Just a Prayer

James 5:16 “…The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

The other day I overheard a conversation between two youth at our outreach.  One of them was having issues and was asking for help.  The youth being asked for help didn’t know what to do to make the situation better.  I heard him reply, “The only thing I can do is pray.  I know it’s not much but there’s nothing else I can do.”  Not much?!  Prayer is one of the most amazing tools God has given us.  There is so much power in prayer.  It seems if we’re not doing a lot then there can’t be much power in it.  Prayer is a good example of how much God doesn’t need us but wants us.  God already knows everything we need along with all those around us, He doesn’t need us to tell Him in prayer but He wants us to.  He wants us to talk to Him and spend time with Him like you would your closest friend.  Plus, when it gets to the point that all we have is prayer then it just shows us that God has it all under control and we don’t need to try and fix it with our own human understanding.  It pushes us to have faith in what God is doing rather in what we can do.  When someone comes to you with a problem or you yourself have something that comes up the first thing you should do is get on your knees.  Prayer shouldn’t be our last resort, it should be our first.  

Ephesians 6:18 “In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare.  Pray hard and long.”

The Harder You Try the Harder it Gets

Psalm 68:19 “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.”

I’m one of those people that has to keep things just right.  When things are out of order I feel I have to work really hard to make sure they’re put back in order.  I do the same thing in my walk with God.  When God lays on my heart that I need to be working on something I focus so much on making sure that I am giving every effort that I stress myself out.  I get myself overwhelmed and go backwards instead of forwards.  God wants to help us and guide us as we walk closer and closer to Him in every aspect of our lives.  When we just keep trying harder and harder in our own strength and abilities it will just drag us down.  We need God for everything in our life, including the things He gives us to do.  We don’t have to do all the work, God is there to help us take on the load.

1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”

Doing for God

Colossians 3:23 “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”

Yesterday I woke up needing a nap.  There was a lot of work to be done and I just hadn’t gotten enough sleep to try and tackle it, but I did anyways.  Closer to the end of the day, I was on my hands and knees scrubbing our youth center’s floor.  I was very tired and sore, so being on the floor wasn’t helping the day any.  In my process of crawling under a table to scrub the floor beneath it, I thought to myself, “These kids better be thankful I’m doing this so they don’t have to, they make such big messes.”  Just half an hour later, during the lesson, God came knocking at my heart like He usually does when I need correcting.  He spoke and said, “You’re not doing it for them, you’re doing it for me.”  We get so hung up on making sure people appreciate all we do or getting praise from them that we miss that it’s not for them it’s for God!  Everything we do should be for Him and we should give 110% in any task.  If you were before the throne of Christ, scrubbing the floor, I believe the attitude would be a complete 180 from the one I had.  As hard as it seems that’s how it should be no matter what we’re doing or where we’re at.  It doesn’t matter if the people around you are thankful, God is thankful for what you do so do it for Him and no one else.  

1 Corinthians 10:31 “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

Little Hopeless Moments

Psalm 127:2 "It's useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don't you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves?

Through a series of unfortunate events, I was not able to post a devotion yesterday.  The band had to leave early in the morning and head three hours away for a show.  We were set to get home at a decent hour until the van broke down.  There was nothing we could do to fix it at that time of night.  We couldn’t get a hold of anyone we knew in that area, so we were stranded.  There was nothing we could do except keeping trying to call people. It was very frustrating. The baby was screaming about everything and wouldn’t calm down.  It frustrates me to know I can’t do anything when it feels like there should be something I can do! When moments like this come we have to give it to God. I know I say this a lot in my posts but it's the best thing you can do. We as humans have little power except for what God gives us. We can't do much without Him including situations that seem impossible. When we give God what seems impossible we will slowly see it turn into something that's possible. It may not be exactly what we were thinking of but it will still be perfect and more so than what we had been thinking.  My sister and a close friend of ours drove the two hours to our location and picked us up.  We were able to get everyone home and get plenty of sleep through today.  Praise God.

Philippians 4:7 "Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

Being Watched

1 Timothy 4:16 “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.”

I spent the day with a good friend.  We went out to eat and looked at a few stores in the mall.  While in one of the clothes stores, we saw a shirt that looked decent, which is hard to say for girl’s clothing anymore, we picked it up and on the front was an inappropriate saying.  We both sighed and put it back thinking that clothes shopping in the near future was going to reach the full potential of being impossible.  After putting the shirt down, my friend said she had a younger sister that watched both of us and even if she didn’t respect herself, that in itself would be reason enough not to wear something like that.  No matter who you are, there’s always someone watching you and using your actions as an example for how they should act.  What kind of mark do you want to leave on this earth?  Do you want to leave a mark that will fade within days, weeks, or months after you’re gone, or a mark that shines the light of Christ and leaves an impression for years to come?  It would be the most amazing thing to make it into a history book because you were so on fire for God.  So, the next time you need to make a decision just think about what you choose and if that’s something you want another person to mimic or if that’s something you would like to be remembered for, it could change what you choose.   

1 Peter 2:21 “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.”