Prayerful Pondering

by Pat Luffman Rowland

Category: prayer

  • For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD (Isaiah 55:8 ESV). It feels good when we know we are using the gifts God has given. There is a sense of completion in our work. But what about the times we see our service as something here, something…

  • When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.           —Isaiah 43:2 (ESV) Yesterday, I leafed though a Bible I had not used…

  • At 10:30 each Tuesday morning, women gather in Room 144 of our church. We come happy, grateful, and expectant. We arrive for one purpose and one purpose only: for intercessory prayer. For the most part, we are members of First Assembly Memphis. But there is a sprinkling of ladies from other churches who are just…

  • The words of my morning devotional stood bold before me: “Unity doesn’t depend on outward conformity, but understanding hearts.” It was an apt description of my Tuesday morning prayer group.  Outwardly, we are quite different: different personalities, different backgrounds, different in many ways. But there is commonality that unifies us, and that is love for…

  • At a women’s conference some years back, we were taught the value of having a prayer table, giving a focused way to draw into communion with God.  On the table we were to place things that reminded us of our spiritual journey, the concept coming from the book of Joshua where God told the Israelites…

  • The book of Psalms provides much comfort.  As David and other psalmists share with us their own emotions, we learn how to deal with our own.  Psalm 91 is a psalm many of us like to pray for ourselves or others when comfort is needed.  We do that by personalization.  To make it your own declaration, or…

  • Father, the psalmists wrote so beautifully about You.  Thank You for sharing with us their words.  David was our chief psalmist and he was masterful in his writings, but there were others who wrote the songs of long ago that also told of You with great skill. Psalm 89 is one of the many psalms where words…

  • Father, I think often about Your mercy.  Your mercy throughout my life has been humbling and abundant.  Only You, O God, could extend such mercy to me — and to all humankind.  When I ponder on your mercy, these thoughts comes to me: You created man for a loving relationship.  You never intended us to know any kind of…

  • Trust is key to receiving all that our loving God would have us receive from Him.  It is what enables our salvation, our direction, our keeping, our healing, all that is good.  It is our trust that God truly cares for us that secures our future – in this world and the next.  We trust Him as our Father who…

  • Father, I need to remind myself often that You have said we are to cast all our anxieties on You.  The natural thing for me to do is worry, fret, and think too much about my problems.  I wish I weren’t that way, but we both know I am.  You’ve taught in Your word that…