An Earnest Prayer
I love music. I listen to it all the time. That being the case, I’m very familiar with many songs, especially the good old hymns I’ve sung all my life. When we started traveling the country to raise our mission support, I realized I didn’t know quite as many hymns as I thought. With so many churches having different hymnals, I discovered many “new” songs.
Too Much of a Good Thing
I absolutely love my office in our Welsh home. Unlike my workspace in our house in Greenville, SC, this room is entirely dedicated to office work. No bed, closet, piano, or anything else. Just desks, filing cabinets, and bookcases. And don’t let me forget the beautiful view of the Welsh hills beyond the sliding glass doors that occupy the entire front wall of my office. Breathtaking!
The one thing I noticed about this room is that it gets chilly in the winter. Because of the wall of glass, it can be a tad drafty, especially on windy days. That being the case, I have a small electric heater I can turn on whenever the need arises. And it didn’t take long to discover Tess’s favorite spot in my office is snuggled up right in front of the heater.
Count It All Joy?
Have you ever looked at particular commands in the Bible and thought, I don’t know if I can do that? There’s a specific verse in the book of James that has always made me break out in a cold sweat until I recently looked at it a little more closely.
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. - James 1:2-3
Count it all joy when I’m going through trials? Um, seriously?
How Do I Know I Can Trust God?
A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. - James 1:8
To be double-minded essentially means we’re wishy-washy. In our Christian walk, it manifests itself in not knowing whether God can be trusted. At times, we think He can, but when circumstances go crazy, we begin to doubt. We believe God is good, but then we question whether that’s true. Double-minded. Wishy-washy. Unstable.
But what if we could know, without a doubt, that God can be trusted? What if we could prove it to ourselves every time we started to question God’s goodness? Fortunately, we can do it by meditating upon one single chapter of the Bible.
The Formula for Productive Prayers
In our Wednesday evening Bible study last night, we were looking at Psalm 62. Like many of the other psalms, I related to David’s ups and downs as he worked through this prayer song. I also recognized trends in my own prayer life that made me smile and helped me see what a productive prayer time should look like (plus or minus a few elements). Let’s walk through it together.
Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved. - Psalm 62:1-2