Recently,
health difficulties escalated, and painful sitting advanced to an
all-time high. Looking back, I see the
last post was May 13,th even surprising me. But I have a strong reason to write something
today.
The concluding statement
of the last blog hits home: “Godly
purpose, a strong resolve to trust in God’s faithfulness—gifts of God for the
people of God who like Joseph have partially perplexing and terribly trying
seasons.” Well, holding onto God’s
faithfulness as Joseph did through his years of difficulty, has been very much
a part of this writing break and years before. Today I “heard” fresh encouragement worth
sharing.
Needing to
rest, finding time to read devotionals, to pray, is no problem. Reading from a few devotionals gives me a
place to start a prayer time and “listen” to what God might have to say to me
in them. Today, it seemed all four (the
heat is on) clicked, so I asked my husband if we could look at them together, and then
pray as we often do during the day.
Summarizing
points, one spoke of how Jesus felt humiliated on the cross, mocked about being
the “Son of God” who couldn’t get Himself off the cross. We, too can be mocked for having a vital
faith in a living Lord, Jesus. Another
emphasized the importance of worship, personal worship of God being part of
what makes prayer more “informed” and infused by this communion with God. In our Christian life, really making our loving
commitment to Him stronger than anything else we love, even good things just
overemphasized and tricky to discern. Finally,
one stressed humility and cited John the Baptist as an example. Yet, even he, a mighty man
of God who heard the His voice at Jesus's baptism, had a moment of doubt. Wouldn’t we all—locked up in prison because
of a hateful, vicious request for his head on a platter. Jesus's reply to John’s messengers asking if He
was really the One, was not one of criticism but encouragement, reminding John of
what He had done—healing the sick and preaching to the poor,suggesting we can
take our doubts to Jesus and hear assurance, too.
So, Jim and
I began our prayer with worship, something we admitted we weren’t sure how to
do. As I attempted to begin, I
remembered a person on“Show Me St. Louis” today (my husband featured,too) say
that he started each day being thankful to God for something, an attitude
adjustment I could use. I then started
worshipping God as the giver of everything good. The first thing I thought was how much God had
done to bring my husband and me to the time of doing exactly what we were doing.
It’s a long
story, but in a nutshell, we grew up a Catholic and a Presbyterian and
continued going to church, occasionally with one another. But when I became interested in the teachings
of the charismatic movement in the 70s, our differences became our only real strains
in marriage. But after a long illness, I
was open to hearing about a God who could do more than hold my hand and make me
strong. And as I searched the
scriptures, this baptism in the Holy Spirit, though in ways foreign and unappealing, seemed valid in Bible times and
meant to continue empowering believers.
I had prayer for this baptism and have seen the gifts, including praying
in tongues, at work in my life and others.
Controversial but time for full disclosure here from Kay.
Although we
are all always a work in progress—or not—this morning time with my husband was indeed one of God’s
best gifts, one to worship Him for with much thanksgiving.
