Guilty as Charged
May 5
My prayer list is loaded and heavy. One friend is at Duke awaiting a stem cell transplant, another battling excruciating pain and facing the reality cancer may have returned, a son heads to a neurologist today trying to find answers to debilitating back pain, while one is in airborne training jumping out of airplanes. Add that to some personal unknowns and I found myself only able to cry out to the Lord..."Help!"
Fortunately, I was able to open several devotionals beside my bed and as He so faithfully does when we are willing...God spoke wisdom.
"Oh, if only we would worry less about our problems and sing and praise more! There are thousands of things that shackle us that could be turned into instruments of music, if we just know how to do it. Think of the people who ponder, meditate, and weigh the affairs of life, and who continually study the mysterious inner workings of God's providence, wondering why they suffer burdens and are opposed and battled on every front. How different their lives would be, and how much more joyful, if they would stop indulging in self-centered and inward thinking and instead would daily lift their experiences to God, praising Him for them. It is easier to sing your worries away than to reason them away. Why not sing in the morning? Think of the birds-they are the first to sing each day, and they have fewer worries than anything else in creation! And don't forget to sing in the evening, which is what the robins do when they have finished their daily work." Streams in the Desert
Then I turned to Psalms Now and read #66:
"It is high time we start making happy noises about God, that we boldly proclaim His name and shout His praises....I proclaim God's praises because I know He will love me forever."
I ended with reading some Lloyd John Ogilvie:
"I lift up my voice confessing my total dependence on You."
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
My prayer list is loaded and heavy. One friend is at Duke awaiting a stem cell transplant, another battling excruciating pain and facing the reality cancer may have returned, a son heads to a neurologist today trying to find answers to debilitating back pain, while one is in airborne training jumping out of airplanes. Add that to some personal unknowns and I found myself only able to cry out to the Lord..."Help!"
Fortunately, I was able to open several devotionals beside my bed and as He so faithfully does when we are willing...God spoke wisdom.
"Oh, if only we would worry less about our problems and sing and praise more! There are thousands of things that shackle us that could be turned into instruments of music, if we just know how to do it. Think of the people who ponder, meditate, and weigh the affairs of life, and who continually study the mysterious inner workings of God's providence, wondering why they suffer burdens and are opposed and battled on every front. How different their lives would be, and how much more joyful, if they would stop indulging in self-centered and inward thinking and instead would daily lift their experiences to God, praising Him for them. It is easier to sing your worries away than to reason them away. Why not sing in the morning? Think of the birds-they are the first to sing each day, and they have fewer worries than anything else in creation! And don't forget to sing in the evening, which is what the robins do when they have finished their daily work." Streams in the Desert
Then I turned to Psalms Now and read #66:
"It is high time we start making happy noises about God, that we boldly proclaim His name and shout His praises....I proclaim God's praises because I know He will love me forever."
I ended with reading some Lloyd John Ogilvie:
"I lift up my voice confessing my total dependence on You."
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
