Walk Boldly With Jesus

A Private Audience Psalm 18:4-6 “The hangman’s noose was tight at my throat; devil waters rushed over me. Hell’s ropes cinched me tight; death traps barred every exit. A hostile world! I call to God. I cry to God to help me. From his palace, he hears my call; my cry brings me right into his presence—a private audience!"I loved this verse because it is something most, if not all, of us can relate to. I also like it because it is in words and phrases that we can actually picture. Most of us can relate to a time when we felt like the hangman’s noose was tight around our throats. The situations could be different for all of us, but the feelings were the same. There could be many situations where we felt we were about to suffocate. Sometimes it is the people around us. They are choking all the life out of us, and we feel we may die. Sometimes, it is an illness that has us on the cusp of death, and we have nowhere to go. No matter the situation, it is still a feeling that is scary and unpleasant.Then it says the devil's waters rushed over me. Which one of us hasn’t felt underwater before? This is such a strong feeling. Both the hangman’s noose and the devil’s water deal with us not being able to breathe. This is a common feeling. Things in our life get so crazy, and we feel like we can’t breathe. I just had the thought come into my mind, “Why do we let things get that bad?” Why don’t we turn to the Lord at the first sign of trouble, like we talked about yesterday?This is a fair question for some of us. Some of us sit in our misery, and we complain, and we do what we can to fix it on our own, perhaps, but we do not bring it to the Lord. There are many reasons for this. We may not want to bother Him; we may think we aren’t worthy of His help, and we may be afraid of rejection. Whatever the thoughts are, we don’t bring our issue to the Lord, and we try to deal with it on our own. For all of us who do this, I would say, Yes, why did we let it get that bad? Why didn’t we turn to the Lord right away? Why didn’t we ask Him for help? Why did we suffer in silence for so long?Oh, that is another thing we do. We are suffering, and not only do we not turn to the Lord, but we don’t tell anyone. We may think there are many reasons we don’t tell people what is going on, but there is really just one reason, and that is the enemy. He convinces us of all those reasons we think we aren’t talking about our suffering. The real reason we aren’t talking about it is because the enemy knows when we talk about it, we will be taking it out of the dark. When we talk about it, it will give others the opportunity to speak light into it. The enemy likes our suffering to stay hidden so he can heap on lie after lie. He speaks lies into our suffering. Lies that it won’t ever go away. Lies that no one cares about us. Lies that God must be mad at us, and that is why He is punishing us like this. Lies that God doesn’t love us. Lies that no one loves us. Lies that we are not worthy. Lies that we are not enough. The enemy stacks lies upon lies.When we are struggling, it is easy to believe these lies. When we are struggling, we prefer to isolate and stay in the dark because the enemy convinces us the light will burn us. It is not our fault that we fall prey to the enemy; I mean, He has been torturing people since the beginning of man. However, we need to find a way to break out of the darkness. We need to prepare ahead of time for situations like this. When we are good, when things in our life aren’t as crazy, and we are living in the light, we need to build up our strength so that when the enemy comes, we can recognize the lies and dismiss them. Don’t even let them enter our brains.Think about anyone who is good at their job. They have to anticipate problems that may come up and then prepare for them. What do you think would happen if a basketball player never practiced free throws until he needed to use them? He wouldn’t be very good. If we only call on God when we need Him, and the rest of the time, we ignore Him, how well do you think that will work out for you? He will come as it pains Him to see His children in trouble. It’s not that God won’t come whenever we call. However, if we are walking with Him in the good and the bad times, then He can help us steer clear of some of the wrong turns that we might make without Him.The verse above talks about how death traps barred every exit. Have you ever felt like this? Have you ever felt as if there was no way out? Every way out seemed to end in death or at least defeat. I know I have felt like this. There was a point in my marriage where I really didn’t want to go, and I also knew I couldn’t stay. I had tried all things and couldn’t see any other way. I prayed to God often. I reminded Him of the covenant He had made with Tony and me. I begged Him for a better way. I had been Catholic my whole life. I knew the church’s stance, God’s stance on marriage. Matthew 19:6 “So they are no longer two but one fles

The Bedrock Under My Feet Psalm 18:1-2 " I love you, God—you make me strong. God is the bedrock under my feet, the castle in which I live, my rescuing knight. My God—the high crag where I run for dear life, hiding behind the boulders, safe in the granite hideout.”Psalm 18 was brought up twice in prayer group today. It was not these verses; however, when I started reading the whole chapter, I fell in love, especially with the beginning. I will take a few days to focus on this Psalm. I am not sure how many, but at the very least, today and Monday, as it is so beautiful! This verse starts with, “I love you, God—you make me strong,” what a great opener. We can’t tell God enough how much we love Him. I don’t think He ever gets tired of hearing it from us. Also, what a great thing to remember. God is our strength. It doesn’t matter what kind of strength we need; it can be found in the Lord.Next, it says that God is the bedrock under my feet. Bedrock is the solid rock underneath loose rock or soil. We may have other things that we rely on before God. There might be various ways that we try to protect ourselves; these things would be loose rock or soil. Maybe they work for a bit, but eventually, you will slip, or you fall on that loose grave. Underneath it all is our real protection. God is the solid rock that we stand on. With God as our bedrock, we can rest assured that our footing is solid and we will not fall.It also says that God is the castle in which I live. God is a safe place for us to not only rest but for us to live. He is not just a stopping point, like a safe bench to sit on. We can live in his safety and security. It is always around us, just like the walls of a castle. If we are in a castle, we are surrounded by walls of stone so thick that we are safe from the enemy. The Lord protects us from all our enemies. We just have to live with Him. We just have to let Him surround us with His walls of protection. We just have to ask Him.Next, it says God is our rescuing knight. How many times have you seen this in your own life? When we are struggling, God comes in and rescues us. He loves us that much. He doesn’t always come in right when we want Him to, and He doesn’t always save us in the way we want Him to. This is because He is so much smarter than we are. It is also because He sees the whole picture, and He thinks way bigger than we do. We definitely think our idea is the best idea. But what if what we are thinking is way smaller than what God is thinking? What if He has much bigger plans for us, but they require us to trust Him in these first few steps because we are not ready for the amazing life He has planned for us? We are still growing. We are still learning. If He had just plopped us into this new amazing life, we wouldn’t have been ready for it, and we might have ruined it. God knows what He is doing.The last line in this verse says, “My God—the high crag where I run for dear life, hiding behind the boulders, safe in the granite hideout.” This is another way to show us how safe we are with the Lord. We can run to Him with anything, yes, even if our lives are in danger. This means when we are sick, when we are scared, when we are in danger. We can run to Him, and He will be there for us. He will ALWAYS be there for us, which makes me wonder why we don’t go to Him more often. Why don’t we run to Him at the first sign of trouble? Why don’t we hide behind His bolder and stay safe in the granite hideout?I received a word last night at prayer group, and then at the end, we had a bit of a discussion about it. What my friend said might be the same reason we don’t always run to Him. The words I received were, “I want to be close to you, but you are keeping me at a safe distance. You are keeping me at an arm’s length away from you. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of me seeing? Open it up to me. Let me in.” After the meeting, my friend said she thinks she is afraid of rejection. She is afraid if she lets the Lord into the innermost parts of herself, He won’t like what He sees.She knows this is not true in her mind but is having trouble convincing her heart of it. She said she felt like she heard the Lord ask her, in a very gentle and loving voice, “Why would I reject you? I made you. I made every part of you. I have loved you since before you were born. I would never reject you.” Sometimes we feel like we want to hide things from the Lord. I don’t think my friend is the only one who fears rejection. We wonder what it would be like if God knew the REAL us. The one we don’t let anyone see. What if He knew the ugly thoughts we have sometimes? What if He knew about those things we did when we were younger? What if he knew the demons I was still struggling with? What if…I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but He already knows. He knows everything about you. Every thought you have, every single thing you have ever done, and yet He loves you anyway. He loves you just as you are. He wants to love and

You Get Out What You Put In2 Corinthians 9:6-8 “Here’s my point. A stingy sower will reap a meager harvest, but the one who sows from a generous spirit will reap an abundant harvest. Let giving flow from your heart, not from a sense of religious duty. Let it spring up freely from the joy of giving—all because God loves hilarious generosity! Yes, God is more than ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace so that you will have more than enough of everything —every moment and in every way. He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do.”I was planning to use a different verse today. Then, all of a sudden, this verse popped up in a notification on my phone as the verse of the day. The moment I read it, I felt as if the Holy Spirit said I want you to talk about the concept of “you get what you put into it.” When you first read this verse, you might think of money first. It sort of sounds like they are talking about how much money they will give to the church. In the verses before this section in the Passion Translation, they are talking about a donation they are going to give. I think the Lord wants me to touch on this, but this is not the main point of what He wants me to talk about today. So, let me begin with that to get it out of the way.When it comes to how much money we give to the church, or to the poor, or whoever we are giving money to, this verse is very applicable. This can be a difficult decision to make because we want to make sure we are still able to pay all of our bills and buy all the things we want to buy. However, are we buying much more than we actually need? As the verse says, are we stingy with our giving to the church and yet have plenty of money to waste on things we don’t need? Giving to the church is part of our duty, even if we don’t want to, even if we disagree with all the church is doing. We are all obligated to give to the church. Many churches will recommend you give 5% of your income to the church and 5% to the poor.This is where this verse comes in handy. It is a good thing to remember when you are deciding how much to give to the church. “A stingy sower will reap a meager harvest.” God cannot be outdone in generosity. We sometimes worry if we give too much, we won’t have enough for ourselves. There is no way that God lets you give so much that you don’t have enough for yourself. The more you give, the more God gives. God doesn’t want us to give just because we have to, though. He wants us to give freely, and He wants us to do it with a joyful heart. Think about how you are giving your money. Are you doing it with a joyful heart? Are you being stingy or are you being generous?What I feel the Lord really wants me to talk to you about today is how much of You, you are giving to the Lord. How much are you putting into your relationship with the Lord? How much time? How much effort? How much vulnerability and openness? This is what jumped out at me when I read this verse this morning. If we are stingy with the time and effort in our relationship with the Lord, then our relationship will reflect that. We can not expect to have a close and intimate relationship with the Lord when we don’t put in any effort.I always wondered what people meant when they said they wanted to have an intimate relationship with God or with Jesus. I mean, He is God; how can you have an intimate relationship with the Almighty God in heaven? The idea of it all seemed so foreign to me. I couldn’t even picture what that would look like. I couldn’t picture how that would work and how I could cultivate that. Yet, I still dove in. I joined a prayer group full of people who clearly knew the Lord intimately, and I learned from them. I would like to pass along what I have learned to you so you can have the same thing they have. Let me start by answering the questions that I had because if I had them, then some of you do too.My first question was, what does it even mean to have an intimate relationship with God? For me, it means really knowing Him and for Him to really know me. It means I know without a doubt of His love for me. I can take any problem to Him, and I know He will be there for me. I know He will comfort me and protect me. I know He will help me solve all my problems if I let Him. I also know He will celebrate with me. When good things happen, we celebrate together. When I need a pep talk, He is ready to give it to me. In short, He is my go-to for all things, and He is never too busy and never too upset. He always receives me with loving arms.My second question was, how do I cultivate this type of relationship? This was surprisingly simpler than I thought. The reason it was simpler than I thought is because this is the type of relationship God wants with each of us. The way you cultivate an intimate relationship with God is the same way you would with a person. Think about your person. The one you can always go to with anything. The one who will celebrate with you when you are ha

Jim's Website- SaintsBeToGod.org This is a great place to learn more about Jim, the relics, and how to bring those relics to your church. You can also give a donation here to support his mission. To get more info or to sign up for mentoring, Click Here! To sign up for my newsletter and a free download for an audio training on how to incorporate more prayer into the things you are already doing, Click Here! We have all seen God working in our lives; however, we might not all be aware that it is God who is working in our lives. This is why it is so important we start talking about it more. The more we share our experiences, the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us. If you would be willing to share any experience you have had of how God has worked or is working your life, please email me at [email protected] or just click here. It won’t take up much of your time, and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today. Prayerfully consider sharing. Everyone has a story, and the world needs to hear them. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow, and I will have another witness for you next Wednesday. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I. Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Guard Your Heart and MindProverbs 4:23-25 “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.”I really like these verses. I don’t think we realize how important it is to do what they say. Did you know it was important to guard your heart and mind? Did you know when it talks about the heart in the Bible, it also talks about your mind? I just found this out the other day, although it does make sense to me. Our hearts and minds are interconnected. Our thoughts are actually what control our emotions. This is why it is so important to control our thoughts. I know a lot of people who feel they can not help how they feel. Perhaps you agree. I mean, when something happens, you just react. You can not help that. You instinctively feel a certain emotion depending on your past life experiences. However, we won’t all feel the same thing. For instance, you and I could be out for a walk together. We might see a dog walking on the other side of the street. You might be happy because you think dogs are cute and you love them. I might be nervous because I was attacked by a dog when I was younger, so they make me nervous.This can happen with many emotions. My husband gets pretty angry when people cut him off or when we are stuck in traffic. However, most of the time, I don’t really mind either of those two things. So, let me go back to what I said earlier. I agree that when something happens, you may not have control over whatever emotion you immediately feel. However, you can do work so that you have more and more control over how you react to things. Even though you might not have control over the immediate emotion you feel, you do have control over whether or not you stay in that emotion. Your thoughts drive your emotions. We all have stories that we tell ourselves when something happens, and those stories can help us or hurt us. Too often, we allow them to hurt us.For example, someone shows up late to a lunch that you had. They didn’t call and you are sitting there getting more and more mad. You are probably telling yourself a story like this, “I can’t believe they are late. They are always late. They are so selfish. They only think about themselves. They think there time is so much more important than my time. I can’t believe they are doing this to me. I can’t believe they don’t care about me or my time. Maybe I just shouldn’t have lunch with them anymore.” Do you feel the emotions that come along with this story? You are getting yourself more and more upset as you sit there telling yourself all these negative things. Take a minute and think about the emotions that story had you feeling. Now listen to this story you could tell yourself, “I wonder why they are late. I hope they are ok. This happens sometimes. They get caught up in something and lose track of time. I am sure they will be here soon. They have been late before, but they always come. I know how hard it can be getting out the door with 3 kids.” Did this story create different feelings? For me, I felt more compassionate when I told myself the second story. I was able to be more patient.The reason we have to guard our thoughts is because the enemy is actively trying to take control of them. He wants you to have negative thoughts. He wants you to think you have no control over your thoughts or your emotions. He wants to destroy us, and that is the fastest way to do so. He can plant seeds in your thoughts and then walk away and watch those seeds ruin us. In John 8:44, Jesus says, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” The devil is the father of lies. Unfortunately, he doesn’t just straight-up lie; there is usually a kernel of truth in what he is saying, and yet he twists that truth to make you start doubting.For instance, you called someone, and they didn’t call you back. The enemy will use this information to cause you to doubt your friendship. He will tell you that this person was home, and they just didn’t want to answer. He will tell you that they are mad at you, and that is why they didn’t answer. It all depends on what your insecurities are. However, the truth is, we don’t know why they didn’t call us back, and we won’t know until they do call us back. This is what I mean by guarding our thoughts. We need to shut the enemy down. It may be true that they didn’t want to talk to us, but until they tell us that, we have no way of knowing. So, wouldn’t it be better to tell ourselves a story that is just as plausible but that doesn’t make us upset? For instance, they are busy right now and can’t answer the phone. They are out running errands and will call back when they get ho

First Things FirstGenesis 4:3-5 “ In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.”I heard Father Mike talking about this story the other day, and it really made me think. The Bible really doesn’t say why the Lord had regard for Abel’s offering and not for Cain’s offering. However, many theologians or Bible scholars believe it is because Abel gave of the firstlings of his flock, and Cain did not. In other words, Able gave God the best of the best, and Cain didn’t.This got me thinking, do I give God the best of the best, or do I give Him what is left over? Do I give Him the best of me, or do I give Him what is left over after I have poured out the best of me in my job and in my family? Usually, we fit God in when we can, if we can. We don’t give Him the best time of day to talk with us. We don’t always start our day off with Him. We don’t always offer Him the best parts of our day. Even when I do start my day off talking to Him, I am not usually at my best because I stayed up so late the night before I was just falling asleep during my time with Him.What about our income? Are we giving the Lord the best of our income? Are we giving Him the top 10%, or are we paying all our bills, going out to eat, buying all the things we want for ourselves, doing all the online shopping, and then giving Him what, if anything, is left over? Are we giving the Lord what He wants or what we want? Father Mike told this story about his mother. One year, for her birthday, the kids asked what she wanted them to buy her. She said what she would really like is for them to clean the house for her, so she wouldn’t have to do it. That sounded like a lot of work and not something they wanted to do. So they asked her again, no, Mom, really, what can we get you? She said well, you could cut the grass and clean up the yard for me. Again, this was not something they had any desire to do.The older sisters decided to borrow some money and the car from their Dad, and they went to the store and bought her a really nice gift. Father Mike and his brother, I think, took off on their skateboards, and they learned a cool new trick to show their mom for her birthday. So when it was time to give her the presents, the girls presented what they had bought for her, and the boys showed her the tricks they learned for her. She was very appreciative, said thank you, and didn’t complain. However, later in life, Father Mike realized that they didn’t really give their Mom what she wanted; they gave her what they wanted.How many times have we done this to our Heavenly Father? How many times has he called us to do something, and we counter with something different? For instance, the Lord asks us to volunteer at church, and instead, we pretend we didn’t hear, or we offer to make a donation instead. How many times have we felt called to give money to someone or some organization, and yet we are worried we don’t have enough, so we don’t? Have you ever felt called to offer something up for someone, and yet it seemed like a lot of work, so you did something else instead? I will be honest with you: there have been a few times over the last few months when I have felt called to pray the miraculous rosary for someone and yet have resisted because that is a 54-day commitment.It’s crazy to me to think about what I just said. The Holy Spirit prompted me to do something, and I didn’t. I thought it was too much work. Actually, I don’t know if I made the conscious decision not to do it. I think how it works with me, and maybe with you, is that I plan to do it, and I keep thinking about it and keep thinking I will do it, but then I never actually get around to doing it. I think we do this often. Maybe it isn’t always conscious, and maybe we don’t always want to admit it, but sometimes we just don’t want to do what God wants us to do. If it were easy to follow the Lord, everyone would be doing it. In Matthew 16:24, Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”Are we doing this? Are we denying ourselves and picking up our cross to follow Him? When I examine my life, I don’t think that I am. I truly struggle with denying myself at times. Sometimes, I do great, and other times, I am not good at all. However, I think I know what the difference is. I think when I am trying to go at it alone, I don’t do well. However, when I invite Jesus into the struggle, I do much better. If we are being asked to do something that we think is going to be difficult, we can invite Jesus in to help us. We can pray for the strength, the fortitude, the perseverance to stick to whatever it is we are trying to do. This is true with all things. If we try to do anythi

Be Bold!Deuteronomy 31:7-8 “Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel: “Be strong and bold, for you are the one who will go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their ancestors to give them; and you will put them in possession of it. It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”I thought it was interesting that this was a verse that I read this morning. Yesterday at prayer group, we stayed after and did our monthly bookmark meeting. What this means is that we take a look at the bookmark for the month, and we each say what stands out to us. The bookmark is the discerned word for a particular month. Each week at prayer group, we get several words of prophecy from the Lord. We record these words that are given, and there is a team that discerns the words given and picks one: Call, Proclamation, Promise, and Directive for the month. One of our members then types them up and puts them on a bookmark so we can share them with the entire prayer group.Yesterday we did the bookmark from February 2023. That was almost a year ago, and yet the bookmark was similar to the words that we received yesterday. For the most part, the Lord is not saying new things to us. He is saying the same things we have heard time and time again. Sometimes, He says those things in a new way, and sometimes, He uses very similar words. What is striking to me today is how this passage says, “Be strong and bold,” and this is the same thing He was telling us last February and the same thing He told us yesterday.In the February bookmark, the Lord said, “Do all to make me known and proclaim my Name. Be bold and step out. Serve me with all you are each and every day. Go now. Do not delay.” The passage talks about being strong and bold so they can take over the promised land. The passage in the bookmark talks about being bold so we can proclaim the Lord’s name. The apostles prayed for this boldness to preach the word of the Lord at a time when it was very dangerous to preach about Jesus. In Acts 4, Peter and John talk to people about Jesus and His resurrection. The rulers, elders, and scribes didn’t like what they were teaching, and they threatened Peter and John as to what would happen to them if they didn’t stop talking about Jesus.Instead of cowering and obeying when they were told to stop talking about Jesus, they prayed for more boldness to do it anyway. Acts 4:29-31 says, “And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.” They asked for boldness, and they were given it. It is the same for us. All we need to do is ask. God is calling us to be bold in our faith. We sometimes worry that we will be alone in this boldness. Sometimes, it can feel like it is us against the world, and when we think about being brave, we aren’t sure we can do it.In the verse above Moses reminds Joshua that God will be with Him when they go into the promised land. It says, “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” This is reminding Joshua that God will not let them down. He is reminding them that they do not have anything to be afraid of. It is not up to them to defeat the enemy. God will be with them, and He will help them! In the February bookmark, before God told us to be bold, he reminded us, “I am the Lord of the universe.”God is not calling us to be bold on our own. He is right there with us. He goes before us to prepare the way. For instance, if God is calling you to be bold and step out in faith and pray over someone, then He has already prepared that person’s heart to accept that prayer. If God is asking you to be brave and ask for something then He has already softened hearts and prepared them for you. God says 365 times in the Bible, some version of “do not be afraid.” This is another way to say, “Be bold.”My friend Peggy at prayer group yesterday was saying she has learned to be bold just by hearing the title of this podcast. She said it reminds her that she can be bold with Jesus by her side. She said she has gotten much bolder since listening. She gets a daily devotional from another friend of ours. She forwards it to many people. She was brave and took a step in faith and gave her grandson a Max Lucado book called “Fearless.” She wasn’t sure how he would respond. He is a teenager and, in the past, has been resistant to faith. However, recently he said he has been reading the Bible. She took this book off of her shelf and said she thought he might like it and gave it to him. Her grandson sent her a text message wh

I Waited and Waited and Waited Psalm 40:1 “I waited and waited and waited some more, patiently, knowing God would come through for me. Then, at last, he bent down and listened to my cry.”This verse came from a good friend of mine in England. I posted on Facebook that I am trying something new this year. I decided I wanted to learn more Bible verses. So, what a few of my friends do is they pick a verse for each week of the year. Or, they have their friends and family give them verses for each week of the year, and then they write those verses in their planner, and they spend a week with each verse. They also pray for the person who gave them the verse for the week. I thought this was a great idea! I decided to take it a step further and write this verse at least once each day so it helps me commit it to memory. I made a post on Facebook asking friends and family to give me their favorite verses. If you have a favorite verse and would like to email it to me at [email protected] or you could find me on Facebook, Catherine Duggan, and comment on the post and I would be happy to remember you and your loved one and any prayer requests that you have during the week I am praying with the verse you gave me.My friend gave me the verse above, and I instantly loved it. I love that it captures our reality at times, and it also really captures the love of the Father. Sometimes, we feel like we are asking and asking the Lord for something, and yet we wait and wait and see no answers to those prayers. Have you been in a season of waiting? Have you been asking the Lord for something, and yet you are still waiting for the answer to those prayers? This can be really hard. We pray to the Lord, and we want Him to help us right away, or at least I do. I really struggle at times with waiting to see the results of my prayers. This is especially true if I am praying over someone for healing.I struggle because I know how powerful God is, and I know He can heal anyone at any time. I struggle because I don’t believe he wants to see anyone struggle, and yet He doesn’t heal everyone, and He definitely doesn’t heal everyone the second we pray for healing. So, we end up doing what this verse says, we wait, and we wait, and we wait. Sometimes we wait patiently, as this verse says, and sometimes, not so patiently. It all depends on our circumstances at the time. One thing I like about this verse is that it says I waited patiently because I knew God would come through for me. This is important for us all to remember. God will come through. It is also important to remember that His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts.If I can remember this, I think I could wait more patiently. I need to remember that God knows what He is doing and that His plan is better than my plan. He is the creator of the Universe; of course, His plan is better than my plan. If He is not healing someone right away, there is a reason for it. I don’t have to know that reason I just have to know that HE has one.One way to remind myself that God has a plan to trust that God will come through is to think back to all the times He has come through in the past. When did the Lord come through for you? When in the past did you wait on the Lord, and then he answered your prayers? I know for me, He has always come through, and sometimes I ask for some pretty big things. When I asked the Lord to heal my niece and let her live, He did, and we didn’t even have to wait very long. When I asked him to help my son get off of drugs, He did. When I asked Him to take away my dad’s pain, He did. When I asked Him to take away my sister’s pain, He did. When I asked Him to save my marriage, He did. God has come through for us more times than I can count, and this is why I can wait patiently. I know He will always come for me, though. He will always come through for you too! We just have to wait longer than we would like at times.I love that this verse says, “Then, at last, he bent down and listened to my cry.” I love this because it shows the Father as a loving father. It shows that He cares about us. It doesn’t just say they finally heard us. I love that it says he bent down and listened to my cry. What I picture is a loving Father who bends down to listen to me cry. He doesn’t just stand there and let our cries go up to his ears. He bends down to show us we have His attention. I just picture Jesus; since we don’t really know what God looks like, I picture Jesus bending down, and I picture us as little children whispering our requests into his ear. Almost like we are telling Him a secret, one that no one knows.I love to picture the Father like this. I think if we read more verses like this, we begin to see God as our loving Father instead of this stern Father figure who is judging us and just waiting to call us out on all that we are doing wrong. God loves us, and He wants to answer our prayers. However, like a loving Father, He also knows that when w

Click Here for info on mentoring. We have all seen God working in our lives, however, we might not all be aware it is God who is working in our lives. This is why it is so important we start talking about it more. The more we share our experiences, the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us. If you would be willing to share any experience you have had of how God has worked or is working your life, please email me at [email protected] or just click here. It won’t take up much of your time, and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today. Prayerfully consider sharing. Everyone has a story, and the world needs to hear them. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow, and I will have another witness for you next Wednesday. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I. Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

God Can Accomplish Far More Than We Can ImagineEphesians 3:20-21 “Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”Wow, that first line is something I think we all need to hear again. “Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine.” What have you been asking the Lord for lately? Does it seem like you are asking Him for some pretty big things? Does it seem like you are asking Him for more than He can give you? When we read this verse, we see that there isn’t anything we can ask for that is “too much” for Him. He is able to do far more than we can even imagine. I saw this yesterday when I was in class.When I was in class last night at Encounter Ministries Boston Campus, we were praising and worshiping the Lord. Then Deacon Joe said he feels as though the Lord wants to heal people right now. I don’t know what people were praying for while we were praising and worshiping, but I don’t know that anyone was praying for immediate healing. I bet some people were praying for a healing, but I doubt anyone thought to pray for an immediate healing. Deacon Joe asked anyone who had any pain to raise their hands. Then he said if you don’t have pain go and find someone with their hand raised and pray over them.First, I went to a friend in class who has had some heart issues in the past. He said he had a pain in his chest, and he didn’t know what it was from. There were two of us praying over him, and after the first time praying, he said the pain had decreased, and after the second time, he said he no longer had the pain anymore. Later, he shared with the class that he had been at the hospital with this pain over the weekend, and they couldn’t come up with a reason for it. Now, his pain was gone!Second, I went to a friend who has been struggling with shoulder pain and range of motion for quite a while now. There were two of us praying, and then another two joined after a few minutes. We prayed for a restoration of her range of motion and for a release of all pain. As we prayed, she was able to lift her arm further and further. She was also able to put her arm behind her, which she hadn’t been able to do before we prayed. Thank you, Jesus, you are so good!I believe both of these healings were above and beyond what they were asking for in class last night. Yet, that is how good God is; He likes to surprise us! What do you need right now, and yet you have been afraid to ask? Where have you been playing it little in your prayers? Where have you been wanting more than you asked for? Where have you been asking for less than you want because you don’t want to be greedy or you don’t want to bother God?The verse says, “Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us.” I love that last part, too, “by the power at work within us.” I know I say this often, and that is because it is so important. We each have the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of us. We have power that is at work within us. This means that we don’t have to do things on our own. We don’t have to limit our prayers. We don’t have to rely on our own strength. We are not in this alone.I believe this verse is daring us to dream big. To pray for those desires down deep in our hearts. When I say we are praying too small, I don’t just mean when we pray for healing or when we pray for others. I mean, even for those dreams that we used to think about and have now tucked away into that neat little box in the back of our mind so we don’t have to think about them anymore. I mean for that thing that you have always wanted, and yet you can’t see any way that it could happen, so you don’t even ask for it.Maybe your sister is in hospice, and even though you are praying for a miracle, you can’t see how one could actually happen. That’s ok; we don’t have to see the way; we just have to keep asking, and God can work through us and in us. Maybe you have had a lifelong dream to do something, and as you get older, you see that dream slipping away. Hear me when I say it is not too late. God can give you more than you ever imagined. God can still make that dream come true. Don’t stop asking for it, and start asking for it if you haven’t already.I know this can be hard to believe sometimes. I have some friends who are asking God for some pretty big things. I have a friend who has lost his eyesight, and he is praying he will get it back. I am sure in this tough time of waiting for God to answer that prayer, he is struggling to believe that God gives us more than we can imagine. I have a friend who is struggling with a sarcoma. She had had it for at least 3 years now. The doctors keep telling her that her condition is terminal, and yet she is still here; she is still going strong. She is able to believe that God can take this from her. She knows He can heal he

Inexpressible and Glorious Joy1 Peter 1:8-9 “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”I asked my friend to choose a verse for me while I was at a retreat. She chose this one. I am not sure I knew this one, and yet I love it. I know I say that a lot. It is true God is so good, and there are countless verses from the Bible that I love. I love this one because it ends with the salvation of our souls, and who wouldn’t love that? As much as I love this verse, I know it is a hard verse to accomplish.It can be hard to believe in something we can’t see. When I first read this verse, I thought it was pretty easy because I was thinking about how many of us haven’t seen God before, and yet we love Him. The retreat I was at was filled with women who all believed in God, and yet we had not ever seen God. We all had different degrees of faith and possibly even different beliefs in God. However, we all believed that God was looking out for us and that He was our Lord and Savior. How is this possible?When I got to thinking about it, I wondered if it is true that many of us haven’t seen God before. Yes, it is true that we have not seen God in person, like those who walked with Jesus did. However, I think many of us see God in our lives often. Maybe not every day unless we are specifically looking for Him, but we do see Him working. Even if it was only once, we have probably seen God. The question is, did we know it was God when we saw Him?Did we know that the kind person who paid for our coffee was the face of God? Did we know the person who held the door of the elevator was the face of God? Did we know the person who was in front of us at the store was the face of God? Did we know the stranger who said a kind word was the face of God? Did we know the breakthrough we received at work was a gift from God? Did we know it was God who helped us through that jam? Did we know it was God who made that awesome thing happen? I am blessed to have had parents who saw God working in everything they did! I am blessed to have parents who saw God everywhere they went. They knew without a shadow of a doubt that God loved them, and they loved Him. However, we are not all that lucky. Some of us didn’t grow up with parents who pointed out all the ways God was helping out their family. Yet, even people who didn’t grow up learning about the faith can still believe in God. My friend Catherine didn’t grow up learning about the Lord, and yet He found her right when she needed Him most. God is good like that. He will come and chase us down and reveal Himself to us when He knows we will be open to it. I am sure God reveals Himself to us more than once, and He keeps revealing Himself to us until we are ready to see Him.I think we are able to love Him even though we can’t see Him because we can see His work in our lives. We can believe in Him even though we can’t see Him because we can see all He has done in our lives, all He has done for us. If you look throughout your life for places where the Lord has been, I know you will find them. Now that my friend knows Jesus, she can see where He showed up for her all throughout her life. She didn’t know it was Him at the time, but now she can look back and see that He was there. I think this is why we can love Him, even though we haven’t seen Him. We have seen Him. We just didn’t realize it was Him.I also love this verse because it says, "You believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.” Have you felt this inexpressible and glorious joy? I have, and it is amazing. I had heard people talk about the Joy of the Lord before when I was younger, and I am not sure I knew what that meant. However, now I know. It is this joy that wells up inside of you when you think about Him. It is this joy you feel, even in the middle of some really difficult times. It’s not a happiness. You are not happy you are in the circumstance you are in, but you are joyful because you know God will take care of you while you are in it. It is unlike any other feeling I have ever felt. It is a joy that you can’t explain to others.I know someone who lost their husband suddenly. She said throughout the grieving process, she knew the Lord was with her. She said she had some moments of pure joy over the last 9 months. However, she said she could not share them with people because they wouldn’t understand and would judge her for having joy while she was grieving. It wasn’t that she was happy her husband was gone. She missed him very much. It was a joy of the Lord that she was feeling. God allowed her to feel joy in His presence, and it was a magical feeling.The verse ends with, “For you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” Part of the reason for this joy that we feel is because we know that w

A Refiner’s Fire1 Peter 1:6-7 "I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.”In Tuesday’s episode, we talked about 1 Peter 1:6-7. This verse ends with, “The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.” This is where today’s verses pick up. I had to go back and look because today’s verse begins with, “I know how great that makes you feel,” and I couldn’t remember what was making us feel so great. Now that I look back, I agree that thinking about a day when we have it all—life healed and whole does make us feel pretty great. Today’s verse talks about why we have to go through some of the things we need to go through. Or, maybe not why we have to go through them, but the result of going through them.The verse says, “Pure gold put into the fire comes out proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine.” I remember I was at a prayer group meeting once, and the leader was talking about the process of refining silver. I am not sure if the process is the same for refining gold or not. I think this story will give you a good idea of why we must all go through a refining process. Here is the story:The Refiner’s FireAs she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest so as to burn away all the impurities. The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: ‘He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.’ (Malachi 3:3) She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver were left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed. The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, ‘How do you know when the silver is fully refined?’ He smiled at her and answered, ‘Oh, that’s easy — when I see my image in it.’ I love this story because, to me, it explains why we have to go through some of the things we have to go through. My favorite part is the very last part. I love that the silversmith said it is done when he can see his image in it. Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that the same with us? God is refining us and helping us to become not just better versions of ourselves but actually to become more and more like Jesus. God can tell when He is done refining us because he can see his reflection in us. I think that is a beautiful thought.The verse today says that when gold is put in the fire, only the true gold remains. It is also saying that when genuine faith is put through suffering, it comes out proved genuine. Can you see how this would be true? Can you think of a time when your faith was tested? A time when you were sure you believed God worked all things for good. A time when you felt you really trusted in the Lord. Then it seemed like your whole world came crashing down. Maybe you lost your job? Maybe you lost your house? Maybe you lost a spouse or a child? Maybe you lost your parent?Whatever it is that happened, it shook your world and tested your faith. You struggled to understand how the God you loved so much could allow this terrible thing to happen to you and your family. You struggle to trust that He will be there with you through it all. This is hard for all of us. It is easy to have faith when all is going well. It is easy for someone who is doing great in life to tell you to just trust in the Lord, to turn to Him, and He will help you. Those are easy words to say to others when all is going well. However, it is very different when you are the one going through it.This is what this verse is trying to tell us. When we go through a difficult struggle and are able to keep our faith through it. When we are able to turn to the Lord in our confusion and our anger and talk with Him, that is when our faith is proved. That is how we can prove our faith is genuine. This isn’t just proving it to the Lord either; it is proving it to us as well. We may wonder if our faith is true and genuine, and when we hit a hard time, we get to see if it is or not.The last line of this verse says, “When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.” This can be a very important thing for us to remember because it is so contrary to how the world thinks. The world only seems to care about how much stuff you have. Do you have the nicest house

CLICK HERE TO JOINDo you want to grow closer to the Lord? Have you ever desired a more personal relationship with the Lord? How great would it be to incorporate your spirituality into your daily routines? Have you ever been around people who seem so in love with the Lord and longed for that same relationship? Have you ever wished you knew more about praying, worshiping, praising, and so much more? Why is it that if we want to get better at something, like gardening, painting, or singing, we will seek professional help? However, we rarely do this when it comes to our faith. Yet, this could be the most critical area for improvement. My teachings will be for about 20-30 minutes. I will have a brief question and answer session, and then we will break into small groups where you can talk about what you just learned and how you will apply it to your life in the upcoming week. This is an excellent opportunity to create peer partnerships, which will help to create an environment of encouragement and motivation. You can help each stay on track and ensure you aren't just learning these things without applying them to your life. It is much easier to grow in your faith when you have a community of people on the journey with you. I will also have a Facebook group where you can post your progress, struggles, and questions. I honestly believe I am where I am today because I had a community surrounding me the whole way. So many of us feel alone, and when you join a community like this, you find out you are not alone! What is included with the membership?Weekly Mentoring Session (Live on zoom)A recording of those sessions so you can re-watch when neededWeekly small group discussions (when you attend live)Members only Facebook groupAccountablity on your journeyA community of people to share your journeyCost: $30 per monthCLICK HERE TO JOIN www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

We have all seen God working in our lives, however, we might not all be aware it is God who is working in our lives. This is why it is so important we start talking about it more. The more we share our experiences, the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us. If you would be willing to share any experience you have had of how God has worked or is working your life, please email me at [email protected] or just click here. It won’t take up much of your time, and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today. Prayerfully consider sharing. Everyone has a story, and the world needs to hear them. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow, and I will have another witness for you next Wednesday. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I. Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

What A God We Have!1 Peter 1:3-5 What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.Today we are continuing on with 1 Peter 1. I love how today’s verse starts off by saying, “What a God we have!” It then goes on to talk about how fortunate we are to have it. This is true, and yet I am not sure we talk about it or even realize it enough. If we really knew all the things God did for us, I don’t think our minds could even comprehend it. Most of us know when God does the big things in our lives. We know when He heals people, when He opens doors for us, when He helps us out of impossible situations, yet that is only a tiny fraction of all the things He does for us. What about all the things we don’t see? What about the things we don’t know to say thank you for because he spared us from even having to know about it? What about all the times he aligned things perfectly in our favor, and it was so seamless, yet we didn’t realize it was Him setting it up for us? Yes, we are definitely fortunate we have Him!The next part goes on to say that because Jesus was raised from the dead, we have been given a brand new life and have been given everything to live for. This is something that can be hard to believe. It can be hard to wrap our minds around this. Jesus died on the cross for our sins so that we could live the life that He deserved. We have all been given new life. When Jesus arose from the dead, He defeated death once and for all. He was victorious.This new life that Jesus gave us is not a perfect life. We still live on Earth with broken people. We will still get hurt, and we will still hurt people. Jesus coming back to life did not ensure us that we would not have any problems. However, what He did ensure is that we can defeat evil just as He did. When Jesus came back to life, He showed us that God had victory over His enemies. We messed up, we ate the apple in the garden, and God had to punish us. Yet, look how amazing God is to us. Instead of letting us stay lost, stay in that state of original sin, he sent Jesus to come and redeem us. God is so good!We need to accept this new life, though. We need to recognize that although it is not a perfect life, it is a great life. We now have the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of us. This is what helps us to live this new life. When we are struggling, all we have to do is call upon that power, and it will be granted to us. The part of the verse that I wish everyone could hear is when it says, “and have been given everything to live for.” There are so many people who don’t want to live any longer. They feel life is too hard or they are too much of a burden.In 2022, there was a record high of 49,369 suicides. If you divide this number by 365 days in a year, you get 135 suicides per day. If you divide that number by 24 hours in a day, you get 5.6 suicides per hour in 2022. Can you even imagine that? Did you know it was this high? These people do not know that Jesus died for their sins. Or maybe they know it, but they don’t believe it. They don’t know that they are loved by the almighty one. They probably don’t feel loved by anyone. What if we could change this? What if we could start spreading the love of Jesus to all those we meet? What if we could embrace this new life that Jesus has won for us, and we could pass it on to all those we have contact with? What if we helped everyone to know the love of Jesus? We don't have to change the whole world, but what if we started with those who were closest to us?This verse ends with, “including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.” Jesus has secured a place in heaven for us. Not based on our merits but based on the fact that He died for our sins. He was sinless and yet took our sins to the cross for us. This is something to celebrate. This is something we can share with others. Let’s get the word out to all we meet. We have a future in heaven and that future starts now. God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. God is taking care of us. He is keeping an eye on all of it and working it for our good. We just have to trust Him.We have to trust that this really sucky year won’t last forever. We have to trust that even though we lost our job, God has something else lined up for us. We have to trust that although we feel awful right now, this feeling won’t last forever. We need to trust that God has us and He is taking care of us, even if it is not in the timing that we want.The last line in this verse is one that can hopefully give us all hope. It says, “The Day is coming when you’

Not One Is Missing, Not One Forgotten1 Peter 1:1-2 "I, Peter, am an apostle on assignment by Jesus, the Messiah, writing to exiles scattered to the four winds. Not one is missing, not one forgotten. God the Father has his eye on each of you and has determined by the work of the Spirit to keep you obedient through the sacrifice of Jesus. May everything good from God be yours!”I started to finish an episode that I started over a year ago. Someone had given me the verse, and I guess I never finished the episode. However, when I started finishing it, I decided to check out the rest of the chapter and see what I was missing. I really liked all the verses that came before it in the chapter. So, I decided to start at the beginning of 1 Peter 1 and take this week to go through the first eight verses at least. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I do.What stuck out to me about today’s verse is that after Jesus left the apostles, they did not all stick together in one place for very long. Yes, they went to the upper room to wait for the Holy Spirit, but then they went out to evangelize and spread the message of the Gospel to the whole world. Christianity was not welcome at that time. The Jewish people were already outcasts, and their God was not accepted by most, and now there is this new person called Jesus. The world was not sure what to do with this, and those who believed were outcasts, and many were exiled. However, this verse tells us that although they were exiled and scattered to the four winds, they were not lost, and they were not forgotten.These are important words for us to here because we all feel apart from God at times. We feel apart from others as well. Sometimes it may feel like we are exiles scattered to the four winds. Do you know what I mean? Have you ever felt like you were alone or like you were so far away from those around you? You are not physically away. You live among your family, your coworkers, and your friends. Yet, you feel alone. You feel as though you might as well be miles away because you feel like you are in a completely different place than they are. You are not alone. This is common, unfortunately.This is why these words are so important. No matter what you are feeling right now. No matter how different you feel or how lonely you are feeling. God wants you to know that not one of you is missing and not one is forgotten. God sees you! He knows right where you are at and even better, he will meet you right where you are at. This can be hard to believe because we often feel as though we are lost in this big wide world. We feel far from God, and we are sure that He has forgotten about us. Or, maybe He never even knew of us.The truth is God has always known not only who we are but where we are. He has not left our side for a single moment. Nope, not even that one that just popped into your head. You know the one I am talking about. That one where you felt most alone. That one where you were so down, and you were sure that no one cared for you. Yes, even that one, He was right there with you. God has NEVER left you nor forsaken you. He has never forgotten about you. You are on His mind all of the time. Even when you are not thinking about Him, He is thinking about you.The verse goes on to say, “God the Father has his eye on each of you and has determined by the work of the Spirit to keep you obedient through the sacrifice of Jesus.” This confirms what it says in the first half of the verse. God has His eye on each of you. There is no way you could be missing or forgotten when God has His eye on each of you. In this next part, I was not sure exactly what it meant, “And has determined by the work of the Holy Spirit to keep you obedient through the sacrifice of Jesus.” However, I think it is a bit easier to understand in the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition, it says, “Chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.”Wow, imagine that. Imagine the truth that you’re chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ. Let’s break that down: if God the Father has chosen us and destined us, that means a few things. First, it means He knows us. He knows what our purpose is, and it means we have a purpose. We have a reason for being here. We don’t always feel this way. Our emotions can get the most out of us if we let them. There can be times when we feel so lost we believe the enemy when He tells us we are alone. We believe the enemy when he tells us no one likes us or others would be better off without us. We believe the enemy when he tells us we have no purpose. However, this verse reminds us that we are not alone and that we do have a purpose.Then the verse says that we are sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ. The word sanctification means being set apart. So we are being told the Holy Spirit is setting us apart so we can be obedient t

Tiny Steps of Trust DailyPsalm 56:3-4 “But in the day that I'm afraid, I lay all my fears before you and trust in you with all my heart. What harm could a man bring to me? With God on my side, I will not be afraid of what comes.”Today I decided to read from the Jesus Calling Devotional. I have not done that in a while; I am not sure why. For those of you who don’t know, this is a devotional book written as if God is speaking to you each day. It is really good and often says exactly what you need to hear for that day. Today’s spoke right to me. It reminded me how important it is to trust God in all times with all things. It is just as important to trust Him with the small things, as it is to trust Him with the big things. I will read today’s devotional for you as I think it will speak to you just as much as it spoke to me.“TRUST ME with every fiber of your being! What I can accomplish in and through you is proportional to how much you depend on me. One aspect of this is the degree to which you trust me in a crisis or major decision. Some people fail miserably here, while others are at their best in tough times. Another aspect is even more telling: the consistency of your trust in me. People who rely on me in the midst of adversity may forget about me when life is flowing smoothly. Difficult times can jolt you into awareness of your need for me, whereas smooth sailing can lull you into a stupor of self-sufficiency.I care as much about your tiny trust-steps through daily life as about your daily dramatic leaps of faith. You may think that no one else notices, but the One who is always beside you sees everything — and rejoices. Consistently trusting in me is vital to flourishing in my presence.”Do you see what I mean when I say it often says exactly what you need to hear for the day? I love that it is written as if God is saying it directly to you. This is truly how God talks to us. I am not sure how many of you listening have taken the time to sit and listen to what God has to say to you. If you have not, give it a try today. God wants to talk to each one of us, and yet the world around us is so noisy it is hard to hear him. However, if we sit down and take the time to listen, we will hear what He wants to tell us. This can take time and also practice. The more time you put into trying to hear God talking to you, the more clearly you will hear Him. The more you will begin to recognize what He sounds like to you.I have a journal, and I try to write in it as often as I can. In 2020 I changed the way I write in my prayer journal. I used to just write the God about my day and what was going on in my life. I still do this, but I don’t just do this. Now, I try to stop and take the time to listen to what God has to say back to me. This has been amazing. I have spent a lot of time listening and have given the Lord time to speak into my life, and it has been life-changing. You would be surprised what the Lord wants to say to you if you only gave Him the time to say it. He is so gentle and affirming.Sometimes, we think we wouldn’t want to hear what the Lord has to say because we feel we aren’t doing a very good job, and He probably wouldn’t have anything nice to say to us. This is not true. That is what the enemy wants you to think so that you don’t stop and give the Lord time to speak love, light, and truth into your life. When you give Him the time, and you listen, you will be surprised at how nicely He talks to you. You will be surprised at how much He loves you. Even in our brokenness, even in our sin, He still speaks so much love into us. It is truly amazing.This is why I started ending each episode with the Word from the Lord that He gave to our prayer group. The more we all start hearing the way He talks to us, the more we will start to recognize it when we hear Him talking in our own lives. Here is what I do when I write to the Lord. I write Him a letter, and then I ask Him to answer me using my pen, and then I start to write a letter back to myself. I don’t question what comes to mind; I don’t overthink it; I just write everything that comes to mind. Does that mean that every single thing I write down is from the Lord? No, probably not. However, I asked Him to answer me, and when we ask, He answers, so I trust that what I am writing down is from Him.After you are done writing it down, you can re-read it and see what you wrote and how it makes you feel. If you wrote anything down that makes you feel bad, shameful, or guilty, that is probably not from the Lord. That is not how He talks to us. Sometimes He will convict us of something if we are doing something wrong. However, He doesn’t use shame and guilt to do it. God does not condemn us. He lovingly points us in another direction and then gives us the strength to go in that other direction. Anything you are not sure of, you can take to discernment. You can ask the Lord to clarify; you can ask the Lord to explain more, and you can always go deeper with what you

God Will Walk Among Us!!!Revelation 21:3-4 “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”This morning, I asked Tony if he had a verse for me, and he gave me this one. His friend Phil gave Tony a picture with this verse on it before I even met him. Tony had this picture hanging up in his room, and then we had it hanging in our house after we got married. The picture must have made a lasting impact on my husband because even after all these years, he still remembers the verse. This brought to mind for me this morning the fact that we never know the impact our actions have on others. I wonder if Phil gave this to Tony so that he would memorize the scripture verse? I wonder if he even knows that he did memorize it.The same is true for all the things you do for others. Sometimes we do something, and we have no idea the impact that it will have on others. For instance, my family had a reunion this summer. My parents were celebrating 60 years of marriage, and so many family members went away to a house in Maine to hang out together for a few days. We were reminiscing about our memories of our siblings when we were younger, and many times, my siblings said, “I had no idea that meant so much to you.” My brother John has mentioned that he loved when I would come visit. He said he had letters I wrote him when I moved away, and that meant so much to him. I had no idea.Our actions matter. Sometimes we may not want to say something because we aren’t sure if what we say will even matter. It matters. Even if it doesn’t seem to matter in the moment. If you feel prompted to do it, then God has a plan for it. We heard the testimony last week from my friend Catherine. When she was leaving Rehab, she received a book that she tucked away and did not look at again for two years. However, when she took it out two years later, it changed her whole world. She discovered Jesus. She didn’t really know anything about religion, God, Jesus, or any of it, and yet, in that one moment, she knew she would be okay. She knew her family would be okay, and she knew life would be okay.What if that counselor hadn’t given her the book? What if she felt the Holy Spirit nudge her, but she ignored it because she didn’t want to offend Catherine? I recently wrote a letter to someone that I felt was searching. I felt nudged by the Holy Spirit to write that letter, but then when I told someone I had sent the letter, they said that person would be mad at me. I responded that I felt the Holy Spirit asked me to write the letter, and I would rather have that person mad at me than not listen to the Holy Spirit. However, I did pray that God would prepare his heart for the letter before it arrived. It turned out the person was not upset; they were searching, and they appreciated that I took a step to acknowledge I saw them and was there for them if they wanted to talk or ask any questions. Again, we never know what effect our actions will have. God knows, though, so if He prompts you, do your best to follow through.Let’s get to the verse above, as it is a great one. It says, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” God is so good. He is so gentle and loving. In the Old Testament, God’s people could only get so close to Him. They couldn’t be in His direct presence. They were separated from Him. There was a veil separating the Holy place from the Most Holy. The High priest was allowed to enter this area one day a year on the day of atonement.However, when Jesus came to earth, He was not separate from us. He walked among the people. He was one of us. He spends His time with others. He lived with his apostles for his years in ministry. He also spent time preaching to thousands and healing many others. He lived among us. Then, when Jesus died on the cross, the veil in the temple was torn in two. This was to symbolize that there is no longer a separation between us and the Lord. After Jesus went to be with His Father, He had His Father send us the Holy Spirit, so we would not be left alone. The Holy Spirit came to live inside of each one of us. You can’t get much closer to God than that.Now we have this verse telling us that God’s dwelling place will be among us, and He will dwell with us. First, we had Jesus dwell with us and among us. He taught us a new way to live. He taught us a new way to think. It was definitely a renewal of the mind. Many of His t

Today, I want to witness about Christmas. This year my sister Dee moved back to CT and bought a new house. She had a Christmas Eve party because my aunt used to have one each year, but she is now moving to FL. I went to Dee’s house on Christmas Eve alone as my family wanted to chill out at home. Well, Sam & Noah were both working. It was great to see my parents, Dee, my sister Suzy & her husband John, two of her boys and her granddaughter, and then my sister Theresa and her husband Glenn. We ate dinner together and talked. Some played games. It was a really great time.Then, when I got home, Sam & Noah were in the kitchen talking, and then Ryan came down. The boys and I stayed in the kitchen talking for over 2 hours. This in itself is a Christmas miracle as they are teenagers, and so they don’t love talking to their parents. We talked about all kinds of things, and it was so great. Of course, sometimes they were arguing, which I didn’t love, but it was awesome to see them interacting with each other. I feel like 2024 is going to be a great year. I think they are starting to come out of their rooms a bit more. They are starting to talk a bit more and hang out with friends a bit more. I am really looking forward to this upcoming year. Noah is a senior and is planning to go far away for college in the fall, so I am hoping to get to spend some good family time with him before he leaves.On Christmas day we always go the Duggan’s house. The Desilets, my family, always celebrate on a different day, so we are lucky, and we don't have to alternate. I like that we get to do the same thing each year. I love that we get to see his entire family. His brother and wife, their two girls, my mother and father-in-law, and Tony’s aunt. Usually, when we go, our boys are on their computers, and their cousins are, too. Occasionally, we will play a game or two, but I would say the majority of years, we just hang out. It is nice to get a chance to catch up. They don’t live far away, but we don’t really see them too much. They have kids, we have kids, they work, we work. Life gets busy, and we don’t schedule time to visit.It’s funny because when we lived in NJ when the boys were younger, we saw them a lot more. We would come up for all the holidays, and so they would come up and visit as well. It has been dawning on me more and more lately that we saw family more when we lived further away than we do now. We are only one and a half hours from Tony’s parent’s house and an hour and 10 minutes from my family, and yet we don’t see them that much. This is something I will change in the New Year as family is important. You never know when the last time you will see someone is.Regret is something that is difficult to live with. I try to live my life so that I don’t have any regrets later. We can’t ensure this, but we can do our best to live in a way that we will be proud of later. I don’t want to wish I would have spent more time with people when they were alive. I want to actually spend more time with people when they are alive. This is something we can all work on. Do you have people you are unhappy with? Are you waiting for someone else to make the first step or the next move? Don’t wait on others. If someone is hurting you, let them know. What have you got to lose? If they don’t respond well, at least you gave it a try.We only have one life, and I, for one, do not want to have regrets. Make amends, say the thing you have been wanting to say, and forgive the person you are angry with; you might not get the chance later. I know you may be waiting for them to do the right thing, but what if they never do? Are you ok with things never being said? What if you just confronted them? What if you just said you wanted to get past this? What if you said the thing that hurt you?Ok, back to Christmas this year. I just want to thank God for it because it was really great. We had to wake our boys up because they are teens, and so they sleep late. I asked the night before, and they agreed to get up at 10. We didn’t actually know what to get the boys this year for Christmas as they didn’t give us too many ideas. We got them some practical gifts, and we weren’t sure how that would go over. They all had a great time opening the gifts, and they all seemed not only happy but appreciative, which you don’t always get with kids. Or at least we don’t always get it. Then we asked if we could change plans and leave earlier than we agreed, and no one got upset. They were all ok with it.I had bought myself and the boys matching pajamas so we could do a family photo. They were all okay with it, and we wore the pajamas all day. When we got to the Duggan’s house, I realized none of the boys had brought their computers. They were sitting around the table, talking and playing on their phones. I asked if they wanted to play a card game, and they all said yes. So Joanie, the boys, and I all played Monopoly Deal. Then, when Tony’s brother and family arrived, we had dinner

Help! My Heart And Mind Are Fighting Each Other!Psalm 25:16-17 “Look at me and help me! I’m all alone and in big trouble. My heart and mind are fighting each other; Call a truce to this civil war.”Today, it was hard to pick a verse. I thought I would be writing about Isaiah 35, as my friend wrote to me last week and asked me if I take requests for the podcast. She had read Isaiah 35, and it was really hitting her. She was feeling all the feels, and she wanted to see what I thought about that chapter. I was honored as that was the first time someone had asked me what I thought of a passage in the Bible. When I looked at the chapter, I realized I had already done an episode on that chapter, so I sent it to her. It was episode number 611, “A Way Through The Wilderness,” in case you wanted to check it out. After that, I tried to find a verse for today, and I was struggling. I think I am tired from the holidays. This reminds me, I hope you all had a very merry Christmas! I got to spend the day with family, so that is always nice. My kids were not on their computers, and they were talking to everyone. They even played a game of Monopoly Deal with me before their cousins got there. It was a great day!Today’s verse reminds us that we can turn to the Lord when we are in trouble, even when we are in big trouble. This is important to remember, and I don’t think we can ever say it enough. Nothing is too big for God. There is nothing in this world that He can’t fix for us. There are all sorts of reasons why we may not turn to Him and ask for help when we are in big trouble. We don’t see how He could help. We don’t want to bother Him. We don’t feel we deserve His help, and so on. I am sure you have thought up very good reasons why you shouldn’t go to the Lord for help when you are in big trouble. One that just popped into my mind is, “I got myself into this mess; I need to get myself out.” This is definitely a human way of thinking, but it is not how God thinks. He has gotten us out of plenty of messes that we got ourselves into.When we get ourselves into big trouble, all we have to do is be humble and turn back to the Lord. Repent and admit what we have done. Ask for His help, and He will help you. I feel as though I can’t stress this enough. God wants us to ask for help when we need it. Yes, I know He knows when we need help, probably even before we do, and yet He is a perfect Father, and He respects our free will. If we don’t want Him to step in, if we want to do it all ourselves, He will allow us to do that, even if it hurts his heart to watch us struggle. When in trouble, stop and ask the Lord for help. His plan will be much better than any plan we can come up with on our own!I also liked this verse because of the next line, “My heart and mind are fighting with each other; Call a truce to this civil war.” Has this ever happened to you? It happens to me all the time. My heart wants to do something, and my brain convinces me that I don’t really want to do it, and then they fight over it. It is frustrating because I know what the right thing to do is, and yet my brain tries to convince me to do the opposite. I think the voice of God is in my heart, and yet, at times, the enemy tries to invade my brain, so they argue. I wish I could say I always chose the right thing to do, but that is not always the case. Sometimes I lose out to slothfulness and gluttony. This past year or two, I feel like they have won more than I care to talk about.What do we do when this happens? What do we do when our hearts and our minds are fighting with each other? When this happens, we can turn to the Lord, just as it says in this verse. We can ask the Lord to call a truce. We can ask the Lord to give us the wisdom to know what we should do and the courage to do what is right. Our brains our trying to keep us comfortable so when we try to do uncomfortable things, our brains complain and try to convince us that we don’t want to do the uncomfortable thing. The problem with this is that we won’t grow if we don’t ever do something that is uncomfortable. We grow when we are outside of our comfort zone.This is true with all things, not just our jobs. When we step outside our comfort zone and try something new with our spirituality or our prayer life, we grow closer to the Lord. When we step outside our comfort zone and try something new with our families, it can help us grow closer. Our brain is not bad; it is trying to save us from uncomfortable feelings. It is trying to help us. However, we all know what happens when we are saved from all uncomfortable feelings. Have you ever seen a child who was protected from all uncomfortable things? Actually, I feel as though I have been doing this to my kids recently.The kids had a pretty challenging childhood. Mostly because of their behaviors, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was rough. They were very unkind to each other, and it took a long time for Tony and I to figure out how to parent them in an

God Claims All Who Were Rejected!Romans 9:25-26 “Remember the prophecy God gave in Hosea: “To those who were rejected and not my people, I will say to them: ‘You are mine.’ And to those who were unloved, I will say: ‘You are my darling.’ And: “In the place where they were told, ‘You are nobody,’ this will be the very place where they will be renamed ‘Children of the living God.’”Today I was going to go back to the end of Romans 8 and talk about God’s love again. I love to talk about God’s love because love, true love, is lacking in this world. Instead, the world is filled with anger and hatred. However, when I went to flip the page to read the end of Romans 8, I flipped two pages instead, and my eyes landed on Romans 9:25-26, and it really spoke to my heart. Christmas is definitely a time to celebrate. God sent his only son to come to earth for us. This shows just how much He loves us. Mary said yes, that shows just how much she loves God. Joseph said yet too. There is a lot to celebrate.However, not everyone is celebrating this Christmas season. As joyful as holidays are for many people, there are also plenty of people who are sad and depressed at holidays. This can be for many reasons. First, if you have lost someone you love, the holidays can be really hard because you don’t have that person to celebrate with anymore. You remember all the things you used to do together and this year you can’t do that with them. It is sad to have to come up with new holiday traditions or to do the old ones without those people.Others are sad because they don’t have anyone to share the holiday with. It could be that they are single, and their family does not live close by. It could be a college student who can’t afford to go home for the holidays. It could be they have no living relatives. They may be in a nursing home, and no one comes to visit. It might be that they are living on the streets and no longer talk to their family. Whatever the reason is, holidays are a difficult time to be alone. Even if you are happy you no longer talk with your family, the holidays can still be a tough time because of all the past memories.Also, it can be a really sad time for kids who don’t have families. Whether they were taken away from their family for safety reasons and placed with a different family, or they grew up in an orphanage and never really had a family. The image that is in my mind is of children waiting for Santa to come, and he doesn’t. The song, in my mind, is from the movie “Annie,” and the line is, “Santa Clause we never see. Santa Clause…what’s that? who’s he?” Some kids don’t like Christmas because it is another reminder that they don’t have a family to celebrate with. It reminds them that another year has gone by without getting adopted or without moving back home with their parents.Holidays can be hard for so many people for so many reasons. It can leave people feeling alone, and many probably feel rejected. They feel rejected because they have no one to celebrate the holidays with. I think this is why I was drawn to this verse. It says, “To those who were rejected and not my people, I will say to them: ‘You are mine.’ And to those who were unloved, I will say: ‘You are my darling.’” I mean, how amazing is that? God is claiming all those who are rejected. He is not saying all of you who are perfect are mine. He is not saying once you clean yourself up, then you can come to me, and you will be mine. He is saying those who are rejected are His.For all of us who feel rejected and feel like we have no one who cares about us, God cares. The Holy Spirit keeps bringing an image up in my mind of all those who live on the streets. I feel as though He is saying, yes, those are mine. All those who have been rejected from society, yes, they are mine. All those who have been rejected from the church, yes, those are mine. All those children who have been rejected by countless parents looking to adopt, yes, they are mine. All those people who have been rejected by their loved ones, you are mine. God doesn’t just say, you are mine; he also says, “You are my darling.” How intimate is that? God doesn’t just call you into His family and then ignore you or treat you like you are just one of the many. He calls you darling.The next part also really hit me right in the heart. It says, “In the place where they were told, ‘You are nobody,’ this will be the very place where they will be renamed ‘Children of the living God.’” Man, that’s good. I feel like this speaks to a lot of people. I bet we all know someone who doesn’t feel good enough. I bet we all know someone who feels like they are a nobody. Maybe it is us? Maybe we were told this by someone over the years. They might not have come right out and said it, yet their actions, their body language, or their attitude made it clear that is what they thought of you. This actually brings up something I feel I should say: we need to be careful how we treat people. When you walk by a homeless p

The Power of a Prayer JournalFor Christmas, in 2005, my uncle Jeano gave me a notebook. Inside the notebook was a letter from him that explained all about spiritual journaling/prayer journaling. I had never done prayer journaling before, and my first thought was that it was for people who were holier than me. I am sure you can start to see this recurring theme in my thoughts. I tend to feel like I am not holy enough to do all these different things. I am not sure why it took so long to realize these ideas could be a path to becoming more holy. In the letter, my uncle listed four benefits of prayer journaling. These are: Deepening your relationship with God.Helping you to see God really does answer your prayers as you look back and see it in your own writing time after time.Increasing your confidence (in God) as you take things to Him in your journal.Having someone to go to and unload on, anytime, anywhere, who can truly “handle it.”All of that sounded amazing. I was always looking for some way to deepen my relationship with God. “What if I do it wrong?” “What if I say the wrong thing?” These questions popped into my head. I decided to try it anyway. What is the worst that can happen, right? I made my first entry on January 11, 2006. This is how I began my first entry, “I’ve written in a journal before, but not regularly, and not a prayer journal. I don’t know if there are certain rules, but I will just write what I am thinking. I am sure I will get better and more focused with practice.” Then I started to write about my day. That first day I wrote four pages in my new journal. I was so excited to start this new practice and I felt great afterwards.I would love to say that from that day on I spent 10-20 minutes a day writing to God in that journal. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I just took out that journal to check how often I wrote in it, as I remembered it wasn’t often. It turns out after that first entry, on January 11, 2006, my next entry is on June 4, 2010. What?! I did not write in my prayer journal again for another 4 years. In case you had any illusions that I have it all figured out and this spiritual stuff came easier to me, I don’t and it didn’t. I wrote in my journal for a few days in June and then not again until September. Then it was once in September, once in October, and once in December. Just to give you an idea of how inconsistent my journaling was, my journal had 44 pages and it took me until June 2017 to fill it.In Spring of 2017 I attended a retreat sponsored by the Military Council of Catholic Women (MCCW). I am not sure exactly what was said at this retreat to give me this conviction, but I came home from the retreat with the conviction that I needed to turn to God for help with my family issues. I struggled with parenting our three boys, as they were very strong willed, and Tony and I could not seem to get on the same page. Our marriage was also struggling.I had read almost every parenting book out there, as well as many marriage books. A thought came to me at the retreat, that I was looking everywhere but to God for answers. I wrestled with this thought because I had been praying to him all along the way. What I heard in response to my question was I was spending more time trying to come up with my own answers than I was spending time trying to hear God’s answers to my prayers. Wow, that was not what I was expecting to hear.When I got home from this retreat, I made a resolution to get up before the kids each morning and write in my prayer journal. Write to Him and let Him know all that was going on in my life. I know that He already knows what is going on, but it’s nice when we make time to talk with Him about it. You may know that your child went outside to play on the playground, but wouldn’t you still love to hear them explain what they did out there in their own words?Talk to God about your day, your wins, your struggles, and anything else you want to talk to him about. I believe it makes God happy when we make time to talk with Him. He is our Father, and He wants to talk with His children. I got up almost every morning after that retreat and wrote in a journal. I talked about my day and what things were going on in our family. I thanked God for whatever I could and I asked for help in the areas I needed help in. I was so thankful I was able to have the discipline to get up early each morning and do this. It was such a change from my past attempts, from June 2017-Sept. 2017 I filled a whole journal.I felt a great sense of peace while I was writing in the journal daily. I did feel my relationship with God deepening. It is similar to having a best friend you can talk to every day. I have heard from many sources that writing is good for your soul. Think how much better for your soul it is when you are writing to your heavenly father.There are many different techniques to prayer journal and I have tried a few different ones. While writing this chapter I looked back at some o

We have all seen God working in our lives, however, we might not all be aware it is God who is working in our lives. This is why it is so important we start talking about it more. The more we share our experiences, the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us. If you would be willing to share any experience you have had of how God has worked or is working your life, please email me at [email protected] or just click here. It won’t take up much of your time, and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today. Prayerfully consider sharing. Everyone has a story, and the world needs to hear them. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow, and I will have another witness for you next Wednesday. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I. Have a blessed day! Thank you so much, Cat, for sharing your witness. Isn’t that an amazing testimony? She has overcome so much, and I love that she can look back and see Jesus all over her life, even before she knew who Jesus was or that it was Jesus. I think it is awesome that God has called her to speak light and love into the lives of all those who are still suffering, as well as those who are in the struggle of recovery. It amazes me when I think that she has only known Jesus since 2017 because she has a trust in Him that you don’t see often. I hope you will check out her podcast. I will put a link for it in the show notes as well as her email address. If you are struggling with an addiction or you are in recovery, if you want some prayer and someone to walk with you, reach out to Catherine. Her email again is [email protected]. Thanks again, Catherine, for sharing your testimony! I hope you will join us again with another story of how the Lord is working in your life. He is clearly working powerfully in your life! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Nothing In This Universe Has The Power To Diminish God's Love Towards Us!Romans 8:35 “Who could ever divorce us from the endless love of God’s Anointed One? Absolutely no one! For nothing in the universe has the power to diminish his love toward us. Troubles, pressures, and problems are unable to come between us and heaven’s love. What about persecutions, deprivations, dangers, and death threats? No, for they are all impotent to hinder omnipotent love.”This is the passion translation again. I decided this morning to just open it and read some of it and see what jumped out at me. I really liked all of chapter 8, but I thought it best to limit it to a verse or two. I will probably stay in chapter 8 for at least one more episode. It was tough to decide between this verse and the verses at the end of this section. This section in Chapter 8 is called “The Triumph of God’s Love.” Can you tell just by the title why I loved all of it? The end of this section was similar to this verse, yet it said it in a different way that was equally compelling. I will probably use those verses on Thursday or Friday, so stay tuned.I decided on this verse today because it drives home something that I try to help people see. Something I wish everyone in the world knew down deep in the depths of their hearts. God loves us ALWAYS, NO MATTER WHAT WE DO! The verse starts by asking us a question. “Who could ever divorce us from the endless love of God’s Anointed One?” I like that it uses the word divorce as that is a word where, unfortunately, everyone knows the meaning. The verse answers that question with an, “Absolutely no one!” There is so much in that one sentence. That one sentence tells us that no one could ever divorce us from Jesus’ love. Divorce means to separate something from something else. The verse is saying no one can separate us from the endless love of God’s Anointed One. This tells us that the love is endless. It is not fickle like human love. It doesn’t come and go with the changing of the winds or the changing of our moods. God’s love is endless.The next line says, “For nothing in the universe has the power to diminish his love toward us. Troubles, pressures, and problems are unable to come between us and heaven’s love.” The first part was saying no one could come between us; now this verse is saying nothing can come between us. We might agree that no person could come between us and God, and yet we struggle to believe that nothing can come between us. We think our failures make it so God can’t love us. We think our sins make it so God can’t love us. This verse shows us that NOTHING in this universe has the power to diminish His love towards us.It even says that troubles, pressures, and problems are unable to come between us and heaven’s love. I think it is really important to know this because what it doesn’t say in this verse is no one, and nothing will try to come in between us and heaven’s love. You will find plenty of people that want to come between you and heaven’s love. You will find plenty of things that the devil will use to try to come between you and heaven’s love. If we know that these things aren’t strong enough to block God’s love for us, then we won’t worry so much. We won’t pay them so much attention. The enemy tries to convince us that every little thing we do makes us unworthy of God’s love. He tries to convince us that God could never love us; look at all we have done. This is why it is important to read God’s Word. It is important to know what the Lord is actually saying to us so we can stand up to the enemy and know when He is lying, which by the way, is always!The last line in this verse says, “What about persecutions, deprivations, dangers, and death threats? No, for they are all impotent to hinder omnipotent love.” This last part is interesting. You might think, why would these things hinder God’s love? I am not doing them; they are being done to me. For instance, persecution is hostility and ill-treatment, especially on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or political beliefs. Why would someone being hostile to me get in the way of God’s love? The reason we think this is because of the things they say to us. Their primary purpose is to make us feel like we are not good enough. They want us to think God could never love us. This verse confirms that even if we might feel far from God because of deprivations, dangers, and death threats, He is still right there with us, and He is loving us no matter what.I love the language the last line uses. It says that all these tactics the enemy uses are impotent to hinder God’s love. Impotent means unable to take effective action; helpless or powerless. I love to think about how powerless the enemy and His tactics are to separate us from God’s love. The only thing is, we have to know this, we have to believe this, and we have to live this. If we don’t know this, then we will believe the enemy's lies, and we will think we are unloved. We w

God Has Infinitely More For You Than Your Most Unbelievable Dream!Ephesians 3:20 “Never doubt God's mighty power to work in you. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you.”I know I have mentioned it before, yet I will say it again. I really love the passion translation. It gets the point of the verse across in a very passionate way. I talked last week about how the ladies in my mentoring group always pick a word and mantra for the year. This helps them remember throughout the year what they want that year, and then when they have to make a decision, they can hold all the choices up to their wants and needs for the year and see which choices align best. The other thing I recommend you do each year is to come up with some goals at the beginning of the year.I think it is important that everyone has at least a few goals, as it gives us some direction. I am not talking about New Year's Resolutions that you set on December 31st and have already forgotten about two weeks later. I am talking about taking some time to think about where you want to be at the end of 2024. What would have liked to accomplish? I am not just talking about one area of your life either. Where would you like to be in your job, your relationship with the Lord, your relationships with your family members and friends? Where would you like to be financially? Once you know where you want to be at the end of the year, you set goals that help you get there. Time goes by so quickly, and we only get one life here on Earth. If we don’t live it intentionally, it will pass us by, and we will just go through it on autopilot.The verse above is a great verse to think about when you are thinking of where you want to be at the end of this year. It is a great reminder that God’s mighty power is at work in you! I think this is so important to remember. Remembering this one thing could be the key to so many of our worries. If we can remember that His power is at work inside of us, then it takes the pressure off of us to think we need to do it all. We don’t have to worry if we are strong enough to handle this upcoming surgery because God’s mighty power is at work in us, and that is surely strong enough. We don’t have to worry about whether we are good enough because God’s mighty power is at work in us, and He is definitely enough. We don’t have to worry if we are brave enough to do the thing we need to do because God’s mighty power is at work in us and that will make us brave enough. Do you see my point?There is one catch, though, we need to ask Him to help us. Our heavenly Father believes in free will, and he wants us to ask Him for help. He wants us to give Him permission to work in our lives. Have you done this? Have you given God permission to do whatever He needs to do in your life? What about starting each day with a simple prayer? God, I give this day to you, do with it what you want. Imagine what your days would look like if you put God in control of them. Imagine the amazing things that could happen. Imagine how much less trouble we would get into if we weren’t steering this boat we call life. Yes, God’s mighty power lives in us and works in us, and yet we need to call on that power. If we want to do life on our own and we don’t want God to interfere, then He will let us do that. Unfortunately, that is our choice. I say unfortunately because sometimes I wish we didn’t have free will. I think our free will gets us into all sorts of trouble.However, without free will, we wouldn’t be free to love the Lord truly. It is not true love if it is not freely given. So, we do the best we can with our brokenness. God is there, and He wants to help us. All we need to do is ask. All we need to do is let God know He is welcome in our lives. We want Him here. We want Him right next to us, guiding us and helping us. If we do this, we can call upon His power to work in us at any time. It is always available without any notice, and it never runs out. What else in this world can you say that about?The next line of the verse says, "He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination!” I love this!! I know this to be true as it has happened in my own life, and yet I don’t think many others know this to be true. God is telling us in our prayer group week after week that we are not asking for too much. We are asking for too little. Yet, I think we all continue to feel as though we should just be happy and content with what we have, and we shouldn’t bother the Lord by asking for more. We think if we ask for more, then that means we are ungrateful for what we have already received. This couldn’t be further from the truth.We are honoring the Lord when we ask for more because we are showing Him that we believe He can give us more and also that we know

Discipline & The Seven Deadly SinsProverbs 5:21-23 "For your ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all your paths. The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them; the cords of their sins hold them fast. For lack of discipline, they will die, led astray by their own great folly.”Today I couldn’t seem to come up with a verse for the episode. This is unusual, although it does happen sometimes. I decided to go to the proverbs since that is a book full of instructions on how we should live. I figured that would have some good advice for us. This verse came right after verse 20, which says, “Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?” This is where the verse above begins, "For your ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all your paths. The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them; the cords of their sins hold them fast. For lack of discipline, they will die, led astray by their own great folly.”This verse does not just apply when we are talking about adultery. We should remember this all day as we go throughout our days. Everything we do is in full view of the Lord, and He examines our paths. I think we forget this sometimes. I think we truly believe that we can hide things from the Lord. If we aren’t thinking about Him, He is not thinking about us. Kind of like when we are kids, we think if we do something when our parents’ backs are turned then they won’t know what we did. Guess what, they always know. Parents are much smarter than we give them credit for. This is something I don’t think we truly understand until we become parents. Once we become parents and we get an inside look at what it is like, then we gain a much greater understanding of our parents and what we put them through.I think it helps us to understand our relationship with God as well. When we are a child, we feel as though our parents are just doing things because they can or because they like to punish up. We think they take things away because they don’t want us to have any fun or because we like to see them suffer. However, once we become parents, we realize that they were trying to protect us, or they were trying to teach us important life lessons. Once we have our own children, or maybe we don’t have our own children, but we have the benefit of hindsight, then we can see they were trying to prepare us to enter into the world as independent adults.The same is true with God. We don’t always understand what His plan is and why He does the things He does. Sometimes it can seem like He is punishing us, and other times it seems like He doesn’t care that we are suffering. We know He could take away our pain, and we don’t understand why He doesn’t. Although, usually, when we have the benefit of hindsight, we can see that we need to go through what we went through in order to become the person we are today. I don’t know if “needed” to go through is the right word or not. Sometimes we allow our kids to go through hard things so they come out stronger on the other side. Did we “need” to let them go through it? Not necessarily; there are parents who shield their kids from disappointment, and yet their kids grow up to become independent adults too. They just might not be as resilient as the kids who were allowed to experience the pain of disappointment.When we have children, they do not come with an instruction manual, so we are all just doing the best we can with what we have been given. The same is not true with God. He is perfect. He is the perfect father. He knows what is best for us, even if we disagree. He knows when we need to experience the pains of our mistakes, and He knows when it is okay to save us from some of our mistakes. Sometimes watching our children suffer through the pains of our mistakes is too much for us to handle, and we rush in to save them. God doesn’t need to do this. He has the benefit of seeing all the good that will come out of it, so He can watch us suffer in the short term so we can gain all the benefits in the long term. We are not blessed with that foresight. We struggle to see our kids struggle, and we want to save them from it.I am guessing someone really needed to hear that today, as that is not at all what I thought I would be talking about today. What really stood out to me in the verse above was the last line, “For lack of discipline, they will die, led astray by their own great folly.” This is something no one really wants to hear, especially me. I have been struggling with discipline over the last few years. I was really good at it for a while, and then I think I stopped doing all the things that helped me be good at it. One reason lack of discipline can be so harmful to us is because it lets the deadly sins creep in. You know the ones I am talking about, pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. When we are not disciplined, these creep in ever so slowly and quietly.I know they have been in my life for the last few years. I tell my

The Same Way Fruit Appears In An OrchardGalatians 5:22-23 “ But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.”My mentor posted this online yesterday for us to read and think about as we all begin to think about our words and mantra for 2024. In the Big Life Mentoring with Pamela Crim, she has us pick a word and mantra each year. First, she has us fill out worksheets that help us pray about it, ask God about it, and figure out what it is we want and need this year. Then, we ask the Lord to give us a word for the year. Sometimes, we have a word in mind, and then after we do the worksheets, we realize God has a different word in mind. Sometimes He will give us a word that we don’t necessarily want but that we really need. For instance, He gave a friend of mine the word stay, when all she wanted to do was go.God is a good and loving Father. He doesn’t always just tell us what we want to hear, He also tells us what we need to hear. Once we have our word, we come up with a mantra that we say every single day of the year. This is to remind us of what is important and how we said we wanted to live. This is great to have because it is also something to which we can hold all of our decisions up to see if they align with how we want to live our lives. For instance, my word last year was Bold. I knew I wanted to step out in faith more and ask people if I could pray over them. I knew I wanted to live my faith more boldly and not be afraid of what others thought of me. This was going to require me to be more bold.After filling out the worksheet and finding out everything I wanted next year, I came up with a mantra, and then, at the New Year’s Retreat, my mentor helped me fine-tune it. My mantra for this year is, “I have a divine calling on my life, and I boldly respond, holding nothing back. I’m here to serve God fully and be used as His vessel. I know He is already proud of what I am doing, and I will continue to step out and be BOLD!” This mantra was great because it reminded me of who I wanted to be all throughout the year. Did I always live up to this mantra? No. Sometimes I did not respond boldly, but I believe I responded boldly more often than I would have if I had not had this mantra going through my head.Now, let's get back to the verse. The verse says, “ But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.” While first reading this verse, I was confused as to what was meant by the saying, “He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard.” How does fruit appear in the orchard? The first thing that came to me was that the tree needs to grow. When the tree is a sapling, it doesn’t have any fruit. However, as it grows up, as it matures as a tree, you will begin to see more and more fruit on it. The second thing that came to me is that the fruit is a gift. The tree didn’t have to do anything to earn the fruit it produced. All the tree had to do was be itself, do the things it was made to do and God took care of the rest.The same is true for us when it comes to the Holy Spirit. We don’t have to do anything to earn the gifts of the Holy Spirit, they are freely given. However, sometimes we do need to ask for them. God is a big believer in free will, so He does not want to give you something you do not want. However, He is happy to give us gifts when we ask for them. You might know some people who have certain gifts from the Holy Spirit. You might even think to yourself that you asked for that same gift and wonder why they have a much stronger gift than you do. My guess would be that they use the gift more, or they spend more time in communion with the Lord.Even though our gifts are freely given by the Lord, the power of the gifts we are given flows from our relationship with the Lord. Everything we do flows from our relationship with the Lord. So, we may have the same gifts as someone else, but if they are spending more time cultivating a deeper intimacy with the Lord, it may seem like they have a stronger gift than we do. We all have the same Holy Spirit living inside of us, the exact same Holy Spirit. The Lord has just shown them through that intim

We have all seen God working in our lives, however, we might not all be aware it is God who is working in our lives. This is why it is so important we start talking about it more. The more we share our experiences the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us. If you would be willing to share any experience you have had of how God has worked or is working your life, please email me at [email protected] or just click here. It won’t take up much of your time and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today. Prayerfully consider sharing. Everyone has a story and the world needs to hear them. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow and I will have another witness for you next Wednesday. Remember Jesus loves you and so do I. Have a blessed day!Thank you so much for sharing your witness. What an amazing testimony of how much freedom you can get from inner healing. Unbound is a remarkable model of inner healing. Unbound deliverance ministry is a model of prayer developed by Neal Lozano. It is the model for deliverance most widely endorsed by Catholic bishops and priests throughout the world. Unbound guides people to surrender more fully to Jesus and encounter the truth that sets them free.UNBOUND is a safe, loving, effective prayer model that helps people respond to the good news of the gospel. UNBOUND ministry teaches how to listen and respond in Five Key areas as people seek greater freedom in Christ and help others to do the same. If you would like to learn more about unbound, Click Here. I have personally been trained in the unbound prayer model as well as having gone through at least two unbound sessions of prayer myself. It is an incredible method that truly frees people from bondage. The freedom felt afterward is amazing. I highly suggest everyone check into it. If you would like more info on Unbound or if you would like Rosa to pray with feel free to email her at [email protected]. Thank you again, Rosa, for your powerful testimony. I hope you will share more testimonies about all the ways the Lord is working in your life. We look forward to hearing from you again. www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

What Is A Life Verse?Isaiah 50:4-5 “The Lord God has given me a well-trained tongue, That I might know how to answer the weary a word that will waken them. Morning after morning, he wakens my ear to hear as disciples do; The Lord God opened my ear; I did not refuse, did not turn away.”While at Encounter Ministries class last night, I was talking with a fellow student. We were talking about how excited we get at the beginning of the year and how much we love a good planner. I don’t really know this classmate that well, as we only see each other for a few hours on Monday nights, and most of that time is spent listening to the teachers. I had no idea she loved planners and planning for the new year as much as I did. We were talking about our plans for the future a bit, and she asked if I had scriptures that spoke to the future I wanted. I told her I hadn’t looked up scriptures for the job I wanted, although I do have scriptures surrounding me that remind me to be bold and remind me that the Holy Spirit is living inside of us. They remind me that we can move mountains with mustard seed-sized faith, and whatever we ask in Jesus’ name will be given to us because Jesus went to be with His Dad.My friend said she has a few life verses, and one of them is Isaiah 50:4-7. I really liked 4-5 because it talks about what I want to do when I grow it. It is a verse that speaks to the future that I want to have. I thought it would be great to share this with you for a couple of reasons. First, I thought if you could see how this verse relates to what I want to do, you could see how there are verses in the Bible that relate to what you want to do as well. Second, you might really like this verse and like what it says. Although I want to fulfill this verse on a bigger scale, I think we are all called to fulfill this verse in some way. Third, I am hoping this episode will get you excited about asking the Lord to give you a few “Life Verses.” To me “Life Verses” are those ones that we can turn to and rely on no matter what is going on in our lives. They remind us of things we need to remember in difficult times.The first part of today’s verse says, “The Lord God has given me a well-trained tongue, That I might know how to answer the weary a word that will waken them.” This is something that might not necessarily be true at the moment, but something I can pray into. We have talked about declarations in the past. Declarations can be affirmation statements, they can be scripture verses, they can be anything that we want to declare over ourselves. The best way to phrase a declaration statement is as if it has already happened. You wouldn’t want to say, someday, I will be a writer. Your brain will hear that and say to itself, ok, we aren’t working on that yet. That is a future goal. However, if you say I am a writer, then your brain will hear that and get to work on figuring out how to make that happen.The above verse is a well-phrased declaration I could begin to say daily. “The Lord has given me a well-trained tongue.” This is actually a good declaration for all of us to say. Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t say all the things you want to say? Wouldn’t it be great if those you are surrounded by didn’t say everything that came into their minds? How many times has someone said something to you, and you wondered what they were thinking when they decided to say that? It is crazy to me the things I hear come out of my own kids’ mouths at times. I mean, it seems like people are just getting more and more rude and they don’t seem to care. Imagine if we all had well-trained tongues. I bet our tongues get us in more trouble than we even know. Proverbs 18:21 says that life and death are in the power of the tongue. If our tongues are that powerful, it makes sense to pray earnestly for a well-trained tongue.The verse goes on to say, “That I might know how to answer the weary a word that will waken them.” How great would it be to be able to do this? How great would it be to be able to know exactly what to say to your spouse, your child, your co-worker or your friend when they are weary? I know I have often prayed that I wish I knew what to say to cheer them up or to bring them out of their depression. I will say, if you don’t know how to pray for someone, ask the Lord to give you the words to say, pause, and then say whatever comes to your mind. You might not understand what the words you are saying mean, but the person you are praying over will.I just got a message from a friend whom I pray over through text messages. Yesterday I didn’t really know what to pray for, so I told that to God. Yesterday part of my prayer was, “ We ask that you heal anything else that might be going on that we are unaware of. We know that you don’t need us to know, and you don’t need us to say all the right things. You just need us to come to you, and you will do the rest. This is us coming to you, Lord. This is us asking you to help us.” Today I got a reply back

An Orphan Spirit, What Is That? John 14:18 "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”This is the verse immediately following the verses I covered in the last episode. I originally had it included in that episode but wanted to take it out so I would have some time to devote to just this verse. In our encounter ministry class last year, we talked a lot about healing. We had a whole eight weeks on physical healing and eight weeks on inner healing. One of the things that came up a lot during the inner healing quarter is the phrase “the orphan spirit.” This is not something that I had heard before. Or at least I don’t remember hearing it before this quarter.The orphan spirit is one that can attach itself to people who feel they have been abandoned. Maybe one of their parents left them as a child or even as an adult. Maybe both of their parents left them. It could be that they have had multiple people in their lives leave them. This person/these people leaving from their life has left them with a sense of abandonment. It has left them feeling lonely and all alone. This can happen to adopted children as well. Even if they have a loving adopted mom and dad, they can feel abandoned by their birth families. Often times people do not know they have this spirit within them. Evil spirits can not be in us unless we give them permission, but sometimes we do this subconsciously or without realizing we are doing it. For instance, when we come into agreement with the lies the enemy tells us, then we empower the liar and give Him access to our lives. This is how the orphan spirit can slip in unnoticed. From what I have learned, the orphan spirit is a spirit that will feed you lies, such as, “You do not have a father or mother.” “You are all alone.” “You don’t fit in anywhere.” “You are not loved.” “You are not wanted.” “You are not liked.”This spirit can affect your relationships because you have a hard time believing someone could love you. You feel as though you always have this hole that needs to be filled, but you are not sure how to fill it. You try all the different ways you know to fill a hole, but it remains empty. You are unhappy, maybe not all the time, but you can’t seem to sustain happiness long-term. You may even be filled with anxiety and worry, and yet you can’t put your finger on the cause of these feelings. The cause is this spirit inside of you trying to ruin your happiness and whisper all those lies I mentioned earlier into your ear.The only way to get rid of an orphan spirit is to rebuke it. You can say, even if you aren’t sure if you have one, “In the name of Jesus, I rebuke the orphan spirit. I do not give it permission to live in me, and I demand it leave right now. I bind it and send it to the foot of the cross.” All of God’s creations are bound by free will. If you tell a spirit, good or bad, to leave, they must leave. They cannot stay without permission, and yet we can inadvertently give them permission to stay without even realizing it. As I mentioned before, when we entertain negative thoughts and lies, then we are inviting the enemy into our minds, and if we don’t realize the enemy is there, then we don’t think to revoke the right to be there.The truth is we all have a Father, and he has never and will never abandon us. Our heavenly Father has been there with us since before we were even created, and He will be with us for all eternity. He is someone we can rely on in a way that is different from any human relationship we have ever had. His love is perfect. It is unwavering and unconditional. It is hard to find that kind of love here on earth. Most of us love out of our brokenness. We love like we were loved, and that was most likely not perfect love. God is the only one that can fill that hole you are trying to fill. Turn to Him when you feel unloved. Turn to Him when you feel lost or alone. He will fill you with comfort. He will fill you with love.There have been several testimonies about people who have received so much freedom after they have gone through some inner healing sessions. Whether it was an unbound session or an Encounter Ministries inner healing session, many people have had major breakthroughs in these sessions. Some people have reported that once they said the words to release the orphan spirit, they felt instant relief. They reported that they never knew they had this, and yet once they said it, so many things in their life made more sense. Once they released this spirit and then were filled up with the truth of all their heavenly Father had done for them over the years, they were filled with love from the Heavenly Father. They no longer felt alone or abandoned. They were finally set free.The enemy tries to hide in the shadows. He doesn’t want us to know he is talking to us, he doesn’t want us to know that he is whispering lies to us. This is why his lies always seem to have some small truth in them. He will take this small truth and twist it to suit his needs. Sometime

The Advocate!John 14:16-17 “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it because it remains with you and will be in you.”Jesus is talking in this verse. He is telling us that when He goes to be with the Father, He will ask His Father, and God will send us another Advocate to be with us always. Jesus’ plan wasn’t to come and walk among us, teach us all about the new covenant, and then leave us alone to figure out what to do with all that we were taught. Jesus came to set us free from our sins. He came to sacrifice Himself so that we may live. However, when He left, He did not leave us alone.I love how He refers to the Holy Spirit as our Advocate. Here is the definition I got for an advocate, “one who pleads another's cause, who helps another by defending or comforting him.” Our advocate pleads our cause to the Heavenly Father. Romans 8:26 says, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” The Holy Spirit intercedes for us because we don’t even know what to ask for sometimes. I was talking to a woman in my Encounter Ministries class on Monday, and she was saying that she doesn’t even know what to pray for right now with her family situation. My friend is not the only one who doesn’t know what to pray for. I am sure there have been times in each of our lives when we have encountered a situation where we didn’t even know what we wanted or we didn’t see a way out, so we didn’t know exactly what to ask the Lord.When this happens, it is okay to ask the Holy Spirit to intercede on your behalf. The Holy Spirit knows what is deep down inside your heart, and He takes our deepest desires, even if we don’t know what they are, and He presents them to the Lord in the perfect way. This is why I love the gift of tongues. When you are speaking in tongues, you do not know what you are saying, but the Holy Spirit is speaking directly from your heart to the Lord’s heart/ears. It is a direct communication that no one can intercept. It is between the Holy Spirit and the Lord. Even the enemy doesn’t know what is said when we are speaking in tongues. If you do not have the gift of tongues, it is not too late to begin praying for that gift. If you want me to pray for you for the release of that gift, reach out, and I will definitely do that. If you would like me to pray over you for the release of that gift, reach out, and we will set up a time when I can either do it over the phone, via Zoom, or in person if you are somewhat local.Jesus calls the Advocate the Spirit of truth. This reminds us that the Holy Spirit speaks the truth. In John 14:26b, Jesus says, "—he will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you. The Holy Spirit not only speaks the truth, but He can teach us everything and remind us of all that Jesus told us. It is important that we realize that the Holy Spirit we have living inside of us isn’t just something that sounds nice and yet doesn't really mean anything. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit, the one living inside of you, is powerful, and it is capable of helping you do incredible things. This is why it is important to work with the Holy Spirit. It is important to consult the Holy Spirit and to invite the Holy Spirit into whatever you are doing. Did you ever wish you knew what God wanted you to do in a particular circumstance?Have you ever asked someone to pray for discernment for you because you really didn’t know what to do? I have too! When we are in this situation, we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us. One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is discernment. The Holy Spirit knows what we should do and can tell us if we make the time to ask and then listen for an answer. Sometimes there is not just one thing we can do. It is important to pray and ask the Lord what the best option is. However, sometimes the Lord doesn’t tell us because He is ok with either option. Sometimes there are multiple paths that would all lead to the same place. It is not necessarily which path we choose, it is more what we do on that path or with that path that matters.When I actually sit and think about how incredible it is that we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us, it just boggles my mind. I am just in awe. I mean, we have the same Holy Spirit inside of us that Jesus had inside of Him. Can you even imagine that? I also struggle to understand how everyone is not blown away by this information. It says right in the verse above that the world cannot accept the advocate because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it because it remains with you and will be in you. I guess if you don’t really believe in Jesus, then it would be hard to believe in the Holy Spirit, especially since Jesus walked the Earth. There is defin

Where Does My Help Come From?Psalm 121:1-2 “I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”I heard this verse while I was listening to the Big Life Devotional by Pamela Crim yesterday, and I instantly thought of this song. The song is called Shoulders by for King and Country. I will place a link for the song in the show notes if you want to give it a listen. It is a really good song, so I do recommend checking it out. For King and Country is a great group of artists. They moved to this country from Australia in 1991 when their dad accepted a job here. I love this song because it reminds us where our help comes from. It also reminds us of various ways that God helps us. It also says the words from this verse. They both start the same way. I look up to the mountainsDoes my strength come from the mountains? No, my strength comes from GodWho made heaven and earth, and the mountainsWhen we are struggling and suffering, we look around for strength anywhere we can find it. We look to TV for distractions, we look to food for comfort, and we sometimes turn to alcohol or drugs to numb the pain. We look everywhere for something that will take away the pain or help us get through it in some way. As long as we keep searching everywhere but where God is, then we will never find what we are looking for. God is our strength. He is the one that can get us through the hard times. We just need to turn to Him and ask Him. We just need to seek Him out instead of all the other things that we turn to when we are struggling. When confusion's my companionAnd despair holds me for ransomI will feel no fearI know that You are nearThink about what it is we do when we are confused and the feelings of despair set in. Do we turn to the Lord, or do we turn away? Do we have hope that the Lord will bring us out of this despair? I love the line that says, and despair holds me for ransom. That is such an accurate visual of despair. You feel like you can’t do anything but sit in it. This verse ends with I will feel no fear. I know that You are near. My prayer is we can all say this. My prayer for each of us is that we can look to the Lord when we feel confused and full of despair. We can look to the Lord and not be afraid because we know that our strength comes from Him. The one who made the heavens and the earth. If He can create all of that out of nothing, think about what He can do in your current situation!When I'm caught deep in the valleyWith chaos for my companyI'll find my comfort here'Cause I know that You are nearHow many of us are in a deep valley right now? How many of us feel like we have been in this valley for a long time, and we see no end in sight? I love that it says with chaos for my company. Have you ever had chaos in your company? I am one of 11 children. Chaos and I are old friends. However, how often have we had comfort and chaos at the same time? This verse says I’ll find comfort here because I know You are near. When we find ourselves in a valley and we are surrounded by chaos, it helps to remember that the Lord is always near. We are never alone, even when it feels like we are.My help comes from YouYou're right here, pulling me throughYou carry my weakness, my sickness, my brokennessAll on Your shouldersYour shouldersOur help comes from the Lord. It can be easy to forget this because sometimes He uses human means to help us. For instance, we may think our help comes from the person giving us the things we need. For instance, help came from my neighbor when I was younger and my dad needed a car. Yes, the neighbor did help us out, and yet even he acknowledges the Lord led Him to do so. He had no way of knowing my dad needed a car, except that my dad prayed for a car, and God worked it out for him. I like the image of this verse. You’re right here, pulling me through. Have you ever felt like God was pulling you through? Like you for sure wouldn’t have made it if He wasn’t pulling you through. You didn’t have the energy or will to walk or even get out of bed, and yet you felt something pulling you out of bed and pushing you to keep going.The next line is great, too, because it reminds us that we are not carrying our load along. It says you carry my weakness, my sickness, my brokenness all on your shoulders. God has some pretty broad shoulders. He can handle our weakness, sickness, and brokenness. We don’t have to carry it on our own. That is just something the enemy tries to get us to believe. We can give these things to the Lord, and He will carry them for us. All we need to do is ask.My help comes from YouYou are my rest, my rescueI don't have to see to believe thatYou're lifting me up on Your shouldersYour shouldersThe Lord is our rest. We can just sit and rest in him. Whenever we want, whether we are weary and we need to rest, or whether we just want to rest in His love, mercy, and forgiveness. We can always rest in Him. He is also our rescu

Today’s witness is a recount of one that I heard yesterday on YouTube. I will put a link to this testimony video in the show notes. The testimony is about Lauren Daigle. Lauren talked about how when she was a teenager the Lord showed her what her future would look like. He showed her stages, He showed her exactly what her Lauren Daigle World Tour would look like. She didn’t know what he was showing her, but she could see crowds of people and tour buses and charts and awards and all the things, and she wasn’t even singing yet. She was a closet singer. No one knew she could sing. Her mom talked to the choir singer at their church and asked if he could put her in the choir, maybe in the back row. Anyway, she auditioned, and he gave her a song and asked her to lead the song in those two weeks. She said every decision she made in her career was based on these visions and dreams. Finally, she made it to the Lauren Daigle World Tour. It was exactly like what she had seen in her visions. She said at the beginning of the tour, God told her to “hold it loosely.” She had no idea what that meant, but she said, “OK.” She had 12 shows on her tour, and then COVID happened, and everything shut down. She was so heartbroken. She said it took her 6 months to get out of bed because she was so filled with disappointment. She was heartbroken because at 16, He showed her these visions and these dreams, and then it took her 12 years to be there to fulfill them. Then on the 12th show, it all fell apart, and the weight of disappointment was so heavy. The Lord is the restorer of broken dreams. She said she used to never talk about God at shows because she wanted it to be more inclusive. But she then thought, how can I talk about Love when I am not talking about Love itself? She talked to God during COVID and asked where everything went. He told her that she needed to go back to the beginning. Why did she start singing? She sings to worship, to love me, to show me you care. God said worship is the thing that proceeds a miracle. If you are desperate for a miracle and you begin to worship and worship and worship, your eyes will be so focused on the thing you are worshiping that you won’t have time to give fear, anxiety, and stress to the things of this world. He told her that she had forgotten the heart of worship. She is grateful for the time to herself during COVID because she was missing the heart of worship. She was just going through the motions, and now she is back to worshiping and not just singing. He took away her disappointment. He made her experience at her concerts so much better! As much as she can look back and be grateful for the shutdown now when she was in it, she was struggling. She was going at light speed before the show, and then all of a sudden, she was stopped. The whole world was stopped. She said it felt like she had whiplash because it all stopped so quickly. She struggled with a lot of anxiety, panic attacks, and depression. She was seeing a neurologist and going to therapy, just trying to figure out what was going on. She asked God to return to her the joy of my salvation. She didn’t just want to maintain, she wanted to have zeal and passion for life. When you allow God to come into the broken places, it is like this beautiful lens gets added to your eyes, and you are able to see through His eyes. It’s like you are looking through His “Glory filter.” You can even go through trials and tribulations with joy. She was finally understanding what Paul was saying when he could find contentment in all things. She started asking God for that wholeness. She wants to help people with loneliness. Someone asked her what she would like to leave behind as her legacy. She said she wants to be known as someone who helps to eradicate loneliness. Loneliness is such a terrible feeling. Lauren says it is the worst feeling. She said there are many people that don’t have friends and that is not ok. We all need to do something about this. She said there is an Old Testament command to love your neighbor, and we all need to be doing this better. She suggests different ways to do this. When you are in the checkout line at the store, look the cashier in the eyes and ask how they are, how their day is going, and what is going on. When you pass someone on the sidewalk, you can say hello. I hope you are having a good day. We need to stop being so busy and make time to love our neighbors. Let’s all talk to and interact with people more often!Click Here for First Video Lauren Daigle's Sincere Testimony Gave Me ChillsClick Here for Second Video Lauren Daigle Opens Up About Overcoming Loneliness & Finding Purpose Emotional Interview www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's

Why Share Words Of Prophecy?1 Corinthians 14:3 “He who prophesies speaks to men for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.”I have been talking more lately about hearing the Lord’s voice and how if we keep giving the Lord a chance to talk to us, then He will. Last night was a really exciting class at Encounter School of Ministry Boston Campus. Both year one and year two students were practicing receiving and sharing words of prophecy. It is always a lot of fun and also a bit intimidating because we always think when it is our turn to get a word, we won’t hear anything. As year two students, we have been learning to listen to the Lord’s voice for a year and a half now, and yet we still get nervous when it is time for us to get a word and share it.I say this to encourage you. If you have started making time to listen to the Lord and yet you feel you are not hearing anything, I want you to know you are in good company. If you have not started making time to listen to the Lord because you know you won’t hear anything, you are also in good company. Many of us think we won’t hear anything. I mean, who are we anyway? Why would the Lord our God want to talk to us when He has more important things to do and more important people to talk to? I get why you would feel this way. We all kinda feel this way at first. As I said, my classmates and I have been doing this for a year and a half at least, some of us for a lot longer than that, and we can still feel that way at times.However, God wants to talk to you. Yes, you! He is actually already talking to you. You just can’t hear Him because the noises of the world are so loud, and you probably aren’t spending the time to sit and listen. To answer the question, “Who am I that the Lord our God would want to talk to me?” You are a son or daughter of the one true king. You are His beloved child whom He made in His image and likeness. Yes, God is busy, and yet He is never too busy to sit and talk with you. God is not human. He does not have the same constraints we have. We each have his full attention at all times. He can be fully with us and whatever we are going through at the same time as He can be with everyone else. When we ask the Lord for something, we are not taking anything away from anyone else. I think this is a really hard concept to understand. We tend to shy away from asking God for things because we know He is busy, and we don’t want to bother Him with our problems. This is limiting God, it is putting Him in a box. God is bigger than this idea that He can only help so many people, so we better not burden Him with our problems. God wants us to come to Him with everything. Not just the really big stuff we can’t handle on our own but the little things too. The bad stuff and the good stuff. He wants us to bring it all to Him and invite Him into it. Ask Him to help us with the things we need help with, ask Him for advice on the things we can do ourselves, and share with Him the good things that are happening. Yes, of course, He already knows, but it is not the same as when you tell Him about it. God is our heavenly Father. Although He is not limited by our human constraints, such as time and our ability to be in only one place at one time, He does have feelings like we do. After all, we were made in His likeness and image, and Jesus was fully human. The difference between our emotions and the Lord’s emotions is that His emotions were not affected by the fall. God’s emotions are perfect. His love for us is a perfect love. He truly loves us unconditionally, which is a hard concept for us to understand as our love usually comes with conditions.The verse above talks about words or prophecy. I have talked a bit lately about how God is talking to each one of us, and if we listen, we will hear what He is saying. I have also talked about how important it is to not only listen to when God is talking to us but also to get familiar with what He is saying to us in the scriptures. I mentioned how important it is to be familiar with God and how He talks with us because then, when the enemy tries to whisper his stupid lies in our ears, we will know it is not the Lord. I gave the story of the bank teller and how if they want to spot a fake bill, they have to be intimately familiar with what the real thing looks like. The same is true with God. If we want to be able to spot a fake, we have to be intimately familiar with the One true God and the way that He talks to us. This is why I have started to end each episode with a word of prophecy from our prayer group. If you are hearing a word from the Lord each day, then you will start to get intimately familiar with how He talks to us. Then when you hear the enemy's lies, you will know it is not from the Lord because He never talks to us like that.The verse above explains why God shares words of prophecy with us. The verse says, “He who prophesies speaks to men for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.” This vers

Our Father's Love (Part 13) Why Praise Is So ImportantPsalm 103:22 “I will bless and praise the Lord with my whole heart! Let all his works throughout the earth, wherever his dominion stretches—let everything bless the Lord!”This is the last episode in this series. I have really enjoyed taking a look at this psalm and breaking it down to examine it. I have not actually spent a lot of time in the Psalms, and it was beautiful to take the time to go through Psalm 103. Today’s topic is one of my favorites. I think my top 3 topics to talk about would be praise, forgiveness, and God’s love, not necessarily in that order. These are my favorites because I think they are some of the most important. God has really been showing me over the last few years how important praise is to Him. He often gives us a word of prophecy at our prayer group that talks about how much He loves that we come together to praise Him each week.He has also been telling me over the last few years that praise is a big part of the reason I have been able to grow in my faith so much and that I am able to trust so much. When I ask what I am doing differently, He tells me that I am praising more. I am praising God, not just when I feel like it and not just when all things are going my way. I am praising God every single day, whether it is a good day or a bad day. I actually praise Him more on a bad day sometimes because when I listen to praise music, it can help me change my mood.If you have not discovered any really good praise music, I recommend you go to Spotify and search through Christian music. My mentor, Pamela Crim, put together an awesome playlist called The Big Life Mornings playlist. It is a public playlist on Spotify, and if you type Big Life Mornings playlist into the search function, it will come up. It has a yellow background with someone walking in red shoes. Some of my favorite artists, in case you are not into playlists, are for King and Country, Lauren Daigle, Elevation Worship, Phil Wickham, TobyMac, Cory Asbury, and so many more of the artists that are on that playlist. There are several reasons that I recommend you find some great Christian music that you like.First, listening to Christian music has helped me learn even more how much God loves me. I have included some of my favorite songs in various episodes over the years. However, if you have not heard the song Reckless Love by Cory Asbury, you are really missing out. If you do not do Spotify, you can check out YouTube as well. There is actually a playlist on my channel, WalkBodlyWithJesus, on YouTube that is called Prayer Group, and that is a great list of praise songs. It would be a great place to start. Whether you are on Spotify or YouTube, you can save songs to a playlist, and then you can listen to that playlist whenever you need to.Another reason I recommend you find some good Christian music is because it can change your mood or your focus. Anytime we are anxious, angry, scared, mad, frustrated, or any other feeling, it is because of the story we are telling ourselves. If we are anxious, we are probably focusing on what may or may not happen. If we are angry or frustrated, we might be looking at a situation we can’t change. Listening to this music can help shift our focus from our problems, our worries, and our situation to our God. There is a saying that says that instead of looking at how big our problems are, we can focus on how big our God is. Music can help us do this. If you are listening to songs about how God is a miracle worker and a way-maker, it shifts your focus and helps you praise God in tough times.A third reason I recommend listening to praise music is because it fills your head with God. God will be on your mind more because the things you listen to are the thoughts that will be in your head. Have you ever noticed that when you hang around someone a lot, you start to talk like them? This is because you spend so much time with them, and you are constantly hearing how they talk, so your brain picks it up. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what they are saying. When I first learned this, I was a bit discouraged because the people in my house, with whom I spent the most time, were very negative and used very bad language. I did not want to start talking like they did. I needed to figure out a way to surround myself with different voices. This is when I started to listen to Christian podcasts and was able to find more Christian music. Imagine if you are listening to songs each day that talk about how much God loves us, how much He forgives us, and that talk about who God is. If you are hearing this over and over again, these will be the thoughts that fill your mind, and these will be the thoughts that come to your mind in times of trouble.I feel I could go on and on about why I love listening to praise music. However, I will end with this last point. Praising God helps us become more grateful people. I know sometimes it doesn’t feel l

Our Father’s Love (Part 13) The Heavenly AngelsPsalm 103:20-21 So bless the Lord, all his messengers of power, for you are his mighty heroes who listen intently to the voice of his word to do it. Bless and praise the Lord, you mighty warriors ministers who serve him well and fulfill his desires.These verses are talking about those who help the Lord. It is talking about the angels who listen intently to the Word of the Lord and then carry out their assignments. The Lord does not need anyone or anything. He created the entire universe out of nothing. He does not need us to help Him, He does not need the angels to help Him, and He doesn’t need the saints to help Him. Yet He allows us to help Him. He includes us in His great plan.I have talked of the angels before. However, I don’t talk about them often. This is mostly because I do not know a lot about the angels. I have learned about them over the years. There was a two-part class that I went to about angels at Theology on Tap. I find angels interesting. Each person has their very own guardian angel. This is an angel that is assigned to look out for you. This angel is bound to our free will. So it can not do something that we do not want it to do. All creatures, demons, and angels alike have to obey our free will.This is great news with demons and spirits because that means if we tell them to leave, they have to leave. If you are feeling depressed, angry, anxious, or any other feelings you don’t like, it could be a spirit causing that feeling. If so, you can say, “In the name of Jesus, I command the spirit of…(insert the feeling) to leave right now.” The spirit must leave. It can’t stay without permission. The problem is that sometimes we inadvertently give spirits permission to enter our minds or our thoughts. When we partake in occult activities, like having our futures told, tarot cards, and reiki, then we are opening a door to the enemy and inviting him in. Also, if we hear the enemy whispering words in our ears, and we partner with those lies, and we accept them as truth, then we are empowering the liar. This is giving the enemy power in our lives that we don’t want him to have.Another way we allow the enemy access to our lives is through hate. When we hate people, when we refuse to forgive people, we are inviting the enemy to live in that hate and that unforgiveness. We are giving the enemy power over us to keep us in that hateful state. Each time we think bad things about people, we talk about them, or we spread rumors about them, we partner with the enemy. Sin is not of the Lord; it breaks our relationship or at least damages our relationship with Him. When we do this, we are partnering with the enemy. When has partnering with the enemy ever worked out for our good?This is one reason why the angels and saints are so important. They can help us resist the enemy. They can protect us from bad things happening to us. I have heard some amazing stories of people who have been saved by angels. I mentioned we all have guardian angels. It is nice to acknowledge your angels and thank them for all they do for you. Of course, we don’t see most of what they do for us, but you can bet they are not just sitting back and relaxing. Another good thing to do is to tell your angel that you give it permission to act on your behalf and to do whatever it takes to protect you. Let your angel know you give it permission and that if it protects you, it will not be against your will. Accept your angel into your life.You can talk to your angel, although I don’t think they talk back like God does when you talk with Him. You can also send your angel on assignment. For instance, a friend told me your angel can be in more than one place at a time. So, when she sees an ambulance go by with its lights on or she sees an accident on the road, she will ask her angel to go and be with that person who is hurt. She will ask her angel to keep that person company and to provide them comfort and love, at least until their family gets there. I thought that was beautiful, and now I have started doing that.You can also ask your angel to talk to the angels of other people. Saint Padre Pio used to do this before any big or important meeting that he had. He would send his angel to the other people's angels and ask them to prepare the person's heart for what he was going to say. He found he had incredible results when he did this. This could be useful to all of us. We all have conversations we don’t look forward to. Whether it is our boss, certain family members, certain co-workers, or a stranger, we all have to have conversations that make us nervous. From now on, before we enter one of those conversations, we can send our angel ahead of us to prepare the way. This is also true when you have a certain outcome you would like, and you aren’t sure the other person will agree. Not that sending you an angel will guarantee that you get the answer you want, but it will certainly help prepare the other perso

Our Father’s Love (Part 12) Trust Enough To Ask For The Impossible Psalm 103: 19 “Yahweh has established his throne in heaven; his kingdom rules the entire universe.”God has established his throne in heaven. This doesn’t mean that is where He stays. His kingdom rules the entire universe. There is nothing that the Lord can’t reach. I think we forget this sometimes. We know God is all-powerful and all-sovereign, and then sometimes we are having trouble with something, and we don’t ask God for several reasons. We don’t ask Him because we think He is too busy to deal with our little problems, and we don’t want to bother Him. We don’t ask Him because this is a worldly problem, and what is He going to do about it anyway? We tend to put God in a box, and we think we know what He can do. We have an idea in our heads about what God can do for us, and we tend to keep our requests in alignment with those ideas.This may seem silly when you hear me say this. We all know that God is all-powerful and He can do all things. We don’t limit God. Think about the last few things you have prayed for. Have they been for the same type of things? Do you pray for God to help you with things even when you don’t see a way that He can help you? Are you taking all of your problems to God, or just some of them? I know a lot of people who seem to get annoyed with me because I often say, “Well, let's pray about that.” If something is bothering us, then God wants to help us. It doesn’t matter how big or how small it is. He cares about everything that we care about.The verse above says that His kingdom rules the entire universe. It does not say that it rules our health and our spiritual lives, but not our material lives. It does not place any restrictions on God. So, why do we? When was the last time you asked God to help you out of a bind that had nothing to do with health? We tend to pray to the Lord when we or someone we love needs healing, but not necessarily when we need material things. For instance, would you pray to the Lord if your car breaks down on the highway, or would you just call AAA? If you need money to pay your bills, do you think you should pray to the Lord for it? What if you ran out of food, would you pray to the Lord, or would you try to figure it out on your own? Do these sound like things the Lord can help with?One time my dad’s car broke down, and he really needed a car if he was going to get to work. Before he even had time to tell my mom his car had broken down, a neighbor was at the door giving my dad a car. My dad hadn’t even told him he needed one. The man just said he had this feeling he was supposed to give my dad his wife’s car as she no longer needed it. One of my friends was sitting in her car waiting for the dollar store to open so she could buy groceries. She made her grocery list and realized she didn’t have enough money for all she needed. She prayed to God and told Him that if she just had $50 more, she could buy all she needed that week. The next thing she knew, her daughter had jumped out of the car to chase something that had just flown by. It was a $50 bill. One time, my parents ran out of food, and they really didn’t know how they were going to feed us that night for dinner. They prayed to the Lord for help, and a neighbor came over with all this extra food he had. His dad had to move in with them all of a sudden, and they couldn’t fit all his groceries into their house, so they asked my parents if they wanted the extras. God is so good!These are all things where the people couldn’t imagine how God was going to answer their prayers, and yet they asked anyway. There is no way that my dad would have imagined a neighbor would just give him a car or bags full of groceries, yet it happened. There is no way my friend could have imagined that if she asked God for $50, she would randomly find a $50 bill in an empty parking lot. Nothing is beyond the reach of God. Nothing is impossible for God.I think it is really important to remember this when we are praying for healing as well. We might not see any way that it can happen, and yet we can still pray to the Lord, even if we can’t see a way. For instance, there was a woman at the healing service who said she had several heart issues and had a pacemaker but would need a transplant at some point in the future. When she was prayed over, she felt heat in her heart, which means the Holy Spirit was working on it. She asked how that works if she has a pacemaker already. She couldn’t see how the Lord could heal her heart when she had a pacemaker. The deacon said he didn’t know either, we would have to ask Jesus. Here’s the thing, we don’t have to know. We just have to trust enough to ask and then wait and see. If God can create the entire universe, he can certainly figure out how to heal a heart with a pacemaker in it.I don’t think we mean to place restrictions on God, I just think we aren’t accustomed to asking for big things. God tells us in our prayer group all

Today the witness will be about the recent Encounter School of Ministry Boston Campus Healing Service that I attended. We witnessed many miraculous healings. The Holy Spirit always shows up where He is invited, welcomed, and expected. We always expect Him to show up at the healing services, and He does not disappoint us. Today I will relay some of those miracles to you.There was one young lady who had several heart issues and was going to need a heart transplant in the future. She felt a warmth in her heart after she was prayed over. Warmth does not mean she was healed, but it does mean the Holy Spirit was working. This same young lady also received prayer for her ears/hearing. She said when they were praying over her, she could feel this warmth in her left ear. As soon as they stopped and asked her to test it, she had a warmth and this weird vibration in both ears.There was a man who had neuropathy in his feet, and the pain was about an 8. After he had a team pray over him, the pain went down somewhat. The team prayed over him again, and it was down to a 2. He was hopeful it would continue to go down to zero over the next few days. I told him about my aunt’s neuropathy healing and how that took a few days, and he was encouraged. Hopefully he will reach back out and let us know how he is doing?There was a woman who had pain starting at her neck and radiating down to her hip. After she had a team pray over her, the pain was gone, and she had a warmth radiating down instead. Praise God!There was a woman who had digestive trouble and food intolerability. She said she would have to eat a pizza to know for sure if she was healed of the food issue, but she was literally doubled over from the weight of God’s glory. She just felt his presence so powerfully. Thank you, Jesus!There was a team that prayed over my friend Catherine. She said that the doctors keep telling her she has a terminal disease and that she will die, and yet it has been nine years, and she is still standing. Catherine told me that they have started her on a medicine that is used to treat brain cancer, but they are testing it out on other kinds as well. Catherine’s cancer has been reacting well to it, and she is getting better. Her doctor told her she was the exception, and he didn’t know why it was working. She knows why, though. She knows God is healing her. She said the healing service was just what she needed that night.One of our students, Jim, has muscle pain in the middle of his back. It was about a 5 or 6 on the pain scale before he was prayed over, and then it went down to about a 2. Praise the Lord!There was one woman who had bursitis in her hip. Someone had a word of knowledge at the beginning that a hip would be healed. The woman tested it out and said the pain was less, but she could still feel it. When we switched to laying hands and praying over people in small groups, she was completely healed. She was so surprised and excited that she had no more pain. She ran around the church to test it out, and she praised Jesus.There was another woman who had neck surgery a while ago and is having complications from it. She has a limited range of motion because she has a huge knot there. She just had a shot for it the other day because of the pain. It had been bothering her all day, and she had been rubbing it all day. She could not turn her head all the way to the right and look over her shoulder. After receiving prayer, the knot is completely gone and her range of motion has been restored!One of the women praying over her for this healing also had a neck injury in 1990 and also had limited neck mobility. While she was praying over this woman for healing the Lord healed her also. Her neck mobility has been restored as well! Thank you, Jesus. God is so good. Even when you aren’t asking, He can heal you. Even when you are ministering to others, He can heal you.Another one of our students, Tammy, suffered from an injury from a car accident in 1995. She said her neck will go out, which causes her back to go out which causes pain, lack of sleep, and a lot of other things. Tammy also had these popcorn sounds when she would rotate her neck. She said it would sound like Rice Krispy cereal. However, after receiving prayer, these popcorn sounds are considerably better. She can barely hear them now.There was a lady who had surgery. She has arthritis in her fingers, and when she bends them, they make a clicking sound, and it is painful. After there was a work of knowledge about healing arthritis, and when she tested it out, she no longer had any pain. She can still hear the clicking, she can still feel the clicking, but now it is pain-free. She has had this pain for years, and now it is gone! God is so good!As you can see from all these testimonies, God showed up at this healing service, and we are so grateful He did! I don’t know why I am always so surprised when He does. He told us in the Bible, ask, and you shall receive. He is a God of promises, and

Our Father’s Love (Part 11) Endless Love, Unbroken and UnrelentingPsalm 103:17-18 “But Lord, your endless love stretches from one eternity to the other, unbroken and unrelenting toward those who fear you and those who bow facedown in awe before you. Your faithfulness to keep every gracious promise you’ve made passes from parents to children, to grandchildren, and beyond. You are faithful to all those who follow your ways and keep your word.”Today’s verse is uplifting, especially after yesterday’s verse which had us thinking about how short life is. Today we get to go back to thinking about how much God loves us. We could think about this all day, every day, and would still never really comprehend how vast His love for us is. The other day we talked about how God separates us from our sin as far as the sunset is from the sunrise. Today we are talking about how much He loves us. The verse says that His “endless love stretches from one eternity to the other, unbroken and unrelenting.”This world doesn’t seem to understand endless love. Love seems to end every day. The divorce rate in this country is so high. Actually, it is high all over the world. We live in a throw-away society where we want the newest and the best things, and we get rid of the old things. We don’t seem to want to work to keep the things we have. When things get difficult, when they get broken, we throw them away and start again instead of trying to fix them. This is not the same with God. His love is endless.Can you even imagine what that would look like? Endless love, love that doesn’t end. Does that mean He still loves us after we mess up and hurt Him? Yes! Does that mean He still loves us even after we keep doing the same stupid things over and over again? Yes! Surely He will stop loving us once He can see that we are unfixable and unredeemable? Nope! There will never be a time when God’s love will stop. He loves us when we can’t even love ourselves. He loves us even when we don’t deserve it. He loves us even when we don’t want Him too! He created us with this endless love that goes from one eternity to the other. I love the adjectives this translation uses. They are unbroken and unrelenting.I love unbroken because that is such a difference from our love. We live in a broken world, and so our love is broken. We struggle to love unconditionally. We struggle to love each other the way the Lord loves us. If I’m being honest, sometimes we struggle with just liking other people, never mind loving them. We love people when they do this or that. We love people who act like us, talk like us, look like us. Sometimes we love people because of what we can get from them, which is not actually loving them but using them. God’s love is not broken. He loves us unconditionally. He loves us for who we are, not what we do. We do not have to do anything to earn His love.I love unrelenting because it is such an active word. When I hear the word unrelenting, I don’t think about a God who sits up in heaven just waiting for us to come to Him. When I hear that word, I picture a God who will stop at nothing to save His children. I picture a God who chases after them and does not let anything get in the way of finding them. God loves us, He wants us to be with Him forever in paradise. He is unrelenting in that pursuit. Why do we fight it so much?The second part of this verse says, “Your faithfulness to keep every gracious promise you’ve made passes from parents to children, to grandchildren, and beyond. You are faithful to all those who follow your ways and keep your word.” There are two really important things in that first sentence to highlight. The first is that it reminds us that God is faithful and He keeps His promises. It doesn’t just say that God keeps promises, but it says that He is faithful to keep EVERY gracious promise He made every promise! This means when you read a promise in the Bible, you can be assured that God will keep that promise.The second important thing it says is that those promises are passed down from parents to children, to grandchildren, and beyond. This shows us that the promises made in the Bible aren’t just for those people who were living at the time they were made. They are for you and for me too. It can be easy for us to read through the Bible and think of it as a great story about something that happened a really long time ago. We can think it has nothing to do with us, especially if we are reading a translation that is hard to understand. There may be a lot of words for things, and we don’t know what they mean.The Bible is not just talking to those who lived back then. It is talking directly to each one of us, you and I. Before we sit down to read the Bible, we should ask the Lord to show us how what we are reading that day applies to our lives. I bet if we all did that before we read anything, we would be surprised at what we learned. The Lord wants to reveal the secrets in the Bible to us, we only need to ask Him. The Bible

Our Father’s Love (Part 10) What If This Time, Was The Last Time?Psalm 103:15-16 “Our days are so few, and our momentary beauty so swiftly fades away! Then all of a sudden, we’re gone, like grass clippings blown away in a gust of wind, taken away to our appointment with death, leaving nothing to show that we were here.”Wow, I was surprised to read that when I sat down to write this episode. It is something we all know, and yet we really don’t like to think about it. It is also strange that this is the verse for today because I just turned off the TV after watching an episode of The Closer. In this episode, a man helped get his son and daughter ready for school and then had to go to work. After he left, someone came in and shot his wife, mother-in-law, and two children. It turns out the person who shot them went to the wrong address. This man had a normal morning with his children and left to go to work, just like he always does, and yet his life will never be the same again. At the end of the show, they showed the chief detective at her house. The day before, she had left for work, and her cat was eating breakfast. When her husband came home at lunchtime, the cat had thrown up the breakfast, so her husband brought the cat to the vet. The cat was not doing well. She couldn’t understand how she had just seen the cat eating, and now she may never get to see the cat again.This seems like a strange way to begin a devotional, and yet I think it demonstrates an important fact that we really don’t like to think about. We never know when it will be the last time we get to do something. If we knew it was the last time we were going to get to do something, we would probably do it very differently than we did. For instance, if you knew it was the very last time you were going to breastfeed your baby, you probably wouldn’t have been in such a rush for them to finish so you could get on with your day. If you knew it was the last time you were going to talk to your loved one, you probably would have said very different things. If you knew it was the last time you were to get to eat pizza, you would have savored it more. Do you see where I am going with this?If we knew it was the last time, we would do it right. However, we rarely know it is going to be the last time. There are things we are blessed to get to know. For instance, if we get to be sitting with a loved one right before they pass on. At the end of the year, we know it is the child’s last day of whatever grade they just completed unless they get sick that last day. We don’t usually know when it’s the last time we will get to see our child crawl or the last time they will say that cute phrase they always say. We don’t know when it'll be the last time we will get to hug them or kiss them. Anything can happen at any time.There are a couple of important things this verse can bring to our attention. The first one is that life is short, and we need not to take it for granted. What if we started approaching every interaction we had with people as if it were our last? What if we stopped leaving things unsaid? What if we were deliberate with our interactions and stopped to think before we acted and definitely before we spoke? Imagine what it would be like to leave each interaction with others without any regrets. Imagine being so present every single time you were with your loved ones that if that were the last time you saw them, you would be proud of your interactions. What is one way you can take what this verse says and apply it to your life and/or your interactions with others?The second thing this verse shows us is how short this life is. The verse says, “Our days are so few, and our momentary beauty so swiftly fades away! Then all of a sudden, we’re gone, like grass clippings blown away in a gust of wind, taken away to our appointment with death, leaving nothing to show that we were here.” Our days here in this world are so few. We think we are here for a long time, so we do what we can to fit into this world. We focus on things that aren’t important, as this verse points out. Our momentary beauty so swiftly fades away. Yet that can be our main priority at times. Often our focus is on things of this world even though we are just here for a short amount of time. We spend a tiny amount of time in this world and, hopefully, eternity with our heavenly Father. So, why are we spending all of our time focusing on the things of this world when this is not where we will stay?We need to keep our eyes fixed on the one above. When we put God first in our lives, we not only please him but also improve our lives here on earth. When we make time to pray or add prayer to the things we are already doing, our lives are blessed beyond measure. Usually, when things start going sideways in our lives, we can see it’s because we stopped putting God first. For instance, we stopped asking God to lead the way, and we took over the driver’s seat. If we want to take the lead, God will let us.

Our Father’s Love (Part 9) Can We Be Angry With God?Psalm 103:13-14 “The same way a loving father feels toward his children—that’s but a sample of your tender feelings toward us, your beloved children, who live in awe of you. You know all about us, inside and out. You are mindful that we’re made from dust.”This verse probably means different things to different people. I can feel the love and tender feelings that our heavenly Father has for us because I know how loving fathers can be. I had an amazing example of a father. I always knew my dad loved me, and I knew of his tender feelings towards us. I wonder if this verse means as much to those who did not have a great father. What if you didn’t know your father loved you? What if he didn’t show you any tender feelings? Are you still able to feel the love coming from this verse?If you did not feel loved by your Father while you were growing up, I want you to know you were loved by your heavenly Father. He created you and loved you before you were even born. Before your parents even thought about having you, God knew everything about you. The verse above says, “You know all about us, inside and out.” This is something we forget sometimes. We try to hide things from the Lord as if He doesn’t already know. This is especially true when we are angry with the Lord. We don’t think it is okay to be angry with God, so we hide it from him. We actually try to hide it from ourselves as well. We pretend we are not mad, or we tell ourselves we are not angry. When we do this, our anger festers under the surface, and I believe it blocks some of the graces God wants to give us.When we are holding this anger in and just ignoring it, then we aren’t dealing with it, we aren’t processing it, and we certainly aren’t bringing it to God. These are the exact things we need to do to get rid of the anger or really any feeling that we are having. I understand why we don’t think we can be angry with God. I mean, He is God. He knows what He is doing, and He can prevent things from happening. Nothing happens that he didn’t allow to happen either with His perfect Will or His Permissive Will. We know God uses all things for our good, so how can we be mad at God when He will use whatever we are going through for our good? I understand where these feelings come from, and yet I don’t believe they are complete. Yes, God allows all things to happen, and yes He will use all things for good. That doesn’t mean you won’t have to go through some really hard times. That doesn’t mean that we won’t get ourselves into some pretty serious trouble.Just because God can use it for good doesn’t mean He wills it for us. It doesn’t mean it was His plan for our life. None of us listen to God perfectly. None of us follow His plan perfectly. Sometimes we will do things to mess things up, and God will allow the consequences of that for some reasons we can understand, like to help us learn and grow, and for some reasons, we will never know about this side of heaven. However, sometimes our painful situations are not a result of something we have done. Sometimes bad stuff just happens, and we have no idea why. No matter how we look at it, we can’t seem to make sense of it.The reason for this difficult time you are going through or have been through doesn't matter; it is still okay to be angry with God. If there is anyone who can handle our anger, it is the Lord. If you want to have a real relationship with Him, you have to be honest with Him. Think about the people in your life that you have the best relationships with. Why are you so close to them? What makes it a good relationship? The people I am closest to are the people with whom I can be completely honest. I don’t have to watch what I say, and I don't have to pretend to be ok when I am not. They are also the people who know me the best, and I know them the best as well.Do you have people in your life like that? Do you have someone in your life who can just take one look at you and know that you are not okay? They know you so well that when you say I am fine, they can tell just by the tone in your voice that you are not really fine. Do you have someone in your life who you can tell you you are angry with something they did, and yet you guys are still friends, and you still love each other? I know I do, and it is such a blessing in my life. If we can have friends and loved ones who are capable of loving us even when we are angry with them for something they have done, why do we think we can’t have the same thing with our Heavenly Father? If your friends can tell when you are upset, don’t you think God can tell too? The verse says that He knows all about us, inside and out. That means He knows your feelings too. He has intimate knowledge of every part of you, even more so than your friends or family members do.Here is the reason I believe it is okay to be angry with God. There were plenty of people in the Bible who cried out to the Lord. I also believe that anger is

Our Father’s Love (Part 8) Get Intimately Familiar With The Real One Psalm 103:12 “Farther than from a sunrise to a sunset, that's how far you've removed our guilt from us.”Today’s verse goes right along with the past few days, and yet it confirms it a bit stronger. For the last few days, I have been talking about God’s love and God’s mercy. We now know how much God loves us. We know He is not just sitting in heaven waiting for us to mess up so he can punish us. We know he does discipline us at times, but not never as much as we truly deserve. We also know from the previous episode that the Lord wants to talk to each and every one of us. When he talks to us, He is gentle and loving. We know He also has different ways of talking to us. If you did not know any of these things, or you struggle to believe any of these things, you can go back and listen to the last 2-3 episodes. However, if you have missed any in this series about the Father’s Love, then I would recommend going back and listening to them all, as I am really loving Psalm 103.Today’s verse says, “Farther than from a sunrise to a sunset, that's how far you've removed our guilt from us.” Do you understand what this verse is saying? Do you understand the magnitude of this verse? God is separating us as far away from our sins as the sunrise is from the sunset. These two things never touch. They are as far apart as they can be. The sun rises in the East and sets in the West. Wherever you are in the world, take a moment and think about the most eastern point in the world you can think of. Then think of the most western point in the world you can think of. This is how separated you are from your sins.We tend to think our sins are part of us. Oftentimes we take those sins on as our identity. For instance, I am a liar, not someone who has lied before. I am an adulterer, not someone who had an affair. I am a cheater, not someone who cheated in a game. Do you see what I am talking about? What is the sin that you are claiming as your identity? This is so common. I used to do this when it came to my children. I would say he is a liar. He said x, y, or z. My counselor would always correct me. He might have lied about this thing, but that is not his identity. This is hard for us. We find it easier to claim the sin and make it part of us.I wonder if that is because when we do that, we also turn over our responsibility. If I am a liar, then it makes sense that I lied. I don’t have to take responsibility for it, and I don’t have to change it because it is just who I am. I have heard this a lot over the years. People justify the ugly things they say or do by saying, “That’s just who I am.” Or they justify their loved ones’ behaviors by saying, “That is just who they are.” Your sins and your behaviors are not who you are. They are not your identity. You are who God says you are. God says we are special (Eph 2:10), loved (Jer 31:3), redeemed (Gal 3:13), important (1 Peter 2:9), lovely (Dan 12:3), forgiven (Psalm 103:12), family (Eph 2:19), strong (Psalm 18:25), not alone (Matt 28:20), treasured (Deut 14:2), Protected (Psalm 121:3), created for a purpose (Jer 29:11), accepted (Rom 15:7), a new creation (2 Cor 5:17), chosen (John 15:16), a child of God (Rom 8:17), precious (1 Cor 6:20), empowered (Phil. 4:17), unique (Psalm 139:13), and cared for (Eph 3:17-19). The scripture references for each and every one of those words is listed in the show notes. Where is the scripture verse for the things you are taking on as your identity?We think the Lord sees us as a sum of all our sins because that is how we see us. However, our ways are not like His ways, and our thoughts are not like His thoughts. If you listened to the previous episodes in this series, you remember Father Mike said truth can’t contradict truth. We know what is in the Bible is truth. So, if your idea of who you are contradicts the above identity, it can’t be the truth. The verse above confirms that God does not identify us as our sins. It says He separates us from our sins. How great would it be if we could do the same?Why is it so hard to see ourselves through God’s eyes? I think part of it is because we don’t really know God. If we aren’t reading the scriptures, if we aren’t reading faith-filled books, and if we aren’t spending time with God, then how can we know Him? In the last episode of this series, we talked about hearing the Lord’s voice and listening to what He wants to say to us. If we aren’t doing this, if we don’t know how He talks to us, then how can we possibly know the difference between His voice and the enemy's voice?I heard a story the other day, and I think it is a great analogy/example for this. The woman speaking is a banker. She no longer works with physical money. However, she used to. She asked us if we knew how they teach bank tellers to spot fake bills. We had several ideas of the differences between real and fake, and she said yes, there are definitely ways to tell them apart. Howe

Today’s witness Wednesday will be a bit different than usual. Today I am going to read you two blog posts written by Father David Barnes. He was the Spiritual Director at St. John’s Seminary in Boston in 2014 when these posts were written. He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston in 1997. The two blog posts were written about a Eucharist procession that took place in 2014 from MIT to Harvard. It was in response to a “black mass” which was to be held that same night and the administration at the college refused to intervene. There are a few reasons I wanted to talk with you about this today. First, there is a Eucharist Procession this weekend right here in Lowell, MA, for anyone who is listening to this and who lives locally. It is on November 26th at 11 am at St. Rita’s Parish. The other one is because I have heard this story at least twice over the last month, and I feel it is one that should be repeated. We tend to get scared watching the news. We feel as though evil is taking over, and we can sometimes feel helpless. This story shows us we are not helpless. It shows us good defeats evil. The Lord has already won the war of good vs. evil. He will always be victorious!The First Blog article is titled A Beautiful Night to be Catholic in the Archdiocese of Boston and was written by Father David Barnes on Tuesday, May 13, 2014. CLICK HERE to go to Father David Barnes' BlogIt’s a little after Midnight, and I am just getting in after participating in a magnificent evening. Hundreds of Catholics joined in a Eucharistic Procession down Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge from the MIT chapel to St. Paul's in Harvard Square. There, we spent a period of time in prayer. The purpose of the evening was to pray in reparation for a planned Satanic Mass on the campus of Harvard University. The procession, which passed MIT and Central Square, was a site to behold. People were coming out of restaurants--some kneeling on the sidewalks, others blessing themselves, and some just staring in bewilderment. Many of the servers who organized the procession were from Juventutem Boston. That is the Traditional Latin Mass Community of young people. They did an impressive job. It's not easy to keep us priests organized. The procession ended at St. Paul's in Harvard Square. When we arrived, the church--which I suppose holds about 1000 people--was already filled to capacity. So hundreds of those who walked in procession were left standing on the street outside of St. Paul's. As I looked out at the congregation, I saw many people from my previous assignment in Beverly. They traveled a good distance to be there. It makes me proud to have been in a parish of people who love the Eucharist so much that they would come to this event. In the procession, I saw many students from Boston University (where I serve as Chaplain). It was so inspiring to see their witness. The unsung hero of the event, in my opinion, was Fr. Richard Clancy, who is the Chaplain at MIT and who is the Director for Catholic Campus Ministry in the Archdiocese of Boston. He was the one who came up with the idea of a Eucharistic Procession. Although he doesn't look for accolades, he deserves some today. Tonight, I spent several hours with Catholics from all over the Archdiocese of Boston--young and old, students, married people, priests, seminarians, religious men and women, lay people--who all love the Eucharist. That's what being a Catholic is. I'm grateful to have experienced their powerful witness tonight.The second blog article is titled The Harvard Eucharistic Procession Was Beautiful . . . But Now What? This was written on Tuesday, May 13, 2014. CLICK HERE to go to Father David Barnes' BlogThe decision of a student group at Harvard University to host a "black mass" on its campus precipitated a massive response from Catholics around Boston, the United States, and even the world. I've heard of parishes all over the United States that held Holy Hours at the time of the scheduled event at Harvard. As I mentioned previously, I participated in a magnificent Eucharistic Procession from the campus of MIT to St. Paul's in Harvard Square. Hundreds of Catholics followed the Eucharistic Lord down the main street in Cambridge, where thousands of onlookers witnessed the flock following the Eucharistic Good Shepherd.I'm not always a huge fan of "big events" because I feel like those things can be used as a substitute for true faith. Sometimes, they feel as though the effort that goes into planning and executing them far outweighs the benefits. They sometimes feel designed as a publicity stunt or as a way of evoking a strong emotional reaction, but the effects seem short-lived. Last night's Eucharistic Procession had a different feel. As I looked about and saw the many young college students from area universities participating, I was touched by their love for the Eucharist and their sincere desire to follow Christ. During the past year, one thing that has really struck me

Our Father’s Love (Part 7) God’s Mercy Extends Higher Than The Highest HeavensPsalm 103:10-11 “You may discipline us for our many sins, but never as much as we really deserve. Nor do you get even with us for what we’ve done. Higher than the highest heavens – that's how high your tender mercy extends! Greater than the grandeur of heaven above is the greatness of your loyal love, towering over all who fear you and bow down before you!”Yesterday I talked about how much God loves us. I talked about how He gave His only son for us while we were still sinners. Today, we are talking about God’s mercy. We talked about how God is not just waiting up there for us to sin so that he can punish or hold that sin against us. Today’s verse confirms and reinforces this for us. It states that the Lord “will discipline us for our many sins, but never as much as we deserve.” We might hear this and worry because we all have different opinions of what we might deserve. We might look at all we have done and know we do not want the discipline we deserve. This is another time when it is important to remember that “God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts.”Just because we know that we deserve a severe punishment does not mean we will get one. God does not think like we think. Most of us are way harder on ourselves than God would ever be. We are harder on ourselves than we would be on other people. If you take a minute to think about something you are hard on yourself for and then ask yourself if your friend did that thing, would you be hard on them? For instance, when I talk with my friends, and they are complaining that they didn’t do something they should have done, I remind them that we are aiming for progress, not perfection. However, when I look back at all I haven’t done throughout the week, I can start to give myself a hard time.God is not looking at all that we have done wrong. He is looking at all that we do right. He is not looking for our downfalls. He is looking at all of our progress, growing closer to Him. God has told our prayer group many times that the littlest thing we do to praise Him or to spread His love or his Word to others makes Him so happy. Think about a child that you know and love. When they come to you with a picture they made, do you look at all the ways that picture falls short of what it was supposed to look like? Do you focus on all the places they went out of the line and all the ways you would have done it differently? I doubt it. We would look at that picture and see all the love they put into it. We would see how hard they worked at it. We would see how hard they tried to do something beautiful for us. This is how the Lord looks at us.Man, I wish each one of you could be in our prayer group meeting, even just for one day! I wish you could hear the way the Lord talks to us. By us, I mean you and me. When the Lord gives words of prophecy, they are meant to build up the community. They are not for one person. Even when the content is specifically for one person, the word builds up those who are giving it as well. When God is giving words to our prayer group, they are meant to be shared. Maybe I will start sharing one of his words at the end of each podcast. That way, you will begin to get used to hearing how the Lord talks to us. You will begin to see His mercy and His love.If you spend time listening, you can hear the Lord’s voice. He does not talk to our prayer group because we are special or because He likes us best. He talks to our prayer group because we invite Him in, and we listen to what He has to say. One of the speakers at our Life in the Spirit Seminar mentioned a quote by St. Bonaventure that I think speaks to this. St. Bonaventure said the “Holy Spirit comes where he is loved…Where He is invited… and where He is expected.” Do you love the Holy Spirit? Have you invited the Holy Spirit into your life? What about your day? Do you expect the Holy Spirit to show up every time you ask?This last one can be really difficult at times. I believe the Holy Spirit will show up. He has in so many instances that I can’t even count them all. I still question that he will show up sometimes. When someone asks me for a word of knowledge or when I need a scripture verse, I ask the Holy Spirit for it, and at the same time, my brain is telling me I won’t hear anything. After all the times I have heard from the Holy Spirit, I know this is ridiculous, yet it still happens. If you are having trouble listening to the Spirit, know you are not alone. Keep loving Him, keep inviting Him, keep trying to expect Him. When you invite Him in, take a few minutes of silence to see what He wants to tell you.I think it is hard at first because we don’t know what the Lord’s voice sounds like or what kinds of things He wants to tell us. First, God’s voice usually sounds like your voice. At least in all those I have talked to who hear a voice in their heart, it sounds like their voice. Also, it might n

God Is So Kind, Tenderhearted, and Patient!Psalm 103:8-9 “Lord, you’re so kind and tenderhearted and so patient with people who fail you! Your love is like a flooding river overflowing its banks with kindness. You don’t look at us only to find our faults just so that you can hold a grudge against us.”Today’s verses are ones I think we all need to hear over and over again. They speak such truths in them, yet they are often forgotten, or we simply don’t believe them. The first line says, “Lord, you’re so kind and tenderhearted and so patient with people who fail you!” God truly is patient with us. If you need evidence of this, look back at the Old Testament in the Bible. Look how many times God’s people turned away from Him. Look how many times he did miraculous things for them, and they repaid Him by worshiping idols. It wasn’t one or two times. It was often. Look at when He saved them from Egypt, where they were slaves, and then they complained because they didn’t have meat to eat. He gave them this miraculous substance called manna daily to eat, but they wanted more.The Lord often told them to do something, and they did the opposite. They had so many kings who wanted to rely on other nations to protect them instead of relying on the one true God to protect them. Ever since the fall, when Adam & Eve ate the apple, man has failed the Lord. You can see even in the New Testament where we failed the Lord. The worst is when we crucified the Son of God. However, the apostles failed to trust Jesus or understand what He was saying all along the way.God is still so kind and so patient with us. Even when you fail, and we all fail. Romans 2:23 says, “ For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Then the very next verse says, “and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Can you see how kind, tenderhearted, and patient He is with us? Even after all the times we turned away in the Old Testament, God still sent His only Son to be crucified for our sins. This also brings us to the next part of today’s verses: "Your love is like a flooding river overflowing its banks with kindness.”Take a moment, close your eyes, and imagine a river overflowing its banks. Imagine how much water there must be in that river. Image what it looks like for that overflowing water to cover the river's surrounding land. Can you picture water covering the grass, the rocks, the dirt, everything? This is what the Lord’s love is like. It covers us with kindness. His love covers our dirt, our sins, and all of our weaknesses. What I love about this imagery is that you can’t control the water overflowing from a river. It can’t be contained. There is just too much to stay contained it the river. It just overflows to everything around it. This is what God’s love does for us. It fills us up and then overflows to all those who surround us.The following line says, “You don’t look at us only to find our faults just so that you can hold a grudge against us.” This is a very common belief. I have talked to many people who admit that they think of God as a judge sitting up in heaven, looking down on us, and just waiting for us to screw up so He can punish us. I have known in my heart for a long time now that this is not true, and now I have a Bible verse to confirm it. It’s interesting that this line comes right after the line about God’s love overflowing with kindness. God doesn’t have to wait up in heaven, just waiting for us to mess up. He already knows what we will do before we do it. He knows when and where you will mess up. And guess what? He loves us anyway. He forgives us anyway.I think it is hard to picture God as a good and loving father if we don’t have a good and loving father. If our father was always waiting for us to screw up so he could punish us, then we can transfer that to God. Also, if we grew up with this image of God in our minds, it can be tough to switch our thinking. If we struggle to believe that our heavenly Father is loving and doesn’t just look at our faults, we don’t need to look any further than the cross. God sent Jesus to pay for our sins. Ellen Gould White said, “Christ was treated as we deserve that we may be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive His life. 'By His stripes, we are healed.”Does that sound like a Father who is just looking for our faults? Does it sound like someone looking for a reason to hold a grudge against us? If God wanted to hold a grudge against us, He wouldn't have to sit around waiting for us to sin; we sin daily. We turn away from God frequently. God has plenty of reasons to hold grudges, yet He doesn’t. Romans 5:8 is also reminds us of this, “ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God didn’t wait for us to sto

Our Father's Love (Part 5) "Giving Justice To The Defenseless"Psalm 103:6-7 “You're a God who makes things right, giving justice to the defenseless. You unveiled to Moses your plans and showed Israel's sons what you could do.”The Lord’s timing is always perfect, although it doesn’t always feel perfect. I read this verse yesterday, and that timing was perfect because I felt it confirmed a friend’s situation. I have a friend struggling with workers comp for over a year. It has been so stressful, and he wants it all done and over with. I texted him on Wednesday of this week because he was supposed to have a Zoom meeting, which was sort of like a hearing to see the next steps. Several people told him he should have a lawyer present so he didn’t get taken advantage of during this hearing. He didn’t have money for a lawyer, and he didn’t want a lawyer. He said the Holy Spirit would be his lawyer.I prayed over him on Monday that everything would work according to God’s plan. We prayed for God to give him the words to say. We prayed the truth would come up somehow. Then, on Wednesday morning, I sent him another prayer to fill him with peace about the situation. To give him courage and strength and again for the Holy Spirit to guide his words. He sent a text back saying the hearing was canceled, the insurance company dropped the suit, and no further actions needed to be done. That same day, I read the verse above, “You’re a God who makes things right, giving justice to the defenseless.” God is so good! He took care of everything for my friend. He answered our prayers.He will do the same for you. Sometimes, we limit the scope of what we think God can do. We will go to Him when someone needs healing or if we need strength. We go to God when we have family issues, or our marriage is in trouble. However, when it comes to some things, we don’t go to Him because we can’t see what He could do in this situation. For instance, if we are in a legal battle, we might pray for strength but not for God to fix the problem because we can’t see a solution. We can’t see how God could do anything to fix it. It is difficult for us to understand that God doesn’t not have the same constraints that we have. He is not bound by anything. There is nothing He can’t do. If He can create the entire universe, He can get you out of whatever situation you find yourself.I read this book called How To Be A Kings Kid. The author tells of a time when he was the president of a company. He put in a bid for a contract on a large government project. He was sure He knew all the details, so he didn’t read the fine print. After he signed the contract and committed the company to everything they owned, he saw that in the fine print, it required them to do something impossible for them to do. The out-of-town contractor sent them registered letters to inform them that the following communication they received would be the institution of a lawsuit for all they owned. The government was involved, the army engineers, seven contractors, hundreds of people—Top priority. Penalties on top of penalties—There was no way to undo what he had done.The author said he panicked and asked God what he should do now. He said it seemed like God said, “It’s a little bit late to ask that question. You didn’t ask Me before you signed the contract.” The author said although he messed up he knows that our Heavenly Father has provided all kinds of latitude for His kids to goof, and then what we do about it is what determines the outcome. What does God say to do? If we confess our sins, He is faithful and will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The author prayed, “Lord, I have goofed. I have really made a boo-boo. How are You going to get us out of this mess? Hallelujah!”Next, instead of worrying about this problem, he headed to a retreat. The retreat started out by asking everyone to confess their faults to one another. So he stood up and told them what he had done. He said, “God’s kids never give up. Praise God. We don’t know how our God’s going to get us out of it, but He’s promised to do it. He said in Psalm 50: ‘Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the most high and call on me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” Then he said, “Lord, I’ll be glad to give You the glory because no man can deliver me.”All of the people at the retreat gathered around him laid hands on him, and prayed in tongues over him. The interpretation of the prayer was beyond anything he would have had the nerve to pray: “Lord, make this whole transaction as though it had never existed.” It was a ridiculously impossible prayer, but it had been prayed. No way to call it back. And so he waited day after day for the lawsuit for his breach of contract to begin. Satan kept needling him daily, “It’ll come tomorrow.” But tomorrow, it didn’t; days passed, weeks, and finally, years without mentioning a lawsuit. During that time, he had to learn to praise Jesus

Our Father’s Love (Part 4) “You’ve Supercharged My Life”Psalm 103:5 “You satisfy my every desire with good things. You’ve supercharged my life so that I soar again like a flying eagle in the sky!”Last quarter, my Encounter Ministries class was all about intimacy with Christ, and I have to tell you, I am really feeling it. I can feel myself falling deeper and deeper in love with Christ, God, and the Holy Spirit. I have read the Psalms before and listened to the entire Bible three times now, yet things are hitting me differently this time. I am finding the words in the passion translation so easy to understand. I am being drawn into this relationship with the Lord in the most gentle way. It is not as if I have to spend time with Him. It is as if I can’t wait to spend time with Him.Now, that doesn’t mean I am doing this perfectly. I have found that I love to sit in the church when it is just me and the Tabernacle and spend time with God. I feel so close to Him. Yet, I am simply not making the time to do that. I say this because I want you to know I struggle to do the right thing, just as many of you are. We want to spend time with the Lord, say all the prayers, and have all the devotions, yet life keeps getting in the way.Guess what, my sisters, my brothers, life is not getting in the way. Life is the thing we were put here to do. Some people, very few people considering, are sent here to seclude themselves and spend almost all their time communing with God. God has called them to that task, and they have accepted. I always think that would be such a great way to live. Nothing getting in the way of my time with God. Then I remembered that if it were just me and God, I wouldn’t have my husband. I wouldn’t have my kids. I wouldn’t see my siblings or parents as much. They were called to that life and get to spend a lot of time with the Lord, but that doesn’t mean their life or their decision is easy. They are sacrificing a lot to live that life. I am so grateful to those who answered that call because we all benefit from their sacrifices, loyalty, devotion, and prayers.Most of us are called to live in the world but not be of the world. We are called to live out our lives in various professions. We are called to live and interact with people. We are not called to be alone. This, too, comes with its own set of challenges. We have to navigate having to be in the world and yet not of the world. We have to figure out how to be a reflection of Christ to those around us. This is not always easy to do. It is easy to get caught up in the world and our lives and forget to make time for the Lord. So many people I know feel frustrated with their lack of time and energy. Most people I know seem tired and feel like they have no more to give. They have used up all they have been given.We feel this way because we are not making time for the Lord. He is our strength. He is where our power and energy comes from. I love the part of the verse above that says, “You’ve supercharged my life so that I soar again like a flying eagle in the sky!” When we feel weak, worn out, and completely helpless, we can turn to the Lord, who can fill us back up again. I think I love this translation because it shows the power of the Lord. The power of the Holy Spirit, which we are blessed to have living inside of us. I remember hearing a testimony of a little girl about seven or so. She was laying hands on her aunt to pray for healing. She said she felt this heat and this electricity go through her hands just before she put them on her aunt. She said it felt like her arm was plugged into an electrical socket or something. That is the power of the Holy Spirit.The wording of this verse says, “You’ve supercharged my life so that I soar again like a flying eagle in the sky.” How many of us could use our lives to be supercharged? How many days at 3:00 in the afternoon do you wish the Holy Spirit would come and supercharge your life so you can be awake for the rest of the day? How many of us are just going through the motions day after day, and we need the Lord to come in and supercharge our lives? We need the Holy Spirit to jolt us awake to truly live our lives. So often, it takes a tragedy to help us wake up and see how vital and precious life is. Don’t wait for a tragedy. Wake up and see the beauty of each new day today.The first part of this verse says, “You satisfy my every desire with good things.” Did you know the Lord is the one who puts the desires down deep in your heart? Don’t you think He will help you achieve them if He gave you them? The hard part in all of this is waiting for them. We live in a world where we get instant gratification. Have you ever stopped to think about what it was like before all the modern inventions we have today? Have you ever thought about how long it must have taken to cook things back in the day? Today, we look for the next thing to make our lives easier. We want an Instapot because we don’t want to wait 40 minutes fo

IntroductionToday’s witness is from my new friend Bruce. Bruce found my podcast randomly, and when he heard the call for people to share their stories, he reached out to me through email and shared his story with me. I asked him if I could share it, and he said yes. Bruce has made a career for the past thirty years as a head scenic artist, art director, and designer in the professional theatre business. For the past five years, he has also had a studio on James St. N., where he produced his own artwork. He is known and loved by many in the community for his work teaching the PMC art class for over a decade, as well as a more recent class for seniors at the YWCA. This is his story of losing sight but finding a new depth of faith.BackstoryI’ve been a believing Christian since the age of ten, but at some point in the past few years, I began to notice a growing sense of spiritual restlessness. I felt like I never had the kind of spiritual life that you read and hear about. I always felt there could be a better experience. I wanted that closeness to God and that shower of blessings that the scriptures describe, but I always figured I was not worthy of it—or else I would have known it by now. A few years ago, pastor lane spoke about being “haunted by God.” This began happening to me. I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking someone was there. I was never afraid, even though it felt surreal or supernatural. It was as if someone was trying to tell me something, but no words were heard. Someone was there. It was the Holy Ghost haunting me. This was a good haunting. I was quite moved by this and began to pray for something to happen that would make me a better person and Christian. I asked myself what I would want from God as a spiritual blessing or gift if I had the chance. I decided that my greatest spiritual weakness was a lack of courage, so that is what I prayed for. I honestly believe that my answer came in the form of the trial I would soon go through. I learned that when you ask God to do something, you had better stand firm and be prepared. Spring 2016In the spring of 2016, I started to notice my eyesight slipping. It was harder to focus. I got new glasses prescribed, and by the time I picked them up, they failed to work for me. The doctor determined that I had low eye pressure. The doctor tried some treatments, but every treatment failed. Sometimes, my vision would return, only to fail again shortly afterward. I was coasting up and down with hopes and disappointment. Summer 2016In the summer of 2016, Pastor Lane was teaching a series of sermons from the Book of Job. This was never a favorite story of mine because I always looked at Job as someone with special favor from God. Each Sunday, I would take my seat on the balcony and listen to the woes of Job while at the same time in noticing that my sight was diminishing a little more each week. I’ve never been known to have a quick temper, but one night, lying in my bed, I felt a real anger at what was happening to me. I was never a person who got angry at God, but now I was asking God, “How could you let this happen to an artist?” I had just turned sixty-five. I was looking forward to launching into more painting, more teaching, and a rewarding time ahead. Instead, my retirement gift was blindness—received with some bitterness toward God. August 16, 2016Taking what I thought was the mature approach to my anger, I decided that anger was not the right path and that it would only lead to my own misery. As Christians, we are always taught to look for the good purpose in all things, including our troubles and trials. I struggled to see where there was any good in an artist losing his vision. I was at a dead end and could not imagine my life without sight or the ability to do my artwork. I was forced to challenge God. I prayed, “Lord, I know I can’t be angry at you about this. I don’t believe you would allow this to be cruel or to punish me. I do believe you must have some purpose in these awful circumstances you have placed me in. I am helpless and unable to understand any purpose for goodness here. Show me what you want me to know." August 17, 2016The next morning, as I was checking my email, I saw a message from a man I had worked with in previous years in the theatre business. I was a little surprised because I didn’t remember getting any messages from him before, so I was curious what he had to say. There was no text in the email, just an image of a stone tablet with the words “Psalm 73” carved into it. I had never known this man to talk about God or scripture, so this was a surprising message. At this time, my vision was poor but still good enough that I could read using a magnifying glass. I had a Bible in my studio, which Pastor Mike Mileski had given me. It was a special edition with beautiful abstract artwork and a very easy-to-read text. I read from it every day before I set to work on my painting. On this day, I decided to read Psalm 73, hopin

Our Father's Love (Part 3) You've Rescued Me From Hell!Psalm 113:4 “You've rescued me from hell and saved my life. You've crowned me with love and mercy.”I think most of us can say that God has rescued us from hell at one point or another. Of course, this hell looks different for each one of us. Your hell might look like years of depression that seem overwhelming. Your hell might be years of anxiety too much to deal with. Your hell might be an abusive relationship that you can’t seem to leave. Your hell might be money troubles that keep getting worse and worse. We all have something we are dealing with. Mine was family trouble for a very long time. It was really difficult to parent my children, and my marriage was not going well. This went on for a very long time. Maybe yours has gone on for a long time, too.When our difficult times go on for a long time, it can be difficult to believe that God will rescue us from them. Understanding why God hasn’t rescued us from these difficult times can be challenging. However, He always does rescue us from them. Not only does he rescue us from them, but he walks with us while we are in them as well. God never leaves our side. He is right there with us each step of the way. In my Encounter Ministries class, they taught us an exercise to help heal wounded memories. The first step is to stop and ask Jesus, “Where were you when this occurred?” Did you know you could ask God questions like this? Did you know asking where He was when you were struggling was okay?Did you know that if you ask and truly listen, He will tell you where He was? That may seem strange to you if you are not used to listening to or hearing the Lord’s voice. Well, actually, it’s not usually the Lord’s voice you hear. It is usually more like you hear your own voice in your head or you get a thought in your head with no voice. But you will get an answer if you listen for one. I remember volunteering to do this exercise in front of the class so the teacher could demonstrate how it works. When I asked Jesus where He was during a specific experience with my boys, He explained that He was right there, giving me the strength to keep getting up each morning. He gave me strength and perseverance, so I never felt like giving up. He was with me through it all.He is doing the same with you. You might have had some truly terrible experiences. Know that Jesus was right by your side through them. I don’t know why He didn’t prevent them from happening. That is something for Him to answer. I know He was there with you; no matter how alone you felt, you were not alone. He was there, walking by your side. God is so good like that!The next part of the verse says, “You've crowned me with love and mercy.” These two things can be challenging for us to understand. We might be unable to believe that the Lord loves us for many reasons. If we have never been truly loved by anyone on earth, then it can be hard to believe anyone could love us, let alone someone as magnificent as the Lord. If we have had a hard life and done many things we are not proud of, then we struggle to believe someone could love us. The Lord’s love is unconditional. It is not dependent on what you do or say. It is not dependent on whether you love him back. You do not need to earn God’s love. It is freely given. This can be hard to understand, especially if we had to earn love as a child. We live in a broken world, so we don’t all love unconditionally.The second part of this line also says we are crowned with mercy. The definition of mercy is “compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.” This is why we struggle to believe in God’s mercy. We know He has the power to punish us. We know we deserve that punishment, yet God wants to shower us with His mercy. That doesn’t make much sense to us because that is not how the world thinks. We live in a day and age where we seem to be back to an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It seems like if someone does something to you, you have to do something back to them.For instance, when we are on the highway, and someone cuts you off, you have to blare your horn at them. You have to show them they did something wrong. My question is, “Why?” Why do you have to let them know they did something wrong? Can’t we have mercy on them and let them go on their way? I was driving with one of my sons the other day, and he wanted to get into a lane, but the driver wouldn’t let him in. He passed him on the right, and then my son got into that lane. However, my son was so angry that this man passed on the right and didn’t let him in. Where is the mercy? Where is the forgiveness?People seem to get so angry at the slightest offense or at the slightest wrongdoing these days. This makes understanding how God can show us mercy when we have done some pretty big things more challenging. We are a flawed people, and we turn away from God often. So, how can he keep forgiving us when we don’t

You’ve Healed Me Inside and OutPsalm 113:3 “You kissed my heart with forgiveness, in spite of all I've done. You've healed me inside and out from every disease.”This week, we are continuing with the series exploring Psalm 113. I am using the Passion Translation in case I didn’t mention it on Friday. I feel it is so beautiful. Today, the verse starts off with, “You kissed my heart with forgiveness, in spite of all I have done.” This is probably one of the most challenging concepts for us to understand. We look at our lives, and we look at all we have done wrong, and we struggle to believe the Lord can forgive us. We struggle to believe that our sins can be forgiven. How could they be? We wonder if people say God has forgiven us because they don’t know how bad our actions were.Guess what? God knows, and He forgives them anyway. That was the point of Jesus dying on the cross. He takes each and every one of your sins with Him. This is why Catholics have the crucifix hanging in all of their churches. This is why they have the stations of the cross around the church. I had a friend once who said that he didn’t like being in a Catholic church because it was so depressing. It said he believes in the risen Lord. We do, too! However, we believe it is important to remember that Jesus died for our sins. He sacrificed His life so we could have eternal life. This is something to celebrate. This is something never to forget.It is hard for people to accept the Lord’s forgiveness if they don’t think about the cross. Even if we do, it is hard to believe that God loves us so much that He would let His only son die for us. It is incredible to think about the fact that Jesus also loved us so much He chose to die on the cross for us. The Father didn’t make Him. He chose it, He volunteered for us. He must love us a lot.I have talked with many people who think of God as a just judge sitting up in Heaven. He is watching us and waiting for us to mess up so that He can punish us. I wonder how it is possible to think this in light of the crucifixion. God laid out the rules very clearly to Adam and Eve. There was one tree they couldn’t eat from, yet they did. Then sin entered the world. It was not as if we did nothing wrong and the Lord punished us. He warned them, and they did it anyway. Yet, He still sent His son to save us. How often have we thought, “Well, they deserved it?” Imagine if the Lord had said this about us. He didn’t. He sent Jesus to take all of our sins to the cross. Yes, ALL of them, even that one that you don’t believe he wants to take to the cross. He already took it there.Next, it says, “You've healed me inside and out from every disease.” God is so good. He does this for each one of us in different ways. Sometimes, He works on the wounds we have on the inside first, and sometimes, He works on our outside wounds first. Some of you listening may be suffering from something big right now, and you are wondering where your healing is. If that is you, I want you to know that the Lord sees you. He knows you are suffering. He hears your prayers.The other night, I prayed with a listener and his wife. The man reached out because he lost his eyesight a few years ago and really wants it back. He wanted to tell me his story as he heard me mention on Witness Wednesdays that we all have a story, and it is essential to share our stories. Maybe I will share his story this Wednesday. I will check with him. However, what made me think of him today is the line in this verse that says, “You healed me inside and out from every disease.” The Lord is healing him. I know he is. He is growing closer to the Lord daily, which is fantastic. However, he has not been healed of whatever is causing him to lose his eyesight. He is positive, not angry at God, and yet sometimes gets sad that he has not regained his sight yet.If you are praying for healing and haven’t received it yet, I want you to know you are not alone. If you pray for healing and sometimes get discouraged because it hasn’t happened yet, know that you are not alone in that feeling either. I want you to know I am praying for you. If you want to reach out as Bruce did by emailing [email protected] or on social media, Catherine Duggan. I would happily pray for your healing over the phone with you. I could also add you to my daily prayers and the prayer lines I am a part of or know of. There are so many prayer warriors out there who could be praying into your specific circumstance.The words in the Bible are meant for all of us. They were not just spoken to the people who lived when it was written. They were meant for you and for me. This verse was meant for you and for me. The Lord is healing you inside and out. Maybe not in the order you would like, maybe not in the time that you would like. He is healing you, though. We know this because it says it right here in the Bible.This verse reminds me of the story of the paralyzed man in Mark 2:2-11. This was the story o