Women in the Bible can offer us deep meaning and teach us! These women can teach us so much about-facing brokenness and hopelessness with courage even TODAY! They probably do not show up in VBS songs, or many Sunday School lessons. These women even today can teach us to live courageously, through difficult or even dangerous situations!
Read MoreWith a name like Joy, living up to my name has been a life-long challenge. People often ask
how I manage to maintain a positive attitude, and keep a smile on my face. I can assure you, it
can sometimes be quite difficult. It is rather easy to find joy when all is right with the world, and
everything in life is going according to our plan. However, the true challenge is, how can we
hold on to that Joy while navigating through life’s heartaches and stormy waters?
Read MorePatience…. My least favorite word of all time. So many “well meaning” people have tried to be an “encouragement” to me over the years by saying things like, “God will bring you just the right man, you just have to be patient” or “God will show you what He wants for your future, you just have to be patient”.
Read MoreHave you ever noticed that sometimes we get so consumed with our own wants and needs? This leads to praying endlessly all day because we want an answer immediately, and then we start to get upset, mad, and bitter when we don’t get a response. It feels like our prayers are hitting the ceiling and bouncing back to us. What happens next is that you’ve become so frustrated about what you are praying for that you begin arguing with the Lord. You want to wrestle with Him so that you can win. Is it wrong to be passionate about your prayer life? No, but there are often times when you try to force your way and even manipulate your answer, and then you live in misery and regret because you had to have what you wanted.
Read MoreThe older I get the more I realize I need His Words in my life. As a teenager, a young Bible college student, and even a young married wife and mom, I read my Bible every day; but I did it more out of “this is what I am supposed to do” rather than “this is what I need.” Oh! There were days when I would run to Him and His Word out of necessity, but more often than not it was what I did out of habit. As our family began to grow and my responsibilities in church grew, I began to go to His Word more out of need, but still I did things in my own strength unfortunately. I knew I needed God in my head, but it had not fully reached my heart.
Read MoreYou see, I remember the times I prayed. When I was a teenager, I prayed for a husband. I asked God over and over to give me a husband. You see my dad pastored in a pretty bad part of Memphis, Tn and let’s just say there was no one around to marry. I even told my mom God won’t send anyone here for me to marry. You see, I did doubt that God could do it…maybe I didn’t doubt God could as much as I doubted that God would do it for me. I was discouraged, would God ever send me my future husband?
Read MoreNo! my year has not stopped. Although at times, I wish it had. Neither has then been a year where I have just stopped serving the Lord. But this has been a year where I have tried to stop and in every major situation take the time to pause.
Read MoreOh how often I feel IT'S NOT IN ME ---but God shall give an answer of peace! Life can be so pressing at times and I don't have an answer. I'm thankful that I can run to Jesus. Psalm 86:7 In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: FOR THOU WILT ANSWER ME.
Read MoreAgain, living for the Lord has many mountains and valleys. It’s not an easy road,
but don’t give up, or you will miss the best of the best!
Read MoreI was born into a Christian home and went to church every Sunday. I remember one Sunday morning sitting in church listening to the message and when it was time for the invitation I knew that I needed to accept Jesus as my Saviour. I went home and that afternoon my dad sat with me on the couch and clearly explained the Gospel to me and I accepted Jesus Christ as my Saviour when I was 4 years old. I was baptized the next year.
Most of our lives are spent going the same speed and the same direction. Once in a while we change lanes or even merge onto a new highway, but then we resume where we were.
1 Corinthians 2:4 reminds us that “Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.” Faithful, not just in those exciting moments, but in the Days in Between.
Read MoreNothing replaces reading your Bible every day and praying to our Father in Heaven. No podcast, devotional, sermon, blog post, or any other kind of post will do for you what the Holy Spirit through the Word can do.
Read MoreTheir, Joy, their contentment was the key that unloosed their chains. HE WAS ENOUGH FOR THEM! He was everything they needed. There wasn’t a material possession that they lacked because their contentment was in the ONE who delighted in them!
As we go through our lives and about our daily business doing all the right things, all the good things, are we living “in him”. It can be so easy to go into auto pilot. If we are not careful we can almost become robotic. Not intentionally, not even with a bad spirit, but we are doing all the things and checking off all the boxes of things to be done without giving our full attention or full spiritual awareness to them. Stop and think about it for a minute.
Read MoreI was an eighteen-year-old girl with no knowledge of the Bible, but that truth was clear to me that night as a soulwinner took me off into a room at the First Baptist Church of St. Clair, Missouri and explained to me that all the good things I was trying to do would never be enough for me to get to Heaven.
Read MoreThe ocean is one of my most favorite places on earth. The overwhelming enormity of both its sight and sound is always a reflection of the thoughts of my heart, both good and bad. I am always overwhelmed with something. And while on this journey of sanctification, I see-saw between the overwhelming “somethings’ of God’s goodness and my own sinful tendencies.
Read MoreEvery person I meet is someone MY best friend loved enough to die for
Read MoreAnd there’s the gem. Those two little words Trina would use so often in her conversation. MY Jesus. The most important lesson I ever learned from Trina, though I wouldn’t even realize it until YEARS later, was that He needs to be ‘MY’ Jesus. When you speak of your Saviour, it should be personal. The same way you say, ‘My kids’ or ‘My husband’. Possessive. Loving. Is that how you think of Jesus, or do you not really think about that relationship much at all? We all hear quite regularly in preaching that we need to have a relationship with God(Jesus), but do we really think and ponder and try to figure out what that entails? Oh sure, there’s the ‘read your Bible more! Here’s a 1 year plan!’ and don’t you dare misunderstand me, reading your Bible is paramount in a Christians life, but are you just going through the motions of Bible reading so that you can check off a little chart? You’ll be closer to Jesus than if you weren’t reading at all, sure, but would you feel that possessive love? Trina challenged me without even saying it to get that possessive love. To thirst for it. And it’s so funny because, the closer you get the more you want.
Read MoreThis year my plan and I feel the Lord has led me to this… the Pause. To focus on the pause or pauses of life. I want to listen to when the Lord says, “ Pause.” I believe the Lord wants us all to “stop for a minute,” or to “linger” here for a time. He always has a reason. He may have something better for us or He may simply be protecting us from what we can’t see.
Read MoreWork together to create a budget. When you don’t know what you are spending it can get out of control fast. Look at your budget from time to time and adjust as needed. Talk about it and make spending decisions together! (Money is one of the biggest reasons for marriage problems.) Keep your checkbook balanced!
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