Tag Archives: praise

Thanksgiving Day 2021

25 Thursday Nov 2021

Posted by in Thanksgiving

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This day I am thankful for the more basic things of life:

                A lamp over my shoulder by which to read God’s word

                A warm fireplace to chase away the early morning chill

                The sun that brings morning light

                Coffee and food to begin my day

I am thankful for a rich family heritage:

                That I was born into a God-fearing, believing family

                That church was a part of our life, not an option

                That I had parents who took care of me, sometimes sacrificially

                For parents and grandparents who taught by example

I am thankful at night:

                When I recount the blessings of protection throughout the day

                When I lie down in a comfortable bed in a house that is mine

                Knowing that for now our country is still free

                Knowing that for always God will care for His children

I love the memories of Thanksgivings past:

                The hours of excited preparation for our feasting

                Having family and friends in my home and around my table

                The pleasure it gave my parents and grandparents to come for repast

                My full-of-faith, humble grandfather being the one returning thanks

The Lord has blessed me most abundantly.

                I give Him praise and I give Him thanks!

                He is my first thought in the morning,

                my last thought in the evening.

                I lift up the Lord God Almighty in gratitude!

I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever;

with my mouth I will make your

faithfulness known through all generations.

I will declare that your love stands firm forever,

that you established your faithfulness in heaven itself.

                                                                              ~~Psalm 89:1-2 NIV

How To Make Your Devotions Come Alive

04 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by in devotion, earth

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I grew up in a Southern Baptist home. On Sundays, we checked off our offering envelopes with the following: Sunday School Attendance, Bible Brought, Lesson Studied, Giving, Daily Bible Reading, and Worship Attendance.  Growing up I was expected to do these six things every week to provide a solid spiritual foundation, but it was not until my twenties that I experienced my first “wow” moment with devotion, and it was through the Living Bible.

The Living Bible, first published in 1971, introduced me anew to scripture. When I got mine, I determined to read it through and wasn’t far into Genesis when I began seeing things I didn’t remember reading in the King James Version (KJV). So I would go back to the KJV to be sure this new Bible wasn’t adding things. Each time I checked, the same truth was there, just more clearly spoken in the paraphrased Bible. This new understanding enlivened my devotions. I was eager to learn from this plain-speaking Bible. All this to say, choose a Bible that is right for you, and consider changing translations from time to time. My devotions are always energized by a new translation.

By nature, I am a curious individual and want the details. I keep a concordance, map, and commentary nearby for when I read scripture. A concordance helps to find scriptures easily and most Bibles have them in back. A map brings a visual to the time and place in scripture. A commentary gives information by those who have spent their lives studying and expounding on scripture. You may not use them every day, but if something comes to you in while reading your Bible that you want to understand better, having resources right at hand will enable that. I am presently using Matthew Henry’s Complete Bible Commentary, a favorite of Charles Spurgeon and George Whitefield, with Whitefield saying he read it through six times, the last time on his knees.

Create an environment that welcomes the Lord. I like to begin with worship music. Sometimes I sing along, other times I close my eyes and sit in silence as it penetrates my soul.  If you have trouble with random thoughts intruding on your quiet time, keep a pad and pen nearby for writing them down for later, then get back to the Lord. Welcome His presence by being 100% His!

Inspiration from The Word for Today, the devotional magazine our church graciously provides, will help you get in stride with the Lord as you begin your quiet time. A year-long devotional book I cherish and read over and over is Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest. A clergy favorite, one pastor was quoted as saying it was his second most important book–right after the Bible.

Along with those you know to pray for, ask the Holy Spirit’s guidance for any others. When I ask Him who I should pray for, almost always someone unexpected comes to mind.  I trust that prompting even if I never know why. When in prayer, allow God time to speak to you. Someone wrote that most of us rush into prayer, pour out all our needs and wants, then turn and hurry into our day without giving God time to speak to us.

Set aside occasional devotions where you ask God for nothing. Praise Him for the God you know Him to be and thank Him for how He has blessed you. Turn any petition that begins to form on your lips into words of how you trust Him to love and take care of you. If your child came to you in this manner, would it not delight you? Our Father yearns for this, too. Do this and be prepared for an infilling of joy and peace.

Learn about the lives of great servants of the Lord. Did you know George Mueller built five orphanages and cared for over 10,000 orphans on faith alone, trusting God to send the money or food they needed each day? Did you know Mother Teresa came from a well-to-do home and gave it all up to minister to the poor and dying? Did you know that her first patient was a man she found dying on the steps of a hospital and that she gathered him into her arms and refused to leave until the hospital took him in? The life stories of people of great faith will take you up the mountains of praise and worship and encourage you in your own relationship with God.

Keep a journal nearby. Record prayers God has answered and include the details, for it’s in the details that we see God’s hand. When we know His personal interventions, it builds our confidence in trusting Him more.

Devotions come alive when we come hungry, come expecting, and come grateful. If you let these things be the hallmark of your time with God, you will never be disappointed.

“Spend plenty of time with God, let other things go, but don’t neglect Him.”

–J. Oswald Sanders, missionary, evangelist, author

Favorite Quotes on Prayer

17 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by in prayer

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I have long been a collector of quotes. A few words can speak so much. An avid reader, I have journals with nothing but quotes from favorite authors that have taught, comforted, and encouraged me through the years. Unfortunately, I did not keep a record of what book I found each quote, as my intention was to record them only for personal review. All  are about prayer and it is my hope that you will find some blessing for yourself in the quotes I am sharing.

ingrid-bergman-2016“When a man is born from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve that life or nourish it. Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished.”  –Oswald Chambers

“Our strength is renewed in only one way: spending time with God in prayer, waiting on Him, immersed in scripture reading, time with God’s people, cultivating Christ’s presence—so that the Holy Spirit may take over.”  –St. Francis de Sales

“Do not have your concert first and then tune your instrument afterwards. Begin your day with the Word of God and prayer, and get first of all into harmony with Him.” –Hudson Taylor

“What is essential in prayer is not that we learn to express ourselves, but that we learn to answer God. The Psalms show us how to answer.”  –Eugene Peterson

“It is the prayer that God the Holy Spirit inspires that God the Father answers. . . . The Holy Spirit works His prayers in us through the Word, and neglect of the Word makes praying in the Holy Spirit an impossibility.”  – R. A. Torrey

“Praise and thanksgiving are an essential part of persevering prayer. The more we focus on praising God, the more devoted and faithful we become. “ –Cynthia Heald

“In prayer we cease leaning on the staff of self-will and put all our confidence in God.” –Maxie Dunnam lady-of-guadelupebest

“When we fail to make prayer a priority—essentially forfeiting our time alone with God—we will begin to feel an emptiness in our lives, accompanied by a strange sense of unrest and uneasiness.”  –Charles Stanley

“It is well said that neglected prayer is the birthplace of all evil.”  –Charles Spurgeon

“Praying for the sick is reaching out with one hand to touch the risen Christ while holding on to the sick with the other hand.”  –Robert L. Wise

“Prayer is the rope that pulls God and man together. But it doesn’t pull God down to us, it pulls us up to Him.” –Billy Graham

“The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fear nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.”  –Samuel Chadwick

“He must set his heart to conquer by prayer, and that will mean that he must first conquer his own flesh, for it is the flesh that hinders prayer always.” –A. W. Tozer

“I think that the dying pray at the last not ‘please’ but ‘thank you,’ as a guest thanks his host at the door.” –Annie Dillard

“If the only prayer you say throughout your life is ‘Thank you,’ then that will be enough.” –Meister Eckhartbucket-of-roses-jul-29-2016

God’s Faithfulness

31 Monday Jan 2011

Posted by in Christianity, prayer

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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 become like a brush on a painter’s canvas.  This psalm is by Ethan as he recounts Your covenant with David, and the sorrow of lost blessings.

Verse 8 says “You are mighty, O Lord, and Your faithfulness surrounds You.” I rest my reading for a moment and look out into the distance to consider how faithfulness surrounding you might look.  I see a cloud-like atmosphere of gentleness, a place of safe abode.  It is filled with omnipotent love.  You are there watching over us, beckoning the weary, soothing the heavy burdened, smiling on the ones who overcome trial by their trust in You.  Your faithfulness flows out on all those who call You Lord.

Verse 15 says “Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim You, who walk in the light of Your presence, O Lord.”  It is another place to pause and envision.  Your redeemed ones are standing in the light of Your being, which is greater than a thousand suns.  These, Your children, are praising and worshiping the Lamb of Glory.  They are rejoicing in Your faithfulness, calling out the many ways You have proven Your love over and over again.

The psalmist tells of Your faithful love for David, and how You will be with him always.  Yet in verse 38, there is a sudden turn.  Ethan puts aside his recounting of Your blessings and declares that You failed David, the one You promised to uphold forever.   His words turn from those of praise, to weeping and questioning.  It is another place for reflection.  A place to be still and ponder.

You had a relationship with David like no other, this man You took from shepherd to king.  You told us David was a man after Your own heart.  Yet, there were times when he felt separated from You.  Sometimes he understood why this was and other times he didn’t.  And so it is with us.

Sometimes we feel You have abandoned us.  We feel anxious and troubled over unanswered prayers.  We worry that our valley experiences will never again lead to the mountaintops, that we will be pressed beyond our ability to bear what life hands us.  Most of the time, it is our sin that interrupts relationship.  But other times we feel abandoned and we don’t know why.  One catastrophe after another comes; we are hit hard.  And we cry out like the psalmist, “How long, O Lord?  Will You hide Yourself forever?” (v. 46)

This journey on earth is tough.  It is complicated, frustrating, and exhausting.  Being a Christian doesn’t take that away, usually it makes it worse.  For living as a follower of Christ in a fallen world gives ongoing struggle with evil.  Life on this earth will never be without suffering.  But it is not in disappointment and despair that we are to live.  Rather, we are to live in the knowledge of One high and lifted up.  It is there we must cling.  Even when it “feels” like You aren’t with us, You are.   You never forsake Your children.  That’s the full story of the Holy Bible, and we can rest in its truth.

With all the psalmist’s grief and groaning, he ends by exalting You.  He returns to the way his psalm begins.  He gives you praise and honor!  This man of old tells us that no matter how deep the pain, You are still with us and we can trust in that.

Now I reflect again on this writing of the 89th psalm.  It tells me that I am always to see my Lord with faithfulness encircling Him.  There is no break in Your faithfulness — it remains.  And it is through praise that we are able to enter in.  For Your word says that You inhabit our praise; we can always find You there.  And when this world’s darkness seeks to overwhelm us, we can remember we have a choice:  to tarry in the darkness of this world, or step confidently into the Light that is Your presence.   For faith isn’t a feeling; it is a decision.

Thank You, blessed God, for the words and assurance of this psalmist.  He is a witness of Your faithfulness.  His words have been preserved for us so that we may know what relationship with You looks like.  We thank You, Abba Father, for the encouragement of this psalm.

NIV translation used.