Be Not Afraid

"Do not fear: I am with you;
do not be anxious: I am your God.
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my victorious right hand." - Isaiah 41:10

Fear is such a liar. It robs us of our peace. It not only takes over our minds with negativity but it also makes us physically sick. But did you ever notice most of our fears are worries about things we think might happen in the future? When in reality, right now, at this very moment, things are ok? And even if they aren't and your worst fear is a reality right now, do you believe God can make good out of this and bring you the peace you need?

I struggle with this so much. We know Jesus says that we either have faith or we don't, so I need to remind myself that then the choice to be afraid or not is up to me. We either trust or we don't. Living with a heart full of fear and anxiety is no way to live when God has promised time and time again to take care of us. I will chose to trust. I will chose to let go and not give space to fear in my heart and mind. I pray we all can.

Today's Prayer:
Father, strengthen my heart and help me to dispel all fear and negativity from my being. I want to live in Your light and live freely knowing I am always in Your hands. In Jesus' Name we pray, amen.

Growing Pains

"And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man." - Luke 2:52

A child can never fill his father's shoes. He has to grow and became a man before he can literally fill them. The same concept goes for our spiritual, mental, and emotional maturity when we want something.

Oftentimes we get upset and frustrated when things don't go our way. It can be anything from a promotion at work to waiting for God to send the perfect spouse. I know I have definitely felt like that with things I have wanted to achieve. The truth is that we have to grow into it before we can have it. Even Jesus, being God and all, had to grow into being the man capable of fulfilling the mission He came to accomplish. So, when things don't seem to be going your way, ask God to show you where you still need to grow and to help you along that path.

Today's Prayer
Father, thank You for raising me. Thank You for guiding my footsteps. You know my heart and all I want to achieve. Please help me be a person capable of being all of those things. In Jesus' Name we pray, amen.

Ask For Help

"Moses' hands, however, grew tired; so they took a rock and put it under him and he sat on it. Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other, so that his hands remained steady until sunset." - Exodus 17:12

The power of prayer is so powerful that while Moses had his hands raised up, his people were winning a war against another nation. The problem came when Moses' arms grew tired and he couldn't raise them anymore. Scripture says that Aaron and Hur helped and supported Moses all through the night, helping him in his prayer for victory until the opposing nation was defeated. Such an amazing story! But tell me, who holds your arms when you grow weary?

The truth is that we all grow tired and we can't possibly do everything on our own. This is why God put people in our lives so we can lift them up and they can do the same for us. There would have been no victory if Moses acted alone or if he would have been ashamed to ask for help. In the same way, we need to recognize our limitations and weaknesses and allow others to help us.

Today's Prayer:
Father in Heaven, thank You for everyone you have put in my path to help me when I am weak and tired. Help me to do the same when they need me.

No Rest For The Weary

"He lay down and fell asleep under the solitary broom tree, but suddenly a messenger touched him and said, "Get up and eat!"" - 1 Kings 19:5

Say what you will about cliches, but they are usually always true. In my case, there really is no rest for the weary. I shared earlier in the week that my 3 year old was sick, and last night my 21 month started with the same symptoms just as I was starting to feel like myself again.

This got me thinking about life and how sometimes we feel stuck in the same rut, feeling tired with no rest. The awesome thing about the bible is that we can look back and see the lives of God's closest friends and see that their lives were no different. They each struggled but at the end were victorious. Feeling tired and weary, and even feeling tired of being tired is a natural part of life, but what sets the children of God apart is how He nourishes us through the journey. In this verse, the prophet Elijah was tired and just wanted to hide, but an angel of The Lord appeared to him and gave him bread and water and told him to eat and drink and keep going on his journey. And God does the same for us when we look for Him during our journeys.

Tonight's Prayer:
Father in Heaven, thank You for the journey I am on. Although sometimes I'm tired with no rest in sight, You remind me that only You give strength and rest. Give me the help I need to keep going on with joy. In Jesus' Name we pray, amen.

The New Self

"Put on the new self, created in God's way in righteousness and holiness of truth." - Ephesians 4:24

Have you ever noticed that you're the first to limit yourself and your abilities? We hear over and over in the bible that absolutely nothing is impossible in God, but we doubt that He can change us and make us different people. Sometimes we need to push that process along ourselves before we truly become what God promised.

An example of this is how we treat certain people who don't sit well with us. We can feel a dislike of them, but in Christ we are called to love them. Saint Paul says we have to put on the new self, this new person we are called to be in Christ. Sometimes it doesn't come naturally and that's why we have to make that proactive decision to "put on" this new person as we put on a costume. Trying to be this person isn't being "fake" because our intentions aren't to deceive, but to try to do the will of God and in that, there is so much merit! So, until God finishes the work He has started in you and you are living confidently according to His Word, put on this new self and make the effort to live as if you already have it all.

Today's Prayer:
Father, transform my heart and mind to be more like Jesus. Help me to let go of the old me, but until that process is complete, give me the strength to put on the new self, picking up my cross, and following Him. In Jesus' Name we pray, amen.

Reach for The Impossible

"I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me." - Phillipians 4:13

One thing I've learned about God is that when you feel something is impossible, that's the direction in which He wants you to go. Easy things,.. the things and situations that make us comfortable... there is no growth there, and God is about leading us on a growth journey, to bend and stretch into better human beings.

Search your heart for what that might be. If you have a dream that feels scary and far off, but that desire burns in your heart, know that it was placed there by God and if you pray about it, He will guide the path to make it a reality. You just have to take that leap of faith and take the first step knowing it is He who is guiding you and making all things possible for you.

Today's Prayer:
Father, thank You for the desires of my heart and the dreams You are calling me to reach for. Give me strength to not be afraid and keep going in Christ. In Jesus' Name we pray, Amen.

Feeling Sick?

"Jesus said to them in reply, "Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do." - Luke 5:31

I've mentioned before that ever since I became a mother, my relationship with God has changed. I began to understand a little bit more about how God sees us because we are His children. My 3 year old developed pneumonia over the weekend with a fever of 102 that didn't break for days. My heart was broken. I didn't sleep looking after him and my husband I would say that we would do anything to take the pain ourselves and make him better.

Well, that's what God did for us. A soul weighed down by sin is a sick soul and God looks with sorrow at us when we are sick. Many might feel like He looks down with judgement and anger, but what God really wants is for us to be healthy again and live life the way He created us to live it. He sent Jesus so that He could literally take the pain unto Himself and we could be better. What parent can't understand that and be able to relate to that? So, don't ever feel ashamed to ask for forgiveness because He wants nothing more than for you to be healed and be made whole.

Today's Prayer:
Father, thank You for Your healing. Thank You for giving us the honor of being Your children and that we can go freely to You to be made healthy again. In Jesus' Name we pray, amen.

The Human Face of God

"And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." - John 1:14

John Paul II once said that Jesus is "the human face of God and the divine face of man" and that totally blew me away when I heard it. We know that Jesus was a man but the Son of God thing, walking on water, performing miracles and resurrecting totally puts Him in a different league than us in our minds. We focus too much on His divinity, when it would do us a lot of good to focus on His humanity.

By being born, God forever connected Himself to us in an incredible way in the person of Jesus. Our feelings, from fear and despair to anger to joy, were all felt by Jesus as we experience them. All we feel and all we go through, God understands so deeply, not in lofty way just because He is God but because He lived it in the flesh as Jesus. So whatever you are feeling and whatever you want to dish out at Jesus, He gets you; He understands. Don't think that you have to raise yourself to God to be able to talk to Him and connect with Him because He already did the work by coming down to us.

Today's Prayer:
Father, thank You for coming down from Heaven and making Yourself one of us. Thank You for loving us so much that You chose to be one of us so that we can be reconciled to You.

Prayer

"When Jesus heard of it, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself." - Matthew 14:13

Do you know what your prayer style is? Did you know that certain styles of prayer help you to feel closer to God at different times? For me, I feel closest to God during quiet meditation. My souls feels calm and at peace. Other times, our souls need to be connected to our brothers and sisters in Christ, and experiences of fellowship bring us unity and strengthen our faith.

Jesus was fully human and He was well aware of the necessity of different styles of prayer for His well being. Right after He learned that John the Baptist was murdered, He went off on His own because He needed that quiet prayer time with God. After a while, He went back to the multitudes following Him and He cured their sick and multiplied their loaves of bread and fish. One style of prayer can strengthen and nourish only oneself when needed but the other strengthens and nourishes the multitudes when united as the Body of Christ.

Today's Prayer:
Father, give me wisdom in my prayer life whether I am alone in meditation or with my brothers and sisters in group prayer. Always give my soul what it needs each day to continue to grow. In Jesus' Name we pray, amen.

Humble Yourself

"If then my people, upon whom my name has been pronounced, humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their evil ways, I will hear them from heaven and pardon their sins and heal their land." - 2 Chronicles 7:14

The beginning of anything great starts when we humble ourselves. To me, it's more than being the opposite of prideful. To me, humility involves letting down all of your walls so that you can truly see God and allow Him to truly see you. Of course, God can see you if He wants to, but do you reveal yourself as you are or do you hide? No, let down the walls, give up your defenses and present yourself to God.

When you do this, you become stronger because it's no longer your strength but God's that drives your life. When we try to have control of our lives and want our own will to be done, we become lost because we are limited in our knowledge of what's good for us and what's not. But, when we give the reigns over to God in humility, He elevates us to places we could never have imagined. We were designed to be taken care of by Him and instead we try to do it by ourselves. Once we let go, God will bring the blessings He intended for us into our lives.

Today's Prayer:
Father, please take care of me. Help me to be humble and give up on everything I'm holding on to and give it up to You. I know only You know best. In Jesus' Name we pray, amen.