discussing about how we are not to worry about tomorrow.

Beloved, since we have no way of knowing what tomorrow might bring the only way we can prepare for the unknown of tomorrow is by immersing ourselves today in the Known.

Our God has left 66 books of hard core truth and promises that have been designed from their delivery to prepare our hearts and minds to trust in Him and Him alone. We live in a world that is always changing and we here in the United States live in a nation that has become unrecognizable from the nation we knew even twenty years ago. Yet one thing has not changed. One thing will always remain. This one thing is what we MUST set our eyes on and rest our hearts and minds in.

But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:41-42

Sitting at the feet of Jesus. Soaking in the Word of God. Seeing life through His eyes. This no one, absolutely no one, can take away from you. It can’t be lost, raped, stolen, or destroyed. Truth is truth. No matter who tries to change it or ignore it.

Jesus is plain when He says, “…blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” (Luke 11:28)

Many in our nation today hear the Word of God and then they try to adapt it to say what it doesn’t say in order to make them more comfortable. God did not call His people to comfort, but to a cross.

If the Word of God has never cut you to the bone, then I dare say you have never truly received it.

If the Word of God never comes in to play outside your Sunday theatre chair or pew, then I dare say you have never truly observed it.

If the Word of God has never been used to decide the course of your choices concerning your own life and the life of those you hold authority over or have the opportunity to influence by association, then I dare say you have never truly believed it.

We never, I repeat NEVER, have to wring our hands in utter desperation and say “I don’t know what to do” if we belong to the ONE TRUE and KNOWN GOD… because He has given us His Word to guide us. It’s there. He’s there. We just have to choose to love Him, believe Him, and obey Him.

That is what faith is…

Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Genesis 15:6

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By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.

Hebrews 11:8

Faith is stepping into the unknown because of what is known. If you are reading this today and you stand paralyzed in fear of tomorrow could it be that you have simply not trusted in the Hope of today?

Remember the word to Your servant, In which You have made me hope.

Psalm 119:49

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I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, And in His word do I hope.

Psalm 130:5

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For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Romans 15:4

The enemy of my soul has tried to use the Lord’s taking of my Daddy and my Sister-in-Love home as a weapon against me. The enemy has tried to use the failure of other believers to be what He has called them to be as a weapon against me. The enemy has tried to take what the Lord could use to strengthen and grow me as an opportunity to cause me to shake my fist in the face of my God and my faith in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but the enemy has failed.

No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; and every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their vindication is from Me,” declares the Lord.

Isaiah 54:17

I will be about my Father’s business until the day He calls me home. I will ready myself today, through the study of and consistent application of His Word, in and throughout every aspect of my life, so that when tomorrow comes I shall not fear. I might stumble at times, but I shall never fall for my God holds me.

He will hold you too beloved. Will you ready yourself?

The Battle Plan For Prayer

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This past Monday morning as I listened to my Bible study lesson with Phil Waldrep he made the statement that demons can assess our spiritual condition as they can tell when we have not been praying. I know this to be true. The spiritual forces of darkness are not ignorant of our weaknesses and the enemy of our soul is always lurking about seeking whom he may devour.

Evil is always looking for the open door.

Usually when I review books I try to bend them as little as possible and keep them as new as I can because I usually give them away to someone else to be blessed by them. However, when I opened up The Battle Plan for Prayer I grabbed my pen… this one was staying with me.

Prayer has been difficult for me for a while. I have shared that before here on my blog. It was during a forty day fast as I was trying to find my footing with my God again after a very rough couple of years that He chose to bring both my Daddy and my Sister-in-Law home to Him. I cannot begin to explain to you the storm that blew across my soul during that time and has been waging since… yet my roots have held.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord
and whose trust is the Lord.

For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

Beloved if you are going to be able to stand firm through times of drought and still be able to bear fruit you must be a man or woman of prayer. You must know how to pray according to the will of God and not your own whims. Had I not been firmly rooted in the Word yesterday, I know that I would have not been able to stand in the storms of today.

I haven’t seen the movie War Room yet, but I have read several of the books affiliated with it and I must say that thus far this one has been my favorite.

688669: The Battle Plan for Prayer: From Basic Training to Targeted Strategies The Battle Plan for Prayer: From Basic Training to Targeted Strategies
By Stephen Kendrick & Alex Kendrick

 

The Kendrick brothers take the topic or prayer and look at it through the headings of: Enlistment, Basic Training, Conditioning, Strategies, Targets, Ammunition, and Reinforcements. Whether you are a seasoned prayer warrior or a brand new baby believer, this book is an excellent tool to revive, enhance, or begin your prayer life.

The book is meant to be gone through slowly and purposely. The goal is to read a chapter a day. Each chapter is just a few pages long. Read, meditate on the Scriptures shared, and by all means pray. Really pray.

Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak

Matthew 26:41

Even if it feels like your prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling… pray anyway. Pray in faith. Pray in faith that the God who promised to hear and answer is able and faithful. His ears are not deaf and He gathers the prayers of His saints… every single one.

Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne.

Revelation 8:3

I received this book free for an honest review… and I am so very grateful that I did. Do I recommend it? Yes, yes indeed I do.

It’s Just An Ordinary Day

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What advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun? A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; and hastening to its place it rises there again. Blowing toward the south, then turning toward the north, the wind continues swirling along; and on its circular courses the wind returns. All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again. All things are wearisome;

Ecclesiastes 1:3-8

Sitting with my family the other night watching the premier of “The Voice” I was reminded of this post that I began several days before. Sometimes the Lord will simply place a thought in my heart and then will build on it before He ever gives me the sit down and be still time to write it out. This thought pulls all the way back to an overnight trip that my husband and I took back in August.

I had been scrolling through colleges and looking at seminary degrees and researching and on our way to our destination I asked him what he thought about me going back to school and getting a degree in Biblical counseling. He then said, “why is just being a wife and mother not enough?

As we sat down and watched “The Voice” there were at least two contestants that had abandoned their families to pursue their “musical dreams” and they claimed to be doing so for their kids, so they could show them that it was okay to go after their dreams.

After the second one my husband and I both looked at each other and then asked our girls which they thought the children of these two would have preferred… Watching their parents forsake those they claimed to love in order to pursue a personal dream or to have them forsake a personal dream in order to be there for the one’s they claimed to love. It didn’t take a second for our girls to answer. They knew that those kids would rather have had their family together.

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends

John 15:13

How easily we have allowed Satan to destroy our families and our faith through the shallow promises of fame and mountaintop highs. When did being a faithful spouse, a loving parent, a loyal employer and/or employee stop being enough? 

And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.

Luke 4:5-6

In this same week we watched an episode of “The Waltons”. In this episode Olivia had taken a job as a seamstress and she was amazing at her trade. So much so that the owner of the business wanted her to run that store while she opened another one in another town. This coming with week long trips to fashion shows in New York. Olivia flattered struggled with many sleepless nights as to what she should do… deciding that her first priority was to her family she declined the opportunity. That’s quite the opposite of the stories of many today. 

I believe it so often has boiled down to the fact that we have forgotten the sacredness of the ordinary. This is not immune to the church or even to my own heart. Perhaps we just might have set ourselves up to live as Phil Waldrep stated earlier this week “from mountaintop experience to mountaintop experience“. We drag ourselves through the daily routine simply to get us through to the next big thing. Whether it be the end of our school or work week living Friday night to Friday night or in our spiritual walk living Sunday morning to Sunday morning or conference to conference but,

Discipleship isn’t about running from mountain-top experience to mountain-top experience. It is about denying yourself, taking up the cross and following Jesus.
~ Phil Waldrep

Our lives are scheduled from schools start to Fall Break to Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Years to Valentines to Easter to Spring Break to Summer Vacation. Our church life seldom looks any different than our kids school schedule or the Wal-Mart seasonal decoration aisles.

While the calendar may seem to set us up to live from one major holiday to the next, what if there is far more to expect from the rest of our days? While holy days mark events that dramatically shape both religious and secular worldviews, our ordinary days give us the space to live these events out. In the repetitive rhythm of the church calendar, human hearts are invited to beat expectantly of a greater kingdom. Ordinary time is never ordinary, for God’s presence always involves the unexpected.

~ Jill Carattini

I am sure you have heard the saying about the dash. When these bodies have breathed their last and our spirit returns to the One who gave it to us, we are down to two mountaintop experiences. The day of our birth and the day of our death. Yet these two mountaintop experiences are not what define us… but it is instead the valley of the dash.

Strangers from the time of the laying of the stone until the day of the destruction of the earth will walk by and see the mountaintops, but only those that were a part of your ordinary everyday life will have a clue about that dash.

So we can live our lives so that people who never met us or really knew us can quote the dates of our mountaintops to mountaintops as we hop from one to the next or we can instead choose to dwell long and purposeful in the valley of the dash. Working not for fame, but from faith. Faith that the Lord is there in the ordinary. After all He laid aside the glory of heaven and became ordinary for us…

For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

Isaiah 53:2

Just an ordinary Baby from an ordinary girl who married an ordinary man who would teach Him the way he had been commanded by their Heavenly Father in and through ordinary life. An ordinary Baby who would grow to become an ordinary Kid with questions, who would become an ordinary Man who would teach other ordinary men to do extraordinary things for the Extraordinary God in the midst of ordinary days. Who would die on a cross with ordinary thieves so that ordinary girls like me might be saved.

The information in that dash is reserved only for those who were there for the ordinary. The ordinary matters. It’s easy to claim to live for Jesus up there on that mountaintop, and sometimes instead of living Jesus out in the valley of the shadow of death we just want to throw up a tabernacle right there up top, but Jesus brought Peter, James, and John down from the mountain (Mark 9).

Live for Him in the ordinary. It’s never just another ordinary day.