reminder

Prayer challenge begins tomorrow!

We want to pray so that God will answer our prayers with “yes” and “amen”, don’t we? So we must pray according to His will. In the gospel of John (15:7), Jesus says “If you abide in Me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you with and it shall be done for you”. That is a powerful promise! That we can pray His words - His will - and He will do it. Pray in faith, believing that He is good and faithful. Pray His Will - His Word - and know that He is answering.

For the next 31 days, I will share Scripture that we can pray. Verses to proclaim. Promises to stand on before His Throne.

Do not fear, my sisters. We can trust that God is faithful. I am not talking about some “pie in the sky - name it and claim it” philosophy. I am talking about trusting God to respond to the promises He gives us in His word. We are not going to take things out of context and declare that God has to fulfill our personal agenda - rather, we are going to align ourselves to His mighty Truth and ask Him to do what He has already said in His Word. We are going to have a glorious time in His presence!

To receive the daily prayer guide delivered to your inbox each morning, subscribe to this blog (go to home page to add your email and be sure and confirm subscription). I will send these out every morning - I will try and post on FB but for sure the blog will send out updates. The blog mail server sends out after 7 each morning but the blog will be up earlier than that - just in case you do your praying at 6 or so :)!

I hope you’re with me!

To the Mommy at Baskin Robbins

I don't know your name.  Or your story.  But for just a moment yesterday, you were me.  Or I was you.  You loaded two adorable little girls in your minivan and called a quick "Buckle up!" over your shoulder.  They appeared to be about 3 and 6 and you dressed them alike.  Except for their blonde ponytails, they were mine a couple of decades ago.  I couldn't be sure but I think I even saw an infant seat on the other side.  You were me.  Hurried and a tad bit harried.  Yep, you were me.

And I just wanted to call out to you and hug you and look in your eyes and tell you that you are a great Mom.  I don't know what brought you to Baskin Robbins an hour before dinner but the milky smears on the little's one face that didn't get quite wiped off tell me it was worth your trip.  Way to go, Mommy.  Way to go.  I'm glad you didn't worry about it ruining their dinner.  It probably did but there'll be dinner tomorrow and next week and the week after.  And there won't always be time for an ice cream cone.  There'll be things to hurry to forever but you won't always get to dress them alike and fix those ponytails.  I am so glad you did today.  Way to go.  You are doing a great job. 

I don't know your story, it is true, but I'll bet you wonder sometimes if you are doing a great job.  Even good enough.  But I'll bet you are.  And I wish I could speak life into you and promise you that what you are doing matters.  I wouldn't tell you to "enjoy it because it'll be gone too soon".  Nope.  I would tell you that you are a doing a worthy work and I would cheer from the sidelines.

Parenting is hard. It is the greatest blessing of my life but it is hard.  Every single stage has tough parts to it and no matter in which one we find ourselves, we think it's the hardest.  And we try and convince anyone in another stage that our current one is tougher.  But I remember the "dress-alike-ponytail" stage.  I loved it.  And I wondered if I would survive it.  I think the Marines stole their theme line from Moms -- MOTHERHOOD is the toughest job you'll ever love!!

Ice cream Mommy - keep it up.  Way to go.  I hope you got donuts from the shop next door, too.  Just because they asked. And I hope you didn't even worry about a sugar high or what anybody else thought.  I hope that somehow, across the parking lot, you could sense my silent applause.

Next time I see you - or one of the hundreds that seem to be my reflection in the mirror - the ice cream's on me.  Atta girl!

Originally posted on September 12,2013

prayer challenge

Pray without ceasing.

Pretty strong exhortation in I Thessalonians 5:17. Pray without ceasing. That’s a lot!

I’ll bet every one of us would agree that prayer is so important. That our country and our families are in need of it. That it changes things. (and us!) And that we need to do more of it.

I think most of us want to pray more…but maybe we lack the structure or the encouragement or the accountability.

So, today, I am asking you to consider joining me for prayer. For the month of March - 31 days - let’s commit to daily prayer. I am not suggesting an hour (but that would be a blessing if we did!) but let’s commit to pray daily. If you’re willing to join me, I’ll be sending out daily guidelines to help us pray. Scripture passages to pray through for our families. Our country. Our world.

I hope you’ll join me in walking in obedience to His command to pray without ceasing. If you are willing to give it a try, take the next step and say yes “publicly”. Either email me at chamfam@bellsouth.net or leave a comment below and I’ll know you’re in.

Beginning March 1. On our knees before His Throne!

What's in a name?

Psalm 9:10 tells us "Those who know Your name will put their trust in You". Do we know His name?
In order to trust Him, we need to!

Elohim - The Creator
El Elyon - The God Most High
El Roi - The God Who Sees
El Shaddai - The All-Sufficient One
Adonai - The Lord
Jehovah - The Self-Existent One
Jehovah-jireh - The Lord Will Provide
Jehovah-nissi - The Lord My Banner
Jehovah-mekoddishhkem - The Lord Who Sanctifies You
Jehovah-shalom - The Lord Is Peace
Jehovah-saboath - The Lord of Hosts
Jehovah-raah - The Lord My Shepherd
Jehovah-tsidkenu - The Lord Our Righteousness
Jehovah-shammah - The Lord Is There

God is so beyond our comprehension that He uses lots of different names to help us begin to grasp who He is, His glory, His power, His love. Today I want to focus on just one - Elohim - The Creator. For those of us who are Christ-followers, we probably have no difficulty embracing Him as The Creator in a macro-sense-- we are confident that He created the world and everything in it. And that everything He made is good. And that He is The Ultimate Creator, beautiful and powerful and good. We stand strong against worldviews that purport otherwise. But when it gets down to the "micro" level, we might be a little shaky. The level of His creation of us. Of you. Of me. Oh, now I don't mean that we think we evolved from an amoeba. Or that random cells arbitrarily assigned themselves as this function or that. No, not that. But deep down do we celebrate and cling to Him as Creator of us, including our physical characteristics, the circumstances of our birth, our abilities (or lack thereof)? Do we accept ourselves as having been conceived and fashioned by Elohim? With the assigned purpose to give Him glory? Do we believe that every single detail of who we are was orchestrated by our always good, always loving, always powerful Heavenly Father in order to establish a relationship between us and Him? Or do we think He must have made a mistake or two in His design? Do we hold to a desire that He had tweaked a few details differently?

My prayer is that we, that I, would grasp our Elohim and His creation of us so completely that we wouldn't feel the need to expend our energy on trying to change our unchangeables. And that we wouldn't catapult into anxiety and discontentment and insecurity over our efforts. And that we wouldn't be consumed with thoughts about how God could've done things differently. And then anger and disappointment towards Him because He didn't.

May we heed Proverbs 18:10 which encourages us that "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runs into it and is safe". Elohim dreamed us up and designed the particulars of who we are just as He desired. To bring Him glory. And to bless us. He loves us. And He doesn't love us because He made us --- He made us because He loves us. We are beautiful and precious in His sight. Run into the strong tower of Elohim!