Conversations, Reflections & Meditations


	Main Page \| My Articles for The Life Connection \| Prayers and Meditations \| Poetry Haida Gwaii Reflections \| Education & Home-School \| Family
Sign Guestbook \| View Guestbook Comments? Questions? [email protected]	Prayer topics I Love You, Thank You, Honour You, Lord Humbled By Your Amazing Grace - I Love You, Lord Forgive Me for Trying to Manipulate You, Lord I Want Your Agenda, Lord, Not Mine Love One Another As I Have Loved You I Love You, Thank You, Honour Your, Lord Date: September 3, 2004 Dear Heavenly Father, I love you! I love spending time in the morning with You – even on days like today when I have so much to do – especially when I have so much to do because then I need You – Your presence, love, guidance, strength, will and purpose – more than ever! You are teaching me so much these days. Thank You for inviting – pursuing – me into ever growing relationship with You. Wow! Help me to honor You and give You the glory in every circumstance of my life today. Help me to see the opportunities You give me to obey You and to tell others about You through my words and my actions. Please keep things peaceful here, Lord. Please bring all my children and family – and my husband’s family, too – into close and intimate relationship with You as soon as possible. Thank You, Lord! I love You. Amen Return to the top Humbled By Your Amazing Grace - I Love You, Lord Date: September 4, 2004 I have no idea what Your plans are in the coming days, especially financially, but in other ways too. But I know You are in control, that You are “Jehovah-Jireh,” my provider, and that You are “working all things for good” as I learn and make a real effort to love You – because I am called by You according to Your purpose. Wow! I totally don’t deserve it in any way, but You have chosen to love me and call me. That is truly amazing grace. Thank You. It really makes me feel humbled before You, Lord. I love You, Lord. Return to the top Forgive Me for Trying to Manipulate You, Lord Date: September 5, 2004 Thank You for Your Word. Thank You for the record of Your dealings and Your relationships with Your children in the past (and with those opposed to You and to Your children.). In reading chapter 3 of Exodus today, the record of Your call to Moses and Your plans and purpose and care, and Your response to the needs of Your people, I am so encouraged yet humbled all at the same time. I know that You Are! And that You see my “troubles” and “distress” (so little compared to Israel at that time) and that You care and You already have planned a great deliverance, a supernatural miraculous way to fulfill Your purpose – and that doesn’t even take into account Your marvelous, eternal, majestic, unfathomable grace You have already poured out on me by the death and resurrection of Your Son, which has given me eternal life and brought me back into relationship with You, even though I totally do not deserve it. Even if “nothing” should happen in terms of our financial distress right now, and we should lose “everything” (our “stuff,” our jobs, our home, even our children’s education plans), it wouldn’t matter at all because we already have everything that matters. I see it! Yesterday – even this morning when I woke up with butterflies in my tummy, after dreaming quite disastrous dreams about the first day of teaching French (which turned out to be all “me-centered” in the dream… oh God, how kind You are to give me a job in a God-centered teaching and learning environment. Thank You!), I was busy looking for, expecting, asking for – yes, sometimes trying to manipulate You, remind You of what I think You are “obliged” to do, what I “deserve” as Your child (oh, forgive me, please forgive me, Lord – I know I deserve nothing – and I really know/understand so very, very little, effectively almost nothing, of Your character and power and purpose, of You the great I AM. Forgive me, Lord. Please… just fulfill Your purposes in my life, and for all eternity. I love You, Lord. Amen. P.S. How kind You are to tell us to bring our puny needs to You. Sometimes I am afraid to bring them to You, for I am so often wrong, myopic, in assessing my needs. I am so self-centered, me-centered. Oh dear God, You know what I want – money for my childrens' educations, the right job and good health for my husband, spiritual relationships with You for all my family (and all others too – I am so narrow-visioned here, Lord… help me… burden me for the lost… help me to get going on mission for You!). Lord, please resolve our financial difficulties, help us pay off all our debts, not incur any new ones, get rid of and never need our credit cards. And please provide an income to cover our needs and to go out fearless of temporal needs with total faith for Your daily provision in Your providence, whatever miraculous, unexpected form it might take)… and even the grace to return to ____ and take it as from You if that is Your will. Your will be done. Here I am, use me! Amen. Return to the top I Want Your Agenda, Lord, Not Mine Date: September 12, 2004 Dear Heavenly Father, time has just zipped by. I’ve been so caught up in planning and doing my French and recorder lessons, and wondering (questioning and being in wonder, both) about the circumstances of my life… but have I really had real relationship time with You? I had a wonderful time in Your Word this morning, and Your message at church was such a confirmation of that… and after a wonderful long sleep this afternoon – I’ve been so tired – more wonder-full words from You through the Experiencing God book. I just love Psalm 57. Oh, dear God, please keep teaching me to exalt You in the midst of trouble. Thank You for trouble! Thank You for showing me that big trouble forces me to turn to You big-time because I have no resources left (even if I do still find myself scrambling and picking my brain for ideas… old habits die hard… but, oh Lord, I think – I know! – they are dying. And then You are able to use me to do things Your way. Oh, how blessed I was this morning by the new chapter in the devotional book. I was supposed to read it on Thursday, but didn’t even skim it until late yesterday – but it was Your timing because today You spoke to me so clearly and then confirmed it in the church message. I am so excited Lord! I want Your agenda, not mine. Grow me, Lord. Make me truly a person of integrity and character. Purify me – with fire, if necessary. And bring my children back to You into strong right relationship with You, dear Lord. Amen. Return to the top Love One Another as I Have Loved You Date: September 14, 2004 Good morning, O my Lord God!! I love You, Lord! Thank You for the 2:30 am time with You. Thank You for waking me to get on my knees in prayer for ______. Continue to work in her life, Lord. Thank You for giving me peace to go back sound asleep when You finished using me for that time last night. And thank You for all I have been learning from You, by Your Spirit, through Your Word, and through the word You have given, revealed, explained in Encountering God and The Purpose Driven Life, reminding me of what You’ve already taught me and where You have taken me in my past as recorded in my old journaling and in my memories which You are reviving – and in conversation with ____ last night, and listening to the sermon on Sunday, and chatting with people at the school barbeque, and by the transformation video at our life group, and by all the circumstances of life You’ve been leading me through! Intense! Exciting! Loving to know and love You and be known and loved by You in all things. Please forgive me for sharing off-color jokes yesterday. I knew it was wrong but did it anyway. Help me to stop trying to attract attention to myself. Help me to say, do, think only what is honoring and glorifying to You. In Jesus’ name! I love You, Lord. Lord, I thought I just lacked good teaching in the past. Yet when I review my journal notes from teaching and preaching of the past, it’s all there, or at least the vast majority of it. How could I have been so slow, Lord? How much further do I still have to go? Am I still a baby? (Babies don’t do much of anything… keep taking in… but not helping out much, not doing…) “Love one another as I have loved you.” Jn 13:34,35. It’s a command, not an option. Jesus loved me so much, he died to bring me to God. Do I in any way love others that much, so that I am willing to do anything, give everything, to bring others to God? No! I have not loved God or others anywhere near that much. Oh God, dear God, I am sorry. I want to change. I want to love. It is true that the key thing, without which all the other things will fail, in motivating me to witness for Christ, is to love lost people the way God does! But how do I love that much? “The love of Christ compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all” (2 Cor 5:14). I’ve been afraid of others in the past, but I don’t think that is my excuse any more. Lord, sometimes I get so desperate to see my kids following You because I couldn’t bear to spend eternity with them separated from me – and from You, in hell! – because I love them so much… and yet, it isn’t long, often just moments, before the distractions of life seem to steal away my passion and I don’t even bother praying for them for ages at a time. Lord, I’ve avoided facing up to this fact. It’s humiliating! And it’s also humiliating that my desire to have my kids in heaven is more for me – yes, it is true – at least surely has been until this moment – will it change? Will I change? Will I stop thinking about me now that I’m admitting how self-centered I am? Or will I just be self-righteous about finally admitting it? am I truly sorry? Am I willing to truly repent – to turn 180 degrees – to totally let go of my love for them, be willing to lose them forever if that is the eternal purposes of God? Emotionally, no! I guess that means I have to make a decision of the mind – to think as Christ thinks, to accept His plans, no matter how abhorrent they might seem to me in my natural state. Yes, I must choose, by an act of the will, even if there is no feeling, or indeed even if there is a feeling of panic, abhorrence, fear in the act of choosing God’s way as my fleshly nature tries to rise up and fight to it’s death, as the enemy fights with all his powers and all his allies. But the Word of God, the facts, are that God is already victorious through the blood of Jesus, that I am His child, that He loves me forever and perfectly, and that He is sovereign, He is in control, and all His plans and purposes are perfect, holy and best. Yes, I know. Transformation of my heart to love the world as God loves it, to love God so much that I cannot bear to let one soul be lost by my lack of love and obedience to God’s call and commission for me to go into all the world and make disciples of all men, baptizing, teaching them all the things God commands me – that can only happen as I choose by an act of my will to totally take on the mind of Christ. And His mind, His will is that none should perish but that all should come to repentance. And He has chosen me to go forward and do His work as He uses me, works through me, commands me, his humble and obedient servant. After all He has done for me, how else can I possibly respond? Okay, Lord – take my kids. Father God, please pour out Your Holy Spirit on me right now. I choose now to be willing to give up everything… even, as Paul said, if it were possible, my own salvation, that even one other soul could be brought to You. Take my stuff, Lord. Take my dreams. Take my jobs. Take my passions. Take my family. Take my health. Take my brains and talents and abilities. Don’t just take and use them, but if they are in the way of Your purposes, destroy them, Lord. Take away from me everything that I have been allowing to come between You and me. My husband, my children, my marriage, my home, my comfy place here in ____, my church I’ve come to love. Put me wherever You want me to go, to do whatever You want me to do (even washing dishes, vacuuming, cleaning toilets, ministering anywhere You desire)! Take away all I value in my own mind, all that I have held dear, that I have been proud of: my capabilities, my talents, my spiritual gifts, even, Lord; my intelligence, my writing ability, my slimness, my okay looks…. Forgive me, Lord. Take it all Lord. Right now. In Jesus’ name. Amen. And God, dear God, Fill my heart with Your love. Love for You, for Your people, and for all the lost people who don’t yet know You, who haven’t yet accepted Jesus Christ Your Son as their Lord and Savior. Is anyone going to be in heaven because of me? Oh Lord, yes! Please, yes! Return to the top
Main Page \| My Articles for The Life Connection \| Prayers and Meditations \| Poetry Haida Gwaii Reflections \| Education & Home-School \| Family


	Main Page \| My Articles for The Life Connection \| Prayers and Meditations \| Poetry Haida Gwaii Reflections \| Education & Home-School \| Family
Sign Guestbook \| View Guestbook Comments? Questions? [email protected]	Prayer topics I Love You, Thank You, Honour You, Lord Humbled By Your Amazing Grace - I Love You, Lord Forgive Me for Trying to Manipulate You, Lord I Want Your Agenda, Lord, Not Mine Love One Another As I Have Loved You I Love You, Thank You, Honour Your, Lord Date: September 3, 2004 Dear Heavenly Father, I love you! I love spending time in the morning with You – even on days like today when I have so much to do – especially when I have so much to do because then I need You – Your presence, love, guidance, strength, will and purpose – more than ever! You are teaching me so much these days. Thank You for inviting – pursuing – me into ever growing relationship with You. Wow! Help me to honor You and give You the glory in every circumstance of my life today. Help me to see the opportunities You give me to obey You and to tell others about You through my words and my actions. Please keep things peaceful here, Lord. Please bring all my children and family – and my husband’s family, too – into close and intimate relationship with You as soon as possible. Thank You, Lord! I love You. Amen Return to the top Humbled By Your Amazing Grace - I Love You, Lord Date: September 4, 2004 I have no idea what Your plans are in the coming days, especially financially, but in other ways too. But I know You are in control, that You are “Jehovah-Jireh,” my provider, and that You are “working all things for good” as I learn and make a real effort to love You – because I am called by You according to Your purpose. Wow! I totally don’t deserve it in any way, but You have chosen to love me and call me. That is truly amazing grace. Thank You. It really makes me feel humbled before You, Lord. I love You, Lord. Return to the top Forgive Me for Trying to Manipulate You, Lord Date: September 5, 2004 Thank You for Your Word. Thank You for the record of Your dealings and Your relationships with Your children in the past (and with those opposed to You and to Your children.). In reading chapter 3 of Exodus today, the record of Your call to Moses and Your plans and purpose and care, and Your response to the needs of Your people, I am so encouraged yet humbled all at the same time. I know that You Are! And that You see my “troubles” and “distress” (so little compared to Israel at that time) and that You care and You already have planned a great deliverance, a supernatural miraculous way to fulfill Your purpose – and that doesn’t even take into account Your marvelous, eternal, majestic, unfathomable grace You have already poured out on me by the death and resurrection of Your Son, which has given me eternal life and brought me back into relationship with You, even though I totally do not deserve it. Even if “nothing” should happen in terms of our financial distress right now, and we should lose “everything” (our “stuff,” our jobs, our home, even our children’s education plans), it wouldn’t matter at all because we already have everything that matters. I see it! Yesterday – even this morning when I woke up with butterflies in my tummy, after dreaming quite disastrous dreams about the first day of teaching French (which turned out to be all “me-centered” in the dream… oh God, how kind You are to give me a job in a God-centered teaching and learning environment. Thank You!), I was busy looking for, expecting, asking for – yes, sometimes trying to manipulate You, remind You of what I think You are “obliged” to do, what I “deserve” as Your child (oh, forgive me, please forgive me, Lord – I know I deserve nothing – and I really know/understand so very, very little, effectively almost nothing, of Your character and power and purpose, of You the great I AM. Forgive me, Lord. Please… just fulfill Your purposes in my life, and for all eternity. I love You, Lord. Amen. P.S. How kind You are to tell us to bring our puny needs to You. Sometimes I am afraid to bring them to You, for I am so often wrong, myopic, in assessing my needs. I am so self-centered, me-centered. Oh dear God, You know what I want – money for my childrens' educations, the right job and good health for my husband, spiritual relationships with You for all my family (and all others too – I am so narrow-visioned here, Lord… help me… burden me for the lost… help me to get going on mission for You!). Lord, please resolve our financial difficulties, help us pay off all our debts, not incur any new ones, get rid of and never need our credit cards. And please provide an income to cover our needs and to go out fearless of temporal needs with total faith for Your daily provision in Your providence, whatever miraculous, unexpected form it might take)… and even the grace to return to ____ and take it as from You if that is Your will. Your will be done. Here I am, use me! Amen. Return to the top I Want Your Agenda, Lord, Not Mine Date: September 12, 2004 Dear Heavenly Father, time has just zipped by. I’ve been so caught up in planning and doing my French and recorder lessons, and wondering (questioning and being in wonder, both) about the circumstances of my life… but have I really had real relationship time with You? I had a wonderful time in Your Word this morning, and Your message at church was such a confirmation of that… and after a wonderful long sleep this afternoon – I’ve been so tired – more wonder-full words from You through the Experiencing God book. I just love Psalm 57. Oh, dear God, please keep teaching me to exalt You in the midst of trouble. Thank You for trouble! Thank You for showing me that big trouble forces me to turn to You big-time because I have no resources left (even if I do still find myself scrambling and picking my brain for ideas… old habits die hard… but, oh Lord, I think – I know! – they are dying. And then You are able to use me to do things Your way. Oh, how blessed I was this morning by the new chapter in the devotional book. I was supposed to read it on Thursday, but didn’t even skim it until late yesterday – but it was Your timing because today You spoke to me so clearly and then confirmed it in the church message. I am so excited Lord! I want Your agenda, not mine. Grow me, Lord. Make me truly a person of integrity and character. Purify me – with fire, if necessary. And bring my children back to You into strong right relationship with You, dear Lord. Amen. Return to the top Love One Another as I Have Loved You Date: September 14, 2004 Good morning, O my Lord God!! I love You, Lord! Thank You for the 2:30 am time with You. Thank You for waking me to get on my knees in prayer for ______. Continue to work in her life, Lord. Thank You for giving me peace to go back sound asleep when You finished using me for that time last night. And thank You for all I have been learning from You, by Your Spirit, through Your Word, and through the word You have given, revealed, explained in Encountering God and The Purpose Driven Life, reminding me of what You’ve already taught me and where You have taken me in my past as recorded in my old journaling and in my memories which You are reviving – and in conversation with ____ last night, and listening to the sermon on Sunday, and chatting with people at the school barbeque, and by the transformation video at our life group, and by all the circumstances of life You’ve been leading me through! Intense! Exciting! Loving to know and love You and be known and loved by You in all things. Please forgive me for sharing off-color jokes yesterday. I knew it was wrong but did it anyway. Help me to stop trying to attract attention to myself. Help me to say, do, think only what is honoring and glorifying to You. In Jesus’ name! I love You, Lord. Lord, I thought I just lacked good teaching in the past. Yet when I review my journal notes from teaching and preaching of the past, it’s all there, or at least the vast majority of it. How could I have been so slow, Lord? How much further do I still have to go? Am I still a baby? (Babies don’t do much of anything… keep taking in… but not helping out much, not doing…) “Love one another as I have loved you.” Jn 13:34,35. It’s a command, not an option. Jesus loved me so much, he died to bring me to God. Do I in any way love others that much, so that I am willing to do anything, give everything, to bring others to God? No! I have not loved God or others anywhere near that much. Oh God, dear God, I am sorry. I want to change. I want to love. It is true that the key thing, without which all the other things will fail, in motivating me to witness for Christ, is to love lost people the way God does! But how do I love that much? “The love of Christ compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all” (2 Cor 5:14). I’ve been afraid of others in the past, but I don’t think that is my excuse any more. Lord, sometimes I get so desperate to see my kids following You because I couldn’t bear to spend eternity with them separated from me – and from You, in hell! – because I love them so much… and yet, it isn’t long, often just moments, before the distractions of life seem to steal away my passion and I don’t even bother praying for them for ages at a time. Lord, I’ve avoided facing up to this fact. It’s humiliating! And it’s also humiliating that my desire to have my kids in heaven is more for me – yes, it is true – at least surely has been until this moment – will it change? Will I change? Will I stop thinking about me now that I’m admitting how self-centered I am? Or will I just be self-righteous about finally admitting it? am I truly sorry? Am I willing to truly repent – to turn 180 degrees – to totally let go of my love for them, be willing to lose them forever if that is the eternal purposes of God? Emotionally, no! I guess that means I have to make a decision of the mind – to think as Christ thinks, to accept His plans, no matter how abhorrent they might seem to me in my natural state. Yes, I must choose, by an act of the will, even if there is no feeling, or indeed even if there is a feeling of panic, abhorrence, fear in the act of choosing God’s way as my fleshly nature tries to rise up and fight to it’s death, as the enemy fights with all his powers and all his allies. But the Word of God, the facts, are that God is already victorious through the blood of Jesus, that I am His child, that He loves me forever and perfectly, and that He is sovereign, He is in control, and all His plans and purposes are perfect, holy and best. Yes, I know. Transformation of my heart to love the world as God loves it, to love God so much that I cannot bear to let one soul be lost by my lack of love and obedience to God’s call and commission for me to go into all the world and make disciples of all men, baptizing, teaching them all the things God commands me – that can only happen as I choose by an act of my will to totally take on the mind of Christ. And His mind, His will is that none should perish but that all should come to repentance. And He has chosen me to go forward and do His work as He uses me, works through me, commands me, his humble and obedient servant. After all He has done for me, how else can I possibly respond? Okay, Lord – take my kids. Father God, please pour out Your Holy Spirit on me right now. I choose now to be willing to give up everything… even, as Paul said, if it were possible, my own salvation, that even one other soul could be brought to You. Take my stuff, Lord. Take my dreams. Take my jobs. Take my passions. Take my family. Take my health. Take my brains and talents and abilities. Don’t just take and use them, but if they are in the way of Your purposes, destroy them, Lord. Take away from me everything that I have been allowing to come between You and me. My husband, my children, my marriage, my home, my comfy place here in ____, my church I’ve come to love. Put me wherever You want me to go, to do whatever You want me to do (even washing dishes, vacuuming, cleaning toilets, ministering anywhere You desire)! Take away all I value in my own mind, all that I have held dear, that I have been proud of: my capabilities, my talents, my spiritual gifts, even, Lord; my intelligence, my writing ability, my slimness, my okay looks…. Forgive me, Lord. Take it all Lord. Right now. In Jesus’ name. Amen. And God, dear God, Fill my heart with Your love. Love for You, for Your people, and for all the lost people who don’t yet know You, who haven’t yet accepted Jesus Christ Your Son as their Lord and Savior. Is anyone going to be in heaven because of me? Oh Lord, yes! Please, yes! Return to the top
Main Page \| My Articles for The Life Connection \| Prayers and Meditations \| Poetry Haida Gwaii Reflections \| Education & Home-School \| Family