Praise Him

In our humanness we experience a lot of complex emotions, but to me there's nothing worse than the feeling of helplessness, especially when someone you love is hurting, and you can't do anything to alleviate it. It's hard to know that the people you care most about are in pain, but I imagine it's almost unbearable for God to see His children suffering.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and allow you to think I have it all together, for when it comes to understanding God's purpose for allowing pain to happen, I really don't.

I've had days when I wanted to scream why at the sky, days when I've actually done just that. My pleading ascends to God desperately, begging Him to answer my prayers, wondering why He chooses not to. My ways are not His ways, but sometimes in the dark of night when I'm trying to pray, feeling as though my voice is just bouncing off the ceiling, I want to bow my head in utter defeat.

Yet, in that same darkness I hear a voice, one that begins as a mere wisp of the subconscious, and then builds stronger and stronger until I realize it's a voice I recognize, a voice I've come to rely on with all my heart and soul. It's the voice of my Lord and Savior and He's saying over and over again:

"Praise Me, even though you believe you're walking alone in the darkness."

"Praise Me, even when you feel helpless, hopeless and lost."

"Praise Me, even when you don't understand."

'Praise be to the Lord, for he has heard my cry for mercy.' (Psalm 28:6 NLT)

'Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.' (Psalm 103:1)

'Praise him for his mighty works; praise his unequaled greatness!' (Psalm 159:2 NLT)

"Praise Me! Praise Me!" His voice continues to reverberate so strongly through my mind, His impassioned plea vying for my undivided attention.

It was there, in that moment of solitude when I was feeling most alone that He reminded me, as long as I kept looking to Him, the Author and Finisher of my faith, I didn't need to know the answers. I didn't need to understand what He was doing, or why He was doing it. (Hebrew 12:2)

My only responsibility is to praise Him.

Only to praise Him? How could I ever deny Him that right? After all, we were created by Him for that very purpose. (Isa 43:7)

One day the sky is going to split wide open and our risen Lord will descend on the clouds to gather us home. I yearn for the day when I finally have all my answers, but until then I will choose to praise Him.(1 Thes 4:16)

When I feel hopeless because I can't remove a friend's pain, I will praise Jehovah-rapha, the LORD that heals. (Exodus 15:26)

When I can't understand why some prayers go unanswered, I will praise El Roi, the God who sees. (Genesis 16:11-14)

When I want nothing more than to run away and hide, I will praise Jehovah-rohi, the Lord my Shepherd. (Psalm 23:1)

When my fears seem to be far more than I can handle, I will praise Jehovah-elyon, The Creator. (Genesis 1:1)

When everything in me screams for answers, I will praise El Shaddai, the All Sufficient One. (Psalm 92)

Please pray with me:
Father,
My heart cries out for the ones who are continually burdened with pain. I don't have the answers or the understanding for why You don't heal them, so instead I'm going to continue to put my faith in You, and praise You through it all.
In Your name I pray,
Amen

Salina


Jaynes, Sharon, "28 Names of God in the Old Testament," taken from the book Building an Effective Women's Ministry, Harvest House Pub., 2005.

www.sharonjanes.com

This post is linked to:
Sharing His Beauty
Hear it on Sunday, Use it on Monday
Monday Meet Up

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If you can't say something nice

Photo by Anita Hunt @ Scattering the Stones Ministry

"If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all."

(Thumper, Bambi, The Walt Disney Company, 1942) 

Please raise your hand if you've ever thought this, or wanted to say it out-loud to someone. Just so you know, I'm not only raising my hand, I'm standing on top of my chair with both hands in the air waving them at you screaming, "Me, me, me!"

'The human spirit can endure a sick body, but who can bear a crushed spirit?' (Proverbs 18:14 NLT)

People sure have a way of crushing us don't they? Just when we believe we have it all together, it never fails that someone will come along intent on tearing us back down. If you're anything like me, your natural response is to want to blast back at them with both barrels. 

In my mind I always have something particularly witty ready as a comeback. I respond with just the right amount of humor and intelligence, and it not only stops them in their tracks, but causes them to feel just as bad as they made me feel. In fact, I imagine they are so sorry they immediately apologize and promise never to say another negative thing to or about me.

'Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable.' (Romans 12:17 NLT)

"But, what about protecting myself God, what about taking up for myself? I don't want to be considered a mouse with no voice of my own."

 'A truly wise person uses few words; a person with understanding is even-tempered. Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent; with their mouths shut, they seem intelligent.' (Proverbs 17:27, 28 NLT)

"Okay Lord, I understand, but surely I have the right to respond, because after all, they did start it. Besides, how could I possibly seem intelligent if I'm not allowed to voice my opinion?"

'The LORD detests evil plans, but he delights in pure words. The heart of the godly thinks carefully before speaking; the mouth of the wicked overflows with evil words.' (Proverbs 15:26, 28 NLT)

Wait a minute! So then You're saying I can speak, but only if I make sure my words are pure in thought before saying them out-loud? Okay Lord, I'm willing to give it a try, but I'm really going to need Your help.

'Those who listen to instruction will prosper; those who trust the LORD will be joyful.' (Proverbs 16:20 NLT)

My friend, God wants nothing more than for us to be joyful. A person full of joy doesn't repay evil with evil. Instead, they exhibit self-control over their thoughts and tongue. I know self-control is a trait that seems impossible sometimes, but as Christians we are given the Holy Spirit to lead and help us in that area.

'And we have received God's Spirit (not the world's spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.' (1 Corinthians 2:12 NLT)

We are living proof of Christ's love so we are to set an example for others to follow. When we allow our emotions to take control of our tongue we are playing into the enemy's schemes. We are telling the person we are talking negatively to that Jesus is not strong enough, or powerful enough to restrain our tongue.

 'We prove ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, by the Holy Spirit within us, and by our sincere love.' (2 Corinthians 6:6 NLT)

'Make allowances for each other's faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.' (Colossians 3:13 NLT)

We have to learn not only self-control, but we also have to master the ability to forgive. We have to show not only restraint, but also love. I know it's so very hard to turn the other cheek, but if we really want to be an example of Christ's mercy and grace, the very best way to do so is through our actions.

Please pray with me:

Father:
How great You are! Your unfailing love brings me to my knees in praise. I simply cannot fathom why Your mercy keeps renewing me over and over again, but it does. It refreshes my soul in ways the world will never be able to provide.

I'm coming to You in prayer for Your help with controlling my tongue and temper. When people say things to me, to my friends, please give me the supernatural ability to forgive and turn away from replying in a negative hate-filled way.

Father, it's especially hard for me to see the ones I love in pain from hurtful words.  I want to rescue them with lots of words of my own, taking up their cause and repaying the person who hurt them with just as much pain. I know my ways are not Yours though, so I ask for Your help. I pray for self-control and the ability to show the world that You truly are the example we need to be following.

In Jesus' name,

Amen

Salina

________________________________________________

This devotion is linked to the following:

Bless and Be Blessed
Faith Filled Friday
Hear it on Sunday, Use it on Monday
Monday Meet Up
Sharing His Beauty
The Alabaster Jar
Titus 2sday
On Your Heart Tuesdays
Word Filled Wednesday
God-Bumps & God-Incidences


Thank you for visiting. I would love for you to consider linking your blog to mine. Please click on the link below and follow the directions. Be sure to add a link back to my page on your own blog.

While here, please read a few of the linked devotions below and leave a love comment for them too. I promise you will be blessed as much as I will be.
I love meeting new people, so if you don't leave a link, please leave a comment so I can go to your page and learn all about you.

Honor the Father

I always enjoy Father's Day, a day set aside to celebrate my dad and to think about how much his influence as a Christian man has shaped and defined my life. There's not a stronger or more humble and loving person who could possibly take his place, but today my heart and mind have been entirely on my honoring my heavenly Father.  

John 5:23 says, 'Anyone who doesn't honor the Son is certainly not honoring the Father who sent him.' (NLT)

The Hebrew word for honor is time and is defined in the New Testament as a noun that means to give respect or recognition. The verb form of this same word is timao. "It's found approximately twenty times in the New Testament and means honoring God in the sense of worshipping and reverencing Him in a right spirit." (Renn)

I find it particularly appropriate today that the word honor means time. As Christians, we have an obligation to set aside time to worship and honor our Savior.  He is worthy to receive all our praise, but we have to decide how much time we are willing to give in worship to Him.

'O God, we give glory to you all day long and constantly praise your name.'
Psalm 44:8 NLT

'Let all that I am praise the LORD. O LORD my God, how great you are! You are robed with honor and majesty.'

Psalm 104:1 NLT

With all that is in me, I cry out to Him with praises on my lips. Oh, how can we not want to fall to our knees in worship when we think of His name?  He gave His life so that I might live, and when He did, He freed me from all my sins. Not just the sins of my past, but all the future ones I'm going to commit. I can't fully comprehend exactly what that means, but I know it deserves every ounce of my life to be given back to Him by following Him in unwavering discipleship.

'Anyone who wants to be my disciple must follow me, because my servants must be where I am.'

John 12:26 NLT

The other important thing we need to remember when it comes to honoring Christ is whether or not we are correctly reflecting Him in our lives.

'If you are wise and understand God's ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom.'

James 3:13 NLT

In our walk with Christ, we have to decide what's most important to us; what we believe the world wants to see, or providing the world with an accurate reflection of who Christ really is. I decided a long time ago that I want my truth to be the real Truth. We should have the desire to honor God above all things. It has to become our heart, our life, our very reason for being.

'If we live, it's to honor the Lord. And if we die, it's to honor the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.'
Romans 14:8 NLT

'For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past. And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ whether I live or die.'
Philippians 1:20 NLT

I want my life to represent Christ so strongly that there will be no way to mistake it for anything else.  I want people to be able to see Him in everything I do, and for them to recognize without words that He is most important to me.

We have to constantly re-evaluate our lives for the truth, to make sure we have nothing hindering our witness, nothing that could cause His light to shine less brightly than it should. Honoring our Father should be our first priority. If it's anything less than that, we should be asking ourselves why and striving to correct it.

Please pray with me:
Father,
I pray that my life honors You in every thing I say and do.  May I be in constant awareness of how I represent myself to the rest of the world and in the way I witness for You.

I give you all the glory and praise due to You and worship You above all others, praising 'holy, holy, holy is the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY who was and is and is to come.' (Rev 4:8)
In Jesus' name,
Amen 

Renn, Stephen, Expository Dictionary of Bible Words,  2005, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc, Peabody, Massachusetts, p. 497.


This devotion is linked to the following blogs:

Sharing His Beauty
Hear it on Sunday, Use it on Monday
Monday Meet Up
On Your Heart Tuesdays
Titus 2sday

Thank you for visiting. I would love for you to consider linking your blog to mine. Please click on the link below and follow the directions. Be sure to add a link back to my page on your own blog.

While here, please read a few of the linked devotions below and leave a love comment for them too. I promise you will be blessed as much as I will be.

I love meeting new people, so if you don't leave a link, please leave a comment so I can go to your page and learn all about you.

Healing honeycomb words

I'm super excited about the devotion I'm sharing today on Bloggers in God because it was co-written by my dear friend Anita Hunt from Scattering the Stones Ministry.

We are discussing a subject that's very near and dear to our hearts; looking at the damage that painful words can have on us, and the power of healing, honeycomb words. We talk about how words of pain have the tendency to leave behind scars that cut so deep we believe we'll never lose them. We discuss how just when we think our hearts will never heal, Jesus walks in and removes the pain, replacing it with healing words of truth; those very same wounds are then turned into scars of beauty, demonstrating what Jesus has done for us.

We invite you to read our post and hope it richly blesses you.

Healing, Honeycomb Words

Please share with your friends, if you would like to.

May God bless you, Salina

Image: Photo: Salina Gibson Thomas, words: Anita Hunt

Post will be published on Bloggers in God at 4.30 am Wednesday 13th June

I am Yours

I’ve spent the last few days reading Bible verses and writing ones that particularly spoke to me on index cards.  I discovered so many words of truth, but one section of verses kept calling me back over and over again.  They come from Isaiah 43:1-4.  I love the Message version best which says:

"Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you.  I've called your name.  You're mine.  When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you.  When you're in rough waters, you will not go down.  When you're between a rock and a hard place, it won't be a dead end-- Because I am GOD, your personal God, The Holy of Israel, your Savior.  I paid a huge price for you…That's how much you mean to me!  That's how much I love you!  I'd sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.” 

Okay, I don’t know about you, but those verses just make me swoon.  Have you ever had anyone pledge this kind of love to you?  I can answer no to that, because no one but God is or ever will be able to proclaim a love so strong and unconditional to you.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. (Rev 22:13)  He’s all these things and more to me and I want to share Him with you. 


I could never find the proper words to explain to you what it means to have someone call you by name, to always be there for you when you’re in over your head, in rough waters, or between a rock in a hard place. 

He loves you more than I can express, so please don’t keep letting the world rob you of life; for it is only through Him that we truly start living. 

“Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him.” (2 Timothy 2:11 NIV)

The only way I'm able to face each day is to die to Him over and over again in the knowledge that one day I will live with Him for eternity.

My pastor has a favorite question he always asks the congregation in regards to our salvation.  When I hear him ask, "Do you know, that you know, that you know?” I always smile to myself because it’s one question I will never have to think twice about.  

If there’s one thing I know that I know it’s that "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  (Galatians 2:20 NASB) 

What more do we need to know?  He calls us by name, we’re His, He’s going to be there with us through all the hard times we have to face, He loves us, and most importantly He paid the ultimate price for us; He died for our sins.  He has come so that we might have life and have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)

Please don't keep turning Life away.

Lord;
I have nothing to offer You but who I am, a sinner saved through Your loving grace.

As Casting Crowns sings, it’s "not because of who I am, but because of what You’ve done, it’s not because of what I’ve done, but because of who You are.  I am Yours.

Father, I'm praying this very moment for the person reading these words. I don't know their heart, but You do. 

I pray that if they don't know You, if they can't claim You as their personal Lord and Savior, they will ask You into their heart right now, that they will:

1.    Admit they need You (I am a sinner)
2.    Be willing to turn from their sins (repent)
3.    Believe that Jesus Christ died for them on the cross and rose from the grave.
4.    And pray this prayer:

Dear Lord,
I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior.
In Your name I pray, Amen

If you prayed this prayer, please let me or someone else know.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any prayer requests you might have, or if you just need someone to talk to.  stgibson19@yahoo.com

Salina

This devotion is linked up to:Monday Meet Up
Sharing His Beauty
Hear it on Sunday, use it on Monday
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A heart reflected

I have a friend who is very dear to me, but due to the long distance between us I can't make her a cup of tea when she's sick, receive a hug from her when I'm feeling sad, or look her in the eye to tell her what her friendship means to me. Although I've never been fortunate enough to physically see and spend time with her, I've still learned a lot from her.

In every situation I've ever experienced with her, through every conversation we've ever had, her heart has always reflected who she really is. I don't have to spend unnecessary time peeling back layers of masks in order to discover her truth, for she is a what you see is what you get kind of friend. Her transparency allows her to put her heart on display for all the world to see, and what we see is a reflection of true beauty; a heart so full of God that it's contagious and helps us to understand more fully what compassion, love, and devotion are really supposed to look like.

God created our hearts so we could give and receive love, but just like a mirror we are only able to reflect back what is truly there. If we fill our hearts with bitterness, deceit, greed, selfishness, and hate we can only expect that to be what comes spewing back out of them. Instead, we should be showing a "love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith." (1 Timothy 1:5 NLT)

That kind of love doesn't come to us automatically; it's not something we wake up one day deciding we want, and from then on become able to reflect a wonderful, pure heart. No, there's only one way we will consistently be able to show that kind of love. 

We first have to make a change inside our hearts. The best way for me to explain how to do that is with a verse consisting of seven words.

"We love because He loved us first." (1 John 4:19 NET)

That's pretty plain and simple. Seven words to tell us why we should be showing love. We show it because of Him. We love because He is love, and to not love would mean that we didn't know Him. (1 John 4:8)

We also love so that we can reflect His presence in our lives:

"So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples." (John 13:34-35)

There’s no better way to prove to the world we love Him than to make sure our hearts are reflecting everything He has done for us.  He's already proven His devotion to me by paying the ultimate sacrifice of dying for my sins, so I can't imagine not giving my life back to Him in love. 

Rick Warren in his book “The Purpose Driven Life,” says “love concentrates so intently on another that you forget yourself at that moment.” 

That's what I want for my life. I want to continually forget myself; I want to get so lost in the pain, the hurt, and the needs of others that I won't spend a single selfish moment wondering about anything else. I want my life to reflect hope, joy, and peace, but most of all I want it to reflect love. I want it to tell the world about the Man who changed my life. I want it to show the love of Jesus without a single word spoken or needed.

Please know that even if I'm unable to touch you, hug you, or speak to you in person, through my writing I hope you see how very much I love you. I hope you are able to see how very much Jesus loves you. If there is ever anything I can do for you, a prayer you need prayed for, a need you want to voice, or you simply want to talk, you can contact me @ stgibson19@yahoo.com

Please pray with me:

Father;
I ask that You give us hearts that beat so strongly for You that words will not be necessary to show the world all that You have done for us. We love You so much, and our wish is for others
to see You the way that we do.

Give us the courage, perseverance, transparency, compassion, and faith needed to spread Your Word to others. May You bless our homes and families, and may we always reflect love from hearts beating strongly, fiercely, and passionately, only for You.
For it’s in Your name we always pray,

Amen

Warren, Rick, The Purpose Driven Life, Zondervan, 2002

Monday Meet Up
Sharing His Beauty
Hear it on Sunday, Share it on Monday
On Your Heart Tuesdays
Titus 2sdays
Women Living Well
Word Filled Wednesday
God Bumps and God Incidents

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