Be careful what you pray for...

"I've been praying that the Lord would not abandon our country to our evil minds. That He would bring a revival of Himself to this country. May He start with you and I."

That was the ending sentence I finished my last post with.

This morning I was working on a Bible Study I'm doing with some absolutely inspiring women of God at my church, and Luke 6 was part of the study on building a solid foundation. It is part of a large teaching of Jesus, beginning with the beatttitudes and ending with the parable of the man who builds a house on a strong foundation. So, we studied the whole of the chapter to learn about what Jesus says we should focus on to be building this strong foundation. Make's perfect sense, it's the same sermon.

It has been a long time since I really felt God call me out so directly through Scripture.

Luke 6:43-45 says, "A good tree can't produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can't produce good fruit. A tree is identified by the kind of fruit it produces. Figs never grow on thornbushes or grapes on bramble bushes. A good person produces good deeds from a good heart, and an evil person produces evil deeds from an evil heart. Whatever is in your heart determines what you say."

Confession: Yesterday I was extremely and unnecessarily rude to someone on the phone who was part of a larger problem impeding my ability to do my work. I knew it wasn't her fault that paperwork kept getting lost, but still treated her as if it were. I hung up the phone and felt immediately guilty, so I looked her up and apologized. She accepted.

I still felt guilty about it.

"Whatever is in your heart determines what you say."

God wasn't in my heart. My own sin was. My evil mind had taken over.

I prayed that the Lord wouldn't abandon us to our evil minds...

Thank you, sweet, merciful and forgiving Lord, for answering my prayer. For reminding me, for teaching me, for disciplining me.

This needs to be one passage I put to memory.

Prayer for our Nation

I was forwarded Billy Graham's prayer by a friend, and wanted to share it.

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and Set us free.

Amen!

Amen, Billy. Amen.

I've been trying to pray with some frequency this verse over America. Romans 1:28-32 says "When they refused to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their evil minds and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every king of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, fighting, deceeption, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They are forever inventing new ways of sinning and are disobedient to their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, and are heartless and unforgiving. They are fully aware of God's death penalty for those who do these things, yet they go right ahead and do them anyway. And worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too."

I've been praying that the Lord would not abandon our country to our evil minds. That He would bring a revival of Himself to this country. May He start with you and I.

Up nights

Insomnia has to be one of the worst things anyone could experience. The intense desire to rest completely, while comfortable amid warm, fluffy blankets in a dark room... I don't struggle with it, thankfully, because I make for a pretty grumpy person in the mornings even when I do get enough sleep. Last night was an exception.

I'm sure it was God. I felt like I was struggling with Him, Genesis 32 style. He was telling me to pray, I just couldn't figure out about what exactly... so I just started praying for everything I could think of. Mostly for the church I am privileged to be a member of. (http://www.seacoast.org/campushome.asp?pageID=1128) Every time I think about it I get that feeling in my stomach... that kind of queasy feeling right in the bottom of my stomach that, in the past, has accompanied being spoken to or used by God. On a personal level as well as one with the church, I feel like we're on the cusp of something. Our campus pastor encouraged us to 're-imagine' what we, as a church, could be in Greensboro. So, last night in my wrestling, I imagined. (And I'm quite good at it, ask any of my teachers and they'd tell you I spent an inordinate amount of time dreaming.) I prayed for what I was imagining to come to pass. I see a second service. I see a consistently organized building, I see a safe place for anyone hurting or with questions, I see all members pitching in, I see those lost coming through our doors and I see a fire.

So, I began to pray for myself, that God would light the fire in me. My consistent prayer has been that God would make Philippians 1:6 true in my life. That He would finish the work He started in me years ago. And a couple of days ago in a short devotional I try to read was a commentary on Isaiah 64:8, "We are like clay, and you are the potter; your hands made us all." Max Lucado encourages that "we are tweakable!" So, at 1am this morning, my prayers were lifted to the Lord begging Him to make me worthy of the 'fire.' I'm the clay, no matter how many times God has to start over with me, I want to be molded into something useful.