Walk Boldly With Jesus

God’s Love For UsEphesians 3:16-19 “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”I love this verse. I probably say that about a lot of these verses. I think when I am reading through the whole Bible, one chapter at a time, I miss a lot of the information that is contained in each verse. I get the idea of the chapter, and I understand the lesson and the main things I am supposed to learn, and yet even as I write this, I am not sure I do get all the things I am supposed to learn, as it seems like there is so much in each verse. I am really enjoying taking a look at each verse or a couple of verses individually and trying to see what they are telling us and how they apply to our lives. I think this verse is particularly special, as I read it today, as I have a friend who is struggling with inner strength. Her situation is so difficult right now, and she is trying so hard to be the strong one. She was trying to hold it together for her family. I bet if you are a parent, you find yourself doing this a lot. We feel all the weight of the family on our shoulders. No matter if you are a mom or a dad, you feel the weight. We try to stay strong because we feel that if we fall apart, our family will fall apart. We stay strong because we want our kids to feel secure and know that we have it all together. We want them to know we are there for them. We all do this; you are not alone. My friend said something today that made me think, if she is feeling this way, maybe others are too. Then, when I read this verse, I thought it could help me explain why we don’t need to feel this way. My friend said she tries to stay strong because she doesn’t want God to be disappointed in her. I am guessing that she is not the only one of us who feels this way. It can be tough because we know that we have a lot to be grateful for, and we don’t want God to think we are ungrateful for all the things that are going right. We love God and we want to please Him. We want to do what we can to make Him happy. He is our Heavenly Father, and it makes sense that we don’t want to disappoint Him. My first thought was that we can’t disappoint Him. He loves us more than we could even imagine. However, I don’t think that is true. I think that He is probably disappointed when we sin, especially if it is something that we know better than to do and yet we do it anyway. We know how He wants us to live, and so if we are continually breaking his commandments, He probably does get disappointed with us. Short of this, I do not think He gets disappointed with us. God is the one who made us who we are. He made us with our unique personalities and all of our feelings. He knows that we are not perfect. I don’t think that He gets disappointed in us when we feel weak. God said in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. It is when we can admit our weakness that God can move in and give us power. “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” This is a powerful statement. The Holy Spirit lives in each one of us. And God gives us power through this Spirit in our inner being. Through this power of the Holy Spirit, Christ dwells in our hearts as well. Think about that for a minute. You not only have the power of the Holy Spirit strengthening your inner being, but you also have Christ dwelling in your heart. You can handle anything that comes your way. God has you covered. He is there every step of the way. This is something that He is repeatedly telling our Prayer Group. I am there for you, in good times and in bad. I will lift you up when you fall. Lean on me in times of trouble. When we are weak, God is not disappointed; He expects it. He knows we can’t do it all on our own, and He doesn’t want us to. He wants us to lean into Him. He wants us to ask for help. His Glory shines when we ask for help. Think about your children or your pets. What do you feel inside when they ask for help, or when they are sad? Are you disappointed or frustrated with them? No, you love them, and you would do anything to help them. This makes me think of a verse in Matthew 7:11: "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” In this circumstance, it would be more like “If you have compassion on your children when they are sad and f

God Created Doctors Too!Sirach 38:12-14 “Then give the physician his place, for the Lord created him; do not let him leave you, for you need him. There may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of physicians, for they too pray to the Lord that he grant them success in diagnosis and in healing, for the sake of preserving life.”This week I got the opportunity to go to the beach with a few friends. I don’t often go to the beach, especially not in the middle of the week, and it was a really great time. What made this trip to the beach extra special was that we started our day at the beach with some faith sharing. The theme for mentoring this month is Godly Friendships, and so I want to take a minute to thank the Lord for these ladies. Ours truly is a Godly friendship. We pray together, we pray for each other and our families, we build each other up, we encourage each other, and we help each other become more holy. We always point each other back to Jesus.It is so important that we all have people in our lives like this. We all need others to pray for and with us. We need people we can talk to about anything, especially our faith journey. We need people we can be open and honest with about our faith journey. Those who won’t judge us, but will encourage us and help us when we are struggling. On that beach, we each took 10 minutes or so and talked about what is going on in our faith journey. We talked about our blessings and our struggles, and then we prayed into those struggles. It really was beautiful.While we were talking, someone mentioned this verse in Sirach. The Lord brought it to my mind this morning during Adoration, and so I thought I would share it with you. I know several people right now who are struggling with physical ailments. They have been to all the doctors, and either the doctors can’t figure out what is wrong with them, or they do know, but they haven’t come up with a suitable treatment plan. There are also some who know exactly what is wrong, but there is no human cure for it, and so they are waiting for the Lord to miraculously heal them.Today, I want to talk to those of you who are fed up with the doctors and just want to be healed already. I know some of you are so frustrated because you have been praying for the Lord to heal you for a long time now, and you haven’t seen any fruit from those prayers. You have been asking for a miraculous healing, and those prayers seem to have gone unanswered. If this is you, then this message is definitely for you today. If you have been praying for someone who has been struggling for a very long time and has not seen answers to prayers, then this is for you, too!The verse above says, “Then give the physician his place, for the Lord created him; do not let him leave you, for you need him. There may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of physicians, for they too pray to the Lord that he grant them success in diagnosis and in healing, for the sake of preserving life.” We would all like to be miraculously and instantaneously healed by Jesus. However, this verse is telling us that the Lord created physicians, and sometimes we need them. The verse tells us that we should not let them leave us because we need them. It says that there may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of the physicians.I know this is not what some of you wanted to hear from the Lord today. I know many of you are frustrated with the physicians you are seeing. You are frustrated with the lack of answers, or you are frustrated with the answers they are giving you. You don’t like their plan. Some of you are also scared. You have a long history with doctors or surgeries, and you do not want to try again.If this is you, I am so sorry. I am sorry for all your past trauma with doctors or surgeries. I am sorry for all the current pain you are experiencing or the circumstances you are facing. You may have a good reason to mistrust your doctor. I am not trying to second-guess you. If you need to find a new doctor, pray that the Lord points you to the right one. All I felt like the Lord wanted me to share with you today was that he created everything, including doctors.I like where the verse says, “for they too pray to the Lord that he grant them succession diagnosis and in healing, for the sake of preserving life.” We tend to think we need to be for medicine and doctors or for God. Often, we put them on opposing sides, and we say that if we really believed in God, we wouldn’t need to go to the doctor because our faith would heal us. Did you know that two things can be true at the same time? For instance, you can be happy and sad at the same time. I am happy that my son is starting a new year of college. I am happy that he is going to college in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity to travel, grow more independent, and get a good college education. And also I am sad because it means I will not get to see him for 3 and a half months. Both thin

Today’s witnesses are from a website called ThoughtCatalog.com. (CLICK HERE for article) It is a list of several miracles that happened to different people. I do not know any of the people who wrote in with these miracles. Dr. Dakota Fox wrote the article. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.1.) My father once was traveling along a country highway. It was early morning and he was at the front of a long line of traffic. Along his way he spotted a hitchhiker with a hiking backpack and being the kind person he was, he stopped for them and lost his place at the front of traffic. The guy seemed really friendly, dad chatted with him about his family and work, told the guy how he wanted to have a kid, the guy was super friendly and nice and supportive.All of a sudden he asked my dad to drop him off. Dad was confused as this was right next to a field in the middle of nowhere. The guy said don’t worry about it and got out which weirded my dad out. My dad turned to leave and noticed the guy left his bag and went to let the guy know but he was gone. Nowhere to be seen. Dad says he searched for him but it made no sense where he went or how he could hide. Upon getting back in the car he looked in the bag to find it to be empty. Also weird. He decided to continue on his way and joined back in traffic. He came to the first set of lights eventually and noticed an accident had happened to the car that was behind him in the line of traffic originally and he realized had he not picked this guy up he would’ve been in that accident. That guy saved him.2 weeks later his wife was pregnant with me. My dad still has the bag and carries it with him in his car at all times hoping to eventually run into the guy and thank him.TLDR: dad was saved by weird guardian angel hitchhiker guy. Still has momento from occasion. Doesn’t understand what happened to this day.2.) My wife and I tried having a baby for a couple of years with no luck. Got to the point of IVF, which is what finally worked. We both were excited that it was actually happening, and made it the point where you can see a heartbeat flicker.Shortly after she bled to the point where she passed what looked bigger than a clot and was assumed to be the baby. We went to the doctor and they confirmed no more heartbeat, come back in a couple days to check if all passed or if surgical removal was necessary.Started checking her out and the tech called the doctor in the room, turns out they saw flickering again that they didn’t before. Everything appeared to back in order but threatened that a miscarriage could still happen. Fast forward to 30 weeks, wife’s blood pressure rises and gets diagnosed with preeclampsia. She wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital until the baby was out.After a week and a half they move her to a different floor because she’s stable. The morning after the move she has a seizure and an emergency c section is needed. Baby was born and taken to the NICU, which she started out strong. The second or 3rd day her lungs were collapsing and needed chest tubes to expand the lungs. 45 days later after learning to eat from a bottle she came home at 5lbs.Now she’s almost 3 and other than being skinny you couldn’t tell what she went through other than 2 scars and respiratory colds taking a little more effect on her.3.) My grandfather had a heart attack while driving and crashed into a tree. He was without oxygen to his brain for 25 minutes. The hospital did everything they could to revive him, actually trying to revive him for 3+ hours because it was a veterans hospital and he was a decorated green beret.I was called to this hospital and was told he was brain dead. he was without oxygen for too long. I cried and cried, and all the while my family was around his bedside talking to him. The doctors told them that he might be able to hear them.They were going to take him off of life support that night but my uncle for San Diego missed his flight and couldn’t come until morning so they decided to wait. Well, good thing.A few hours later I was next to my grandpa and his hands started twitching. I called the nurse in and she told us that these were just spasms, and that its normal. The twitches kept getting more severe and more frequent.After a while, the doctors started to get a little concerned and checked his vitals, they seemed shocked. After a while, he opened his eyes. We were all in shock. Complete disbelief. They told us he was brain dead and we were going to take him off of life support. He couldn’t talk for hours, but asked for a pen and notepad to write something. The first thing he wrote was “energizer” and “bunny”. It took him about 2 days before he could speak and now 4 years later, he is a fully functioning 62 year old man.4.) I was 18 and driving down the 5 (freeway) towards San Diego. I was on the far right lane going about 65 and there was an old chinese driver who was going about the same speed as be on the lane to my left. There was a bunch of other cars around

CLICK HERE FOR 2025 RETREATLive Unashamed of the Gospel of Jesus ChristRomans 1:16-17 “ For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”I first read this verse in the Passion Translation this morning, and it says, “I refuse to be ashamed of the wonderful message of God's liberating power unleashed in us through Christ! For I am thrilled to preach that everyone who believes is saved – the Jew first, and then people everywhere! The gospel unveils a continual revelation of God's righteousness – a perfect righteousness given to us when we believe. And it moves us from receiving life through faith to the power of living by faith. This is what the scripture means when it says: "We are right with God through life-giving faith!”I love how these verses emphasize that God’s power is for everyone who believes. The message we are tasked with spreading is not just for the Jewish people, or any group of people. It is for anyone who believes. This is important to remember because at times we can get very selective about who we do and do not give the message too. Sometimes we can avoid sharing the message with some people because they may not fit our idea of what a Christian should be. We might look at them and immediately judge them by what they look like or how they are dressed.We were tasked with bringing the message to every single person in all corners of the earth. It is not up to us to decide who is worthy or not worthy of hearing the word. We never know who needs to hear the Gospel.I recall a story about a group of people in Ireland who were learning to use the evangelization tool called 'Jesus Knocking'. They were taught how to use it, and then they were sent out on the streets to knock on doors and begin telling people about Jesus. These two men, who were particularly shy, knocked on this one guy's door. When the man answered, they could see he was a biker, part of a gang, and he looked kinda scary. The first thing he did was tell them they had to come inside because he couldn’t be seen. He had a warrant out for his arrest. They were very nervous to go inside this guy’s house, but they did. They were certain that he would not want to hear what they had to say, but they asked him anyway. He said, “Sure, I will listen.” Then, when they got to the part where they asked if he wanted to have a personal encounter with Jesus, he said yes. They were so surprised.It turns out he was very nice and that Jesus was just what he needed in his life. Once he turned his life over to Jesus, everything changed for him. A few weeks later, he happened to be in a car with fellow gang members when the car got stopped. He thought about lying about who he was so that he didn’t get arrested because he still had a warrant out for his arrest. Although now that he had found Jesus, he knew he couldn’t lie. When they asked what his name was, he told them. They looked him up in the system and said he was free to go. He has no idea what happened to the warrant, but he was so grateful to God for saving him.The verse also says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith.” I love to think about the power of God that we have living inside of us. However, this reminds us that the Gospel is also the power of God. I think we forget how powerful the Gospel can be. I think we can take it for granted sometimes and forget that not everyone knows how great God is. Not everyone has heard that Jesus died on the cross for their sins. Jesus loved them so much they he took every bad thing they ever did and will ever do to the cross with Him.The amazing thing about the Gospel is that even if people have heard it before, they may hear it again, and it hits them in a different way. Maybe something they have gone through in their life has prepared them to hear it differently this time. Maybe life has been rough, and the idea that Jesus loves them and would do anything for them is exactly what they needed to hear that day. Being Catholic, we get to hear the Gospel every Sunday at Mass. The Gospel is not something new to us, and if we are honest, probably not always exciting. We can let it become mundane and ordinary if we are not careful, because we do have ready access to it, and we do hear it all the time at Mass.However, we must never forget the power of the Gospel. When the apostles first started bringing the Gospel to all parts of the world, people were hungry for it. They were baptizing several people everywhere they went. The world is just as hungry for it today. We just don’t think to spread it because we live in a culture that seems to be open to everything except Christianity. Nowadays, we are afraid of talking about the Gospels and about Jesus because we don’t want to offend s

God Can Send An AngelTobit 3:16-17 “At that very moment, the prayers of both of them were heard in the glorious presence of God. 17 So Raphael was sent to heal both of them: Tobit, by removing the white films from his eyes, so that he might see God’s light with his eyes; and Sarah, daughter of Raguel, by giving her in marriage to Tobias, son of Tobit, and by setting her free from the wicked demon Asmodeus. Tobias was entitled to have her before all others who had desired to marry her. At the same time that Tobit returned from the courtyard into his house, Sarah, daughter of Raguel, came down from her upper room.”I decided to start reading Tobit this morning. I thought I had remembered the story, but I wanted to read through it as a good refresher. There are so many little things in the various books of the bible, and you can’t remember all of them. This is why it is good to keep reading through it and to keep refreshing your memory, as there are so many good things in the Bible. Today I read about Tobit and how he was a righteous man who did not sin against the Lord, even when those around him were.Tobit was part of a group of God’s faithful who were taken into captivity and were forced to go and live in Ninevah among foreigners. Even though Tobit was not in his own land, he still followed the ways of the Lord. He still kept as many traditions as he could. He even took time, at great cost to himself, to bury fellow brethren that the king had killed in a fit of anger. This made the king mad, and at one point, the king ordered Tobit to be put to death, and Tobit had to run, leaving his wife and child behind. The king took all his possessions but did not kill his wife and child.Eventually, that king was killed, and Tobit’s nephew was appointed second in command to the new king. He went to bat for Tobit and got his wife and child restored to him. However, one day a Tobit was sitting outside by his wall, and the fresh droppings of a sparrow fell into his eyes, and he became blind. Tobit cried out to the Lord and asked the Lord to “command my spirit to be taken up, that I may be released from the face of the earth and become dust.” At the same time as Tobit was praying this prayer, there was a woman named Sarah who was praying a similar prayer.Sarah had a demon that was in love with her. So, every time she got married, the demon would kill her husband before they could even spend one night together. The rumors were going around that she was killing these men. She wanted to go into her father’s upper room and hang herself. However, she was her father’s only child, so she didn’t. She did cry out to the Lord and say, “Command that I be released from the earth that I hear reproach no more.” Sound familiar. Both Tobit and Sarah wanted the Lord to release them from their situation.Then comes today’s verse. “At that very moment, the prayers of both of them were heard in the glorious presence of God. So Raphael was sent to heal both of them: Tobit, by removing the white films from his eyes, so that he might see God’s light with his eyes; and Sarah, daughter of Raguel, by giving her in marriage to Tobias, son of Tobit, and by setting her free from the wicked demon Asmodeus. Tobias was entitled to have her before all others who had desired to marry her. At the same time that Tobit returned from the courtyard into his house, Sarah, daughter of Raguel, came down from her upper room.”Raphael is one of the archangels. His name means "God has healed," reflecting his role as a healer and protector. God dispatched Raphael in response to Tobit and Sarah’s prayers. How amazing is that? Raphael came down to earth and appeared as a man to help Tobias find and marry Sarah, and then to help heal Tobit of his blindness. Tobit decided to tell Tobias about some money he had left in another land. He wanted Tobias to go and get the money, and he wanted to pay someone to go with Tobias to keep him safe. The archangel Raphael came down to take this job and lead Tobias where he needed to go.Raphael leads Tobias where he needs to go and keeps him safe along the way. At one point, they stopped by a stream and a fish almost swallowed Tobias, but Raphael told him to catch the fish, and he did. Inside of this one fish was the answer to both Sarah’s & Tobit’s prayers.I thought this was a great verse for today because it serves as a powerful reminder that God hears our prayers. He hears when we cry out to him. He not only hears our prayers but He answers them. God cared so much about Tobit and Sarah that he sent one of his most important angels down to answer their prayers. I think what struck me most about this verse is that if God did this for them, He can do this for you, too!I know several people who are suffering from illnesses right now. They are in pain every day, and this is causing them to become depressed because they want nothing more than to go out and be a servant to God. They want to go out and help others. They want to go and evangeliz

Guilty Enough To Go Into The Fiery Hell?Matthew 5:21-22 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.”Yesterday, the Gospel at mass was the beatitudes found in Matthew 5:1-12. While listening at Mass, I felt I was supposed to teach on those today. However, while reading them this morning, I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me to read further in the chapter. As soon as I got to these verses, I was told I could stop. What struck me about these verses is the importance of what they say and how easy it is for us to do. How easy is it for us to get mad at someone? Frequently, I would say. Mostly, I would say I get angry with people most when I am driving. I am not an angry driver and am usually pretty calm when driving.Lately, I am still calm; however, I have noticed myself commenting on other drivers. It seems that people are driving worse and worse as the days go by. However, it could just be that I am getting old and less patient. I am not sure. However, I have noticed lately when I am driving, and someone cuts me off or drives in and out of the lanes, I think they are driving like an idiot. Sometimes, I might even say they are an idiot. This is exactly what I was thinking of this morning when I read this verse. The verse ends with, “And whoever says,‘You fool’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.”Did you catch that? If we call someone a fool, we will be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. I was talking to my dad one time about heaven and hell. We were discussing how Jesus died for our sins. We were discussing how some religions believe you have to believe that Jesus is our Lord and Savior and you get to go to heaven, and we were talking about how Catholics believe it is not just believing in Jesus, but it is your works as well. I have always believed that you will go to heaven if you are primarily a good person. My dad reminded me of what Mary told the little children of Fatima. She gave them a vision of all the suffering in hell, and she said to them that more people than we know are going there.This concerned me, and I have spent some time thinking about it. Then, when I went to an Unbound training, I heard the story of the priest whose heart stopped. He died for a few minutes, and instead of going to heaven like he thought he would, he went to hell. When he saw Jesus, he was told he went there because he had unforgiveness in his heart. He wished God would punish those who had hurt him. I know we hear often that we must forgive, but I am not sure we understand what is at stake if we don’t forgive. The stakes are pretty high. The Our Father prayer says that God will forgive us as we forgive those. I think many of us don’t realize what we are saying when we say that prayer.I believe God is highlighting these things for me because I am searching. I want to spend eternity with the Father, and God knows our thoughts. He knows our hearts. If we seek the truth, He will provide it for us. I don’t want to be writing about things on this podcast that might be leading you down the wrong path, or that might be false information. Before writing each episode, I pray that the words that come out are the Lord’s words for you, not mine. We will gain understanding if we seek to understand the Word of the Lord. The Lord said in Matthew 7:7-8 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”I often think of this phrase when I am asking for something. However, the Lord reminded me of its last part: seek and you will find. Let’s start seeking the truth. Let’s take our concerns to the Lord. Not just our prayer requests but also our concerns. Concerns such as, am I loving my neighbor? Do I love you, God, with my whole heart, mind and soul? Did you know you can ask the Lord to show you how you are falling short in your life, and He will? He won’t show you in a condemning way. He will guide you in a gentle yet convicting way. He also won’t show you a hundred things at one time. I believe the Lord will show you one or two things you can work on, and when you prove to be faithful in working on those, He will show you a few more ways.When we make a conscious effort to live the way God calls us to, I believe God rejoices in heaven. I think it makes Him so happy that we care enough about Him to stop and ask, will this bring me closer to the Lord or further away from Him? A few months ago, I was talking with my mother-in-law about whether we would go to heaven. She had a conversation with a friend, and they discus

Ask AgainActs 9:1-6 “ Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”If you are not familiar with the story of Saul I suggest you read acts chapter 9:1-19. I did not want to take up too much of your time recounting the whole story but I will summarize it later. When I was thinking of what to write about I got to thinking about how many people I talk to, that are worried about their children. They are worried because their children are not attending mass, or are no longer Catholic/Christian. They worry that they, as parents, are not making a difference in their child’s faith, or that their example is not enough. I have these same thoughts as well. I thought I would share something that I feel God pointed out to me that has given me a lot of comfort. People have always told me that if I pray for my children God will answer my prayers. And that they will come back to the church in His time, not mine. However, I still worried because I know that God gave us free will. I always thought that meant that the boys needed to at least be open to him, or maybe the needed to be looking for him in order for them to be saved. And I wondered if they would be open to Him. I wondered what would happen if they weren’t ever looking for Him. However, one day God gave me a thought, “What about Saul?” In Acts 9:1-19, we learn about Saul. Saul was someone who was persecuting anyone who believed in Jesus. When he was on his way to another town, with the intent of finding anyone who believed in Jesus and bringing them back to Jerusalem in chains, he was blinded by a vision of Jesus. Jesus asked him why he was persecuting him. Saul was instructed to go into town and wait for someone to come and visit him. When Saul tried to open his eyes, he was blind. A disciple of God went and cured his blindness, and he was immediately baptized. This is, of course, the abbreviated version. I suggest you read the full version, as it is a great story. So, if God can completely convert Saul, who was not open to Jesus, or looking for him, but was murdering and persecuting others who believed in him. Then just think how easy it will be for God to win our children back when he decides they are ready. I hope that this can put your mind at ease at least a little. A second part to this is that sometimes I think that we get tired of asking for the same thing over and over again. We assume the answer is no because God hasn’t answered our prayer yet. However, when we read Luke 11:5-8 “And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him, and he says in reply from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything. I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence. I know I have talked to you before about the woman who was persistent in going to the judge and asking for justice. She did not receive it because he was kind; she received it because of her persistence. We must keep asking. God will reward our persistence. If we need to reach out and have someone else ask on our behalf when we are weak, then we should do that. However, we should not give up asking just because God hasn’t answered yet. He will in his time! I am going to read a piece of writing that beautifully illustrates the “Ask Again” idea. I first heard this on the Big Life Devotional Podcast, and then I went to Facebook and found it on her page titled Tera’s Online Christian Journey. I will put a link to her page in the show notes. To visit her Facebook Page, click here. ASK AGAIN By: Tera Elness I know, I know, you’ve already asked Him a million times. I see those eyes rolling. But today, ask Him a million and one. Yes. Ask Him AGAIN. Ask him again for that child to come home. That marriage needs to be healed. That mountain to move. Ask him again for that friendship to mend. That work to begin. That end-of-tunnel light is to appear. Ask Him again for the one who needs rescue, the one who needs healing, the one who needs new direction, new guidance, new focus. Yes. Even if that ‘one’ is you. Ask him again for what you need. For what you want. For joy in the sorr

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Praying in the Spirit, What Does That Even Mean?Jude 20 “But you, my delightfully loved friends, constantly and progressively build yourselves up on the foundation of your most holy faith by praying every moment in the Spirit.”I decided to read through the book of Jude today, as it is a very short book. It is only one chapter. The author of this book begins by stating that he fully intended to write to them about our amazing salvation that we all participate in, but felt the need instead to challenge them to defend and contend for the beliefs that we cherish vigorously. He then warned them against false teachers and the fate of the apostates, and subsequently discussed Enoch’s prophecy. He ended with a call to remain faithful.When I read the call to remain faithful, two verses jumped out at me. When I started writing this episode, the verse above immediately caught my attention. I felt that the Holy Spirit wanted me to discuss praying in the Spirit. The translation I used today is the Passion translation. It says that we are delightfully loved friends. It goes on to say that we should constantly and progressively build ourselves on the foundation of our most holy faith by praying in the Spirit at all times.I am sure we all want to build ourselves on the foundation of faith. With a firm foundation, nothing can shake us. Nothing can knock us off course. When our feet are planted on a firm foundation, we know we will be ok, we will feel safe. So how do we get this firm foundation we so desperately want? Today’s verse says that we can pray in the Spirit all the time. Some of you may be asking, “Pray in the Spirit, what does that even mean?” Praying in the Spirit is another way to say praying in tongues.Praying in tongues is something that many people have heard of but few people understand. Praying in tongues is when the Holy Spirit is praying through you. It is when you surrender your vocal chords to the Holy Spirit. I know this probably sounds weird to you, and if so, I get it. When I was a high schooler, I accidentally went to one of my dad’s charismatic prayer group meetings. I thought I was going to a sweet 16th birthday party, but that was in a different part of the building. When I heard them praising the Lord out loud and speaking in tongues, I thought they were all a little bit crazy. I had never heard anything like it before.Later in life, I heard a speaker talking about how she also thought speaking in tongues was crazy. She said she would pray to God to give her all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, except that one, because that one seemed crazy and she didn’t want to be crazy or have people think she was crazy. Then life happened, and she had a really intense experience with a high schooler she was counseling at the time. She realized that she needed all the power of the Holy Spirit. She realized that it was crazy to limit God and not want all that He had to offer. God is only good. He is not going to give you a bad gift. His gifts will only build you up and bring you closer to Him. There are no bad gifts of the Holy Spirit.Let me take a minute to explain the gift of tongues. You can receive the gift when you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, which occurs when you are baptized, when you make your confirmation, and anytime you go through a life in the Spirit seminar. There can be other times as well; these are just the most common. Sometimes you will just be overcome by the Holy Spirit and receive this gift and start speaking in tongues like the apostles on the day of Pentecost. They all started speaking in different languages so that all those in the crowd could hear what they were saying in their native tongue.However, this is not everyone’s experience. Many people who participate in a Life in the Spirit Seminar who wish to have the gift of tongues do not receive it right away. They need to practice saying sounds that do not sound like words. This is not easy to do, as most of us are afraid of looking stupid in front of other people.One of the ladies in the prayer group told a story about how she first learned to pray in the Spirit. The leader of her Life in the Spirit seminar had told her to practice in the shower, where no one else could hear, or down in the basement while doing laundry. She said she would go downstairs, and when the laundry was going, she would practice stringing random consonances together. During one life in the Spirit seminar, the leader described it as if you were talking to baby Jesus. You know how when we talk to babies, we always say things like goo goo gaa gaa. This is how you can practice trying to talk in the Spirit. It is not easy, as you have to surrender your voice to the Lord. Also, you have to be ok looking silly while you do it.If you decide to give this a try at home, I want to encourage you to keep trying it even if you feel silly. You don’t have to do it all day every day, just a few minutes each day. Go somewhere private and practice saying nonsense words, or tal

Why Self-Control Is So Important! 1 Corinthians 9:25-27 “Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we, an imperishable one. Thus, I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.”Yesterday I was talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and I mentioned the book set my mom bought me. I grabbed one of the books to get the list of gifts from it, and later, I noticed I happened to grab the Self-Control book. I don’t think that was an accident, as that is the one I probably see the least in my life. I opened it up and started reading it and found this really amazing story of self-control in it. I would like to relay that story to you before I talk about the verse above, although they are all connected. The author Robert Strand wrote the devotion series on the Nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit. I found this story in the Self-Control book. However, it is originally from Rober Schuller’s book Move Ahead with Possibility Thinking. It is about a polio victim who required an iron lung to breathe and learned how to breathe without it, even though every muscle below his Adam's apple is paralyzed. Karl Dewayne Sudekum, through discipline, has learned how to breathe like a frog. Here's the story. In 1953, while Carl was a lieutenant in the US Navy, he contracted polio. For six years, he could breathe only in an iron lung or on a tilt bed. Then he got mad — really angry. He decided he would breathe. He stopped the rocking motion of his bed and remembered how he used to breathe like a frog as a young boy in Nashville, Tennessee. It was a trick almost all kids knew. He would take air with his tongue and force it down his windpipe. When he exhaled, his lungs let out the air like a deflating balloon. He's been breathing this way ever since. "Science doesn't really know how it's done,” he said. "It's a two-cycle pumping action that some people can do and some people can't. Some people can whistle through their teeth, but I never could. It's like that." He could stay away from the iron lung as long as he remained awake. With his first real independence, Sudeckum decided to become an attorney. In 1959 he entered the University of San Diego. His wife, Emerald, drove him to school and wheeled him into class. He couldn't take notes, and a tape recorder was too awkward. He simply listened and remembered. Then he was told he had diabetes. That under control, the doctors discovered an ulcer. For a year, he lived with a mysterious high fever, a reaction to medication. Still, he got his diploma and passed the bar exam.He is practicing now and signs documents, K. D. Sudeckum. It is too much of a task to write his full name with a pen in his teeth. When he talks too long in court, his face gets very red, but it's nothing to worry about. A cold is something else. It could be fatal. So what does he do? "I don't get colds." If he falls asleep or faints while out on his own, frog breathing, he will die unless someone who knows his condition administers artificial respiration. What does he do about that? "I try to think about it as little as possible.”Wow, there are no words to describe this man’s self-control. It makes my day seem not so bad anymore. My challenges with self-control seem so small compared to his. Yet, I still have them, and they are challenging for me. I am sure your challenges with self-control are hard for you as well. We need not compare ourselves to each other. That is not why I told you this story. I told you this story so you could see what is possible for our self-control. If he can do it, we can do it. We just have to figure out what our motivation is. His started out as anger. I am not sure if that remained the whole time or if it switched. It doesn’t matter too much. However, it is clear that something was motivating him. This is where I think this verse can be helpful. It can be our motivation if we let it. I remember the first time this verse had a profound impact on me. Father Mike was talking about it on the Bible in a year podcast, and He was talking about the self-discipline the athletes must have to win an Olympic medal, or for that matter, even to be able to compete in the Olympics. It is an unbelievably hard training schedule. They have to exercise, practice, and watch what they eat and what they drink. It is a lot, and yet they do it because they love it, hopefully, and also because they want to win the medal. The medal that they win is a big deal. It is something to be honored and something that not many people can say they have done. The odds of winning a gold medal at the Olympics is 1 in 662,000. Yet they train, and they work hard for it. The race that we are all running, whether we know it or not, is the one for our salvation. The stakes are so much higher, and yet our efforts are so much lower. This is not the exact wording of

You Have Authority!Romans 12:2 “ Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”Last night I attended the Encounter School of Ministries Summer Intensive at the Boston Campus. If you have never attended an event from Encounter Ministries, I highly recommend checking them out. They are amazing and filled with the Holy Spirit! The summer Intensive is an overview of the curriculum for the first year. There are four quarters in a year of the Encounter School, and there are 8 weeks in each quarter. First, it starts with a quarter on Identity because you need to understand who you are in the Kingdom of God and why you have the authority that you have. The next quarter is on the prophetic word and hearing God’s voice. In the third quarter, you learn how to be God’s instrument for physical healings. In the fourth quarter, you learn all about inner healing and how to lead people to freedom.The summer intensive is four nights, and it provides an overview of each quarter over those four nights. Last night, we were learning about identity. Who are we in the Kingdom of God? What authority do we have here on earth, and where did we get that authority? Everything we have and everything we are is a gift from God. God gave us life. He formed us, and He brought us into this world. He sent His only Son to die on a cross so that we might be free from our sins and our sinful nature.What I would like to discuss with you today is how we use that authority, and I would like to review some scripture verses that demonstrate our call to a renewal of the mind. Let’s look at today’s scripture verse. “ Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” This verse shows us that we need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. What does that mean, though? How do we renew our minds?God is the only one who can help us have a renewal of mind. God wanted to bring His kingdom down to earth, and he wants to do that through us. He doesn’t want us to sit by and watch as He does everything. He also doesn’t want us to just pray for the things we want and not do anything about them. Praying is great, and we should all be praying. And also, there are times when we can ask the Lord to allow us to be His instruments here on earth. Wouldn’t it be awesome if, instead of asking God to heal someone, you prayed for their healing and he did it through you? Did you know that Jesus gave us the authority to do things like that?If we look at John 14:12, it says, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. Jesus went to be with the Father, and when He did, He asked the Father to send us the Holy Spirit to live inside of us. If you are baptized, then you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you. This means you can do the works that Jesus did and even greater works. Jesus did not perform all his miracles using his divine powers. He performed all those miracles using the power of the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit that you have living inside of you.If you don’t believe someone could do greater works than Jesus did look at Acts 5:12-15. It says, “Now many signs and wonders were done among the people through the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. None of the rest dared to join them, but the people held them in high esteem. Yet more than ever believers were added to the Lord, great numbers of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by.” There is no record in the Bible of people being healed by Jesus’s shadow and yet they were healed when Peter’s shadow fell upon them. In Acts 19:11-12, “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them.”God wants to use you too! He wants us to help him bring heaven to earth. During the talk at Encounter they talked about how when Jesus did the miracle of feeding the multitudes, He didn’t pray over the bread and fish and suddenly there was this giant mound of bread and fish. The multiplication happened over and over again once the apostles started handing the food out. Jesus wanted them to partake in the miracle as well. When it says in the Bible that those who believe will do even greater works than He did, it is not just talking about the apostles. It would be easier for us if He was because then it would take the responsibility off of us. However, He is sending us all out to help bring heaven to earth. In Matthew 10:1 it says, “Then Jesus summoned hi

Today for Witness Wednesday, I am going to share with you what some of the people in my prayer group shared last week about how God is working in their lives. Each week, we save 10 minutes at the end to share how God is working in our lives. Some weeks we don’t have too many people sharing, but last week we had quite a few. I wanted to share them with you because they are all different. Some are big and some are small, and yet all show that God knows us, loves us, and knows what we need. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.First up is Anna. God has gently, in the past couple of weeks, shown me a great character flaw that I didn't know I had, but I've had it all my life. But he's so gentle with me, I'm amazed. And of course, I felt really bad. I brought it to him because I knew I couldn't fix it. And I felt badly about it for a couple of weeks. And then the priest, the other day at morning mass, in his sermon, said, Don't focus on the negative, heaven knows we know how to do that. So the Lord lifted my spirit. And now I'm still trying to let it go. But anyway, he's so good. And he's so gentle with me. I hope he's as gentle with the rest of you, too.Next, we have Mark. This was his first time at our meeting. I'd like to share something that happened a couple of weeks ago, if you don't mind. It's brief. I suffer from something called atrial fibrillation. It's a heart arrhythmia, and I go in and out of it sometimes. And they usually have to do something called a cardioversion, which is a procedure where they shock your heart. I went into it about two weeks ago, and I went into the hospital in the emergency room, and I got admitted. And I did the normal things that I’ve done every other time this has happened. The only thing I did differently was that the priest came and visited me in the morning, anointed me, and brought me communion. And I prayed the rosary and asked God to take me out of it. And the next day, my heart went back to a normal rhythm. On its own, without medical intervention. I've had this happen. I'm 52. This has happened three other times in my life. Every single time it's required medical intervention to fix except this time. And the only thing I did differently was pray and ask for God to help. Praise God. Thank you, Jesus.Next is Nancy. I have a witness. One of the parishioners in our collaborative has leukemia. The good kind, the doctors say, but it still takes a toll. And it is still leukemia. So anyway, he and his wife were on a vacation touring Ireland, and they went to Our Lady of Knox. And they just happened to walk into the meditation chapel. And there was a little teaching by one of the sisters there. And he said that he and his wife were sitting there. And for five seconds, he says, for five seconds, I don't know where I was. It was like, just totally black, everything. I was just nowhere. I was somewhere but nowhere. And then when he came out, he said to his wife, I can't believe how good I feel. I feel 20 years younger. He touched his lymph nodes in his throat. And he said, I can't believe it. These lymph nodes that are swollen with this particular type of leukemia are not swollen. And he touched another part that’s usually swollen and it wasnt’. And he knows these parts because the doctor is always touching them. And he goes, My spleen isn't as big as it usually is, either.So anyway, he claimed that healing from the Lord, he came home, he went to his doctor, and his doctor said, I can't believe it. Your lymph nodes aren't swollen, your spleen is down, and your blood count is good. I'd say you're in remission. He says, Well, let me tell you about this experience. And he told the doctor what happened. The doctor said, No, no, no, that can't be. However, this is very unusual; enjoy your remission. And we'll keep watching you. Anyway, He is claiming it as a gift from the Lord. We claim with him. We thank with God. Thank you, Lord.Next up is Agnes. I’ve probably shared this before, but it just, well, I just brought it to my mind when somebody said, Bring me all your broken, even your broken toys, you know, everything broken, bring to me. Well, my son, when he was in his early teens, I mean, maybe 12. He had a 10-speed bike, and he couldn't get it to work right, I guess. I don't know anything about that. So he came into me crying. Not really crying at that point. But he said, You know, I don't have a father to help me. You've got to help me. His father died when he was five.I said, You do have a father, you have a Holy Father. And he loves you very much. And he'll help you. And he said, How? And I said, Well, we'll just pray. Go out there and pray. And the Holy Father is your father, and he's going to help you. So he went out there, and I said, Oh, my God, what have I done? So I sat down and I prayed at the kitchen table. And I said, God, I trust in you. And I know that you are his father, and that you will help him.And I prayed for a while. And then I just kind of went about whatev

Is God Your First Choice or Last Resort?Matthew 8:23-27 “And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. A wind storm arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves, but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. They were amazed, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?”This is an interesting story. Jesus was in the boat with all of his disciples, and there was a windstorm. The boat was being swamped by waves, and everyone on it was afraid. Everyone except Jesus was asleep. When I hear this story, I wonder why Jesus was asleep. I mean, I am sure He was tired as He was teaching so much. Everywhere He went, He was swarmed by people who wanted to hear Him teach and wanted Him to heal themselves and their loved ones. I guess it makes sense that He would be asleep. I guess I am more wondering how He could sleep through all the craziness of the storm. I am sure it was probably loud on the boat with the disciples doing all they could to save the boat. As I wrote that, I felt as though the Holy Spirit said, “And there in lies the problem.” I was questioning when I first read this verse why Jesus said, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” I didn’t understand why Jesus would have said they had little faith. And then, when I just said, the disciples were doing all they could to save the boat it hit me. They were relying on themselves to fix their problem. They weren’t praying to God and asking Him to help them get out of the situation. And actually, in their case, it wouldn’t even be just praying to God. They had God right there on the boat with them. They could have, at the first sign of trouble, asked Jesus to fix the situation. Why didn’t they?This is something we all know a lot about. We do this all the time. Or, at least I know I and many people I know do. We know we have a problem, and instead of turning to the one solution guaranteed to fix it, we try a million solutions on our own. We try to rely on ourselves to get ourselves out of the situation. This is a message that God has been trying to get me to see for a long time now. I have had my fair share of storms over the years. I have prayed about these storms, and I have asked God to help, but I didn’t turn to Him to fix the situation as soon as the storm came. First, I read a million books on the subject matter, I asked everyone who knew anything about anything what they thought I should do, and I came up with plan after plan to fix the situation on my own. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Have you ever had a storm in your life and instead of turning to God, you tried to solve it or fix it on your own? I know I can’t be the only one who has ever done this. This is probably what the disciples were doing on that boat. They were probably looking to the fisherman they had with them, or anyone else who knew anything about boats. They were probably all putting their heads together to come up with a plan to save the boat. They were relying on their own knowledge and their own abilities. Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” I wasn’t there, and I am only guessing, but I don’t think that they would have thought what they were doing was a demonstration of little faith. They could have had the best intentions. Maybe they didn’t go to Jesus first because they knew He was tired and they didn’t want to bother Him. I get that. Jesus worked hard, and I can see wanting to let Him rest and not bother Him unless you had to. It makes sense in our minds. Maybe this is why God tells us not to rely on our own understanding. As I write this, I am gaining a new understanding, which I assume is coming from the Holy Spirit. Even though we may not go to God first because we have good intentions, it still shows Him a lack of faith. Maybe not a lack of faith that we don’t think He can help us, but a lack of faith that He would want to help us. Perhaps a lack of faith that we are important enough for Him to help. Also, it shows that we think God can’t do all things at the same time. Our actions are telling God that we think He is too busy to help us. I was at a conference once, and there was a priest speaking at the conference who was assigned to a college or university. He mentioned he always said a rosary at the football games, praying that his team would win. He said they captured a photo of him one week, saying the rosary, and he got a lot of negative comments from people who saw the photo. They said comments like, “a Catholic priest spending time praying about a football game when there are people dying of cancer.” I remember he told us that they were upset that he was wasting God’s time over a silly football game when there were bigger, more important things t

Am I Just Being Honest or Ungrateful?Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”I was working on my mentoring notes for this week. This month, I am answering commonly asked questions about finding joy in the struggle. One of the questions I am answering this week is “How do I know if I'm being ungrateful or just honest about my pain?” As I was working on it, I thought it might be something that we are all asking ourselves. I know when I talk to people who are struggling, I often hear them say, “I know others have it so much worse.” I think we need to stop saying this. I know it is true, and yet when we say it, we are minimizing our pain.Our God is a big God. Our struggles don’t take away from anyone else’s struggles, and I think we all know that. The people we feel comfortable enough opening up to are not thinking that we don’t care about others’ struggles. They know us. They know we are thinking and praying for others. It is ok to ask for prayers for ourselves, too. It is ok to vent about our struggle, too.I have also heard people say that they shouldn’t complain because they have so much to be grateful for. They should be more grateful for what they have and less upset about their struggle. I understand the sentiment behind this thought, and yet I feel that if we don’t express how we truly feel and we just keep stuffing down the feelings we are actually having, then we will explode someday. Also, God can handle our real feelings.I don’t know who we think we are fooling, but God knows EVERYTHING. He knows your heart, He knows what you are feeling, probably better than you do. So, just be honest and allow yourself to feel all the feelings without judging yourself. You will be able to move through your feelings quickly if you don’t judge yourself and allow yourself to feel them all.While researching the answer to this question I found 4 ways that we can discern the difference between being ungrateful or just honest about your pain1. Honesty and Lament Are Not Ingratitude- Scripture is full of faithful people who loved and trusted God deeply—and who also expressed deep sorrow, frustration, and even anger. That’s called lament, and it’s not only permitted in the Bible—it’s modeled.Examples:David in the Psalms weeps, questions, and complains—even while declaring his trust in God.Job curses the day he was born and demands answers—but God says Job spoke rightly.Jeremiah (the "weeping prophet") says things like “You have deceived me, Lord” (Jer. 20:7), and yet he was one of God’s most faithful voices.So if you're saying things like:“God, this hurts.”“I don’t understand.”“Why aren’t You helping?”“I feel alone.”You are not being ungrateful—you are lamenting. And lament is a sacred form of prayer, because it keeps you talking to God rather than shutting Him out.God would rather hear your honest cries than your fake praise. 2. Honesty says, “This hurts.” Ingratitude says, “God isn’t good.”The difference is in your posture and direction.Honesty keeps the conversation with God open, even if it’s messy. It still clings to some sliver of trust: “I’m hurting, but I know You’re still there.”Ingratitude, on the other hand, closes itself off. It often sounds more like accusation or bitterness rooted in resentment: “God doesn’t care. He never shows up for me. Why should I trust Him?”Think of it this way:Honesty invites God into your pain.Ingratitude pushes Him out because of your pain.It’s okay if you’re frustrated, angry, or exhausted—but how you bring that to God makes all the difference.You can be disappointed with God and still devoted to Him. 3. Gratitude and Grief Can CoexistGratitude doesn’t mean pretending everything is okay. It means looking for God’s presence or goodness even when nothing is okay.You can say:“I’m so tired… but thank You for still being near.”“This hurts more than I can express… but I’m grateful I’m not alone.”“I feel lost… but I’m thankful for this one moment of peace today.”Even the tiniest glimmer of thanks—a sunset, a song, a deep breath—can anchor you in joy while you’re still grieving.In hard times, gratitude isn’t a feeling—it’s a habit of noticing the small ways God hasn’t left you.Grief says: “This is painful.” Gratitude says: “And still, God is here.” 4. God Doesn’t Want Perfection—He Wants Your HeartWe often feel like we need to clean ourselves up before coming to God. But that’s not how He works. Over and over, the Bible shows us:God meets people right in their mess, questions, and brokenness.David ran to God with his tears.Elijah sat under a tree and asked to die—but God met him with rest and nourishment.Jesus wept at Lazarus’s tomb—even though He knew resurrection was coming.God never says, “Come back when you’re grateful.” He says, “Come to Me, weary one. I’ll carry this with you.” (Matt. 11:28) We tend to forget this scripture. We tend to want to fix ourselves before coming to God. This is crazy talk. It’s like trying to

Bless The Lord, O My SoulPsalm 103:1-5 “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits—who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”Yesterday I couldn’t get a song out of my head. It is such a good song. I wanted to share that song with you this morning. The song is called “10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord).” It was written by Matt Redman and Jonas Myrin and is based upon Psalms 103:1-5. It explores how we can never run out of reasons to worship and praise God. On Monday of this week, Episode #1036, we talked about how vital praise and worship are to our faith journey. This song and this Psalm remind us that there are so many reasons we can be grateful to the Lord.Let’s first look at these verses. They begin with “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.” This is exactly what we talked about on Monday. Praising the Lord is so important. Even when we are in a really difficult season of life, there are many reasons we can be grateful to the Lord and we can praise Him.In the verse, it says, “who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Those are some pretty amazing things to thank God for. You might not have experienced all of them, but I bet you have experienced some of them. Have you felt God’s steadfast mercy and love in your life? Have you experienced His forgiveness? Some of you have even experienced his healing touch. I know some of you have been redeemed from a pit as well. I love the line that says your youth is renewed like the eagles. We could all use our youth to be renewed.Can you see all the amazing things God has done and will do for us? Can you see how there are endless possibilities when it comes to praising the Lord? The song for today also talks about praising the Lord. I invite you to listen to the song sometime today. You can look it up on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Music, wherever you usually listen to music. The reason I would like you to listen to the actual song, instead of just this podcast, is that it is really good. Here are the words to the song.[Chorus]Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soulWorship His holy nameSing like never before, O my soulI'll worship Your holy nameAs you can see this chorus comes almost directly from the Psalm. I love it when artist do this. I love when they use the Bible verses in the songs. It helps get the Lord’s word out to more people.Next is Verse 1: The sun comes up, it's a new day dawningIt's time to sing Your song againWhatever may pass and whatever lies before meLet me be singing when the evening comesThis is something we can always be grateful for: that we got to wake up to a brand new day of life. I love how this verse says, whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes. Wouldn’t it be great if we could be singing to the Lord at the end of the day, no matter what happens to us throughout the day? How great would it be if we got so used to praising the Lord that we could praise Him no matter the circumstances?Verse 2:You're rich in love and You're slow to angerYour name is great and Your heart is kindFor all Your goodness, I will keep on singingTen thousand reasons for my heart to findWe tend to have a perception of God that he is angry at us all the time. We look at some parts of the Old Testament, and we think God is full of Vengeance and Wrath. This is not what He is constantly telling our prayer group. He always tells us how much He loves us. God is rich in love and slow to anger. Does he get angry? Probably, we all do. However, He loves us so much more than his anger. I love how the verse says, “For all your goodness, I will keep on singing ten thousand reasons for my heart to find. If you are looking, there are always reasons to be thankful to God. Even in your most difficult season there are things you can praise the Lord for, you just have to look for them. Or, as I mentioned on Monday, you can put on praise and worship music and let the artists praise the Lord for you![Verse 3]And on that day when my strength is failingThe end draws near and my time has comeStill, my soul will sing Your praise unendingTen thousand years and then forevermoreForevermoreIt is beautiful to think about praising the Lord when our time on this earth is ending. When we can feel our strength failing. How great would it be to get to the end of our lives and still want to sing the Lord’s praises. I like how it says ten thousand years and then forever more. Once we are in heaven, all will make sense. We will understand all the t

Where You Are From Doesn't Dictate Where You Can GoJohn 7:40-41 “ When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, “This is really the prophet.” Others said, “This is the Messiah.” But some asked, “Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee, does he?”When I was looking for a scripture verse today, I opened my Bible and just started reading. I was reading about how Jesus was telling people if they were thirsty, they could come to Him. He was talking about living waters flowing from the hearts of those who believed in Him. Then I read these two verses. “ When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, 'This is really the prophet.” Others said, “This is the Messiah.” But some asked, “Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee, does he?” As soon as I read that last line, I felt like the Holy Spirit stopped me and said, “That right there, that is what you need to talk about today.”Have you been feeling called to do something and yet not feeling qualified to do it? Did you know Jesus couldn’t perform any miracles in his hometown? Not because He didn’t have the ability, but because no one would believe that Jesus, the little boy that grew up in their town, could be the Messiah. The town Jesus grew up in wasn’t special, and Jesus was just a carpenter’s kid. He wasn’t special. There is no way that the Savior of the world could be born in Bethlehem or grow up in Nazareth, a small village in the region of Galilee.What I feel the Holy Spirit putting on my heart is that some of you are letting other people’s opinions of you hold you back or keep you down. You know you are made for great things, and yet you are allowing the voices of others to get in your head. You are allowing your family to decide who you are. Your family has always seen you one way, and no matter how much you change, they can’t change how they see you, so you stay stuck. The same can be true with your friends or with your work. They know you as one person, and no matter how much you have changed, they still see you as that person.I remember I was doing this to my friend Kath. Not intentionally, but when I knew her, she was Kathleen. Then at some point, she started going by Kath. I knew her as Kathleen, so I called her Kathleen for the longest time. I am not sure if someone said something to me, or if I just came to my senses, but I realized that if she wanted to be Kath now, I should call her Kath. I know this may be a silly example, but it is to demonstrate how we might not be letting those we know change in ways that they want to. Look at those around you. Are you allowing them to change and grow, or are you treating them the same way you did 20 years ago or 10 years ago?Jesus fulfilled so many prophecies. Jesus did all the signs and wonders. People knew just by hearing Him talk that He was the Messiah. Everyone knew there was something different about Jesus. Yet, even with all that evidence, some people couldn’t get past the fact of where He grew up. This might happen to you. You might be doing all the things Jesus is asking you to do. You might be giving all the talks or praying over all the people and yet some people might not be able to get past the fact that you are just so and so’s son or daughter. They might not be able to get over the fact that you did not come from some spectacular place or that your family wasn’t super religious when you were growing up.We live in a world that tends to judge us by arbitrary standards. They want you to have these credentials, or this upbringing, or their socioeconomic class or background. People don’t want to listen to you unless you have a doctorate in whatever it is you are talking about. However, if you are called by the Lord to teach on something, then He will give you all the knowledge you need on that subject. When my mind starts to tell me that I am not qualified, which it definitely tries to do, I look to the Saints. When I am telling myself that I need a theology degree to talk about the Bible, I am reminded of St. Catherine of Sienna, who is a doctor of the Catholic Church, and yet she could not read and write for most of her life. She had no formal education, at least not past grade school.She spent time with the Lord, and He told her everything she needed to know. St. Terese of Lisieux is the patron saint of missionaries, even though she was too sickly to ever go on a mission trip. Don’t let those negative voices in your head try to convince you that you are a nobody, so God couldn’t possibly use you. Don’t listen when those around you tell you that you are not special enough to have a calling from God. Imagine how different life would be for us if Jesus had given up when those in his hometown didn’t believe in Him. Imagine if he had listened to all those who said nothing good comes from Nazareth.Where you are from does not dictate where you can go. There are endless possibilities as to where you can go and what you can do. Just follow the Lord, and He will take you wherever you w

Today I will be doing the witness. I have been thinking a lot about how God is working in my life and the life of my family. I often tell people to be specific about what they want. I think the more we know what we want the more likely we are to achieve it. The more specific we are with our prayers, the more likely we are to recognize and give God the glory when our prayers are answered. If we pray that things get better, how will we know when that prayer has been answered? It might get better in some ways and not in others and so we might be constantly waiting for God to answer that prayer. However, if we ask for something specific, like please help my son get a job. Then you know exactly when God has answered that prayer and you can give God all the glory.In 2021 I decided to come up with a specific prayer for our family. This way, I would know when the prayers had been answered. A thought just popped into my head so I want to clarify something. I do not think that we need to direct God or tell Him what to do or how to solve our problems. Being specific in our prayers is not about that. God is free to answer our prayers in any way He sees fit as He knows best. The idea of being specific with our prayers is that we can be more intentional with noticing when prayers are answered and therefore more intentional with our praise and giving God all the glory. I hope that makes sense.I decided to go back and look at the specific family prayers I had written in the past few years. I will not read them all to you because some of the stuff may be a bit personal for the boys. However, will share with you the parts that have been answered. First, we can look at a prayer I wrote in 2021. I asked the Lord that each of our boys do well in school that year, as they haven’t always in the past, and they did! We were asking for the Lord to line up next steps for Sam for when he came home from Cushing house. We weren’t sure what he needed or how we could set him up for success so we didn’t ask for anything specific but we did ask for God to open a door for Sam. Before he even left Cushing House he had a job interview with Target and he started the next week after he moved back home.For Noah, we asked that he get out of the house more and experience more of the good things that High School has to offer. Noah ended up getting a job that he really liked and started hanging out with a good group of friends. Mostly, they would play online, but there were a few from our town, and so they would get together and do things, especially after they got their licenses.For Ryan, we asked that he be able to transition out of the Lighthouse school, as that was something he had expressed interest in. However, it wasn’t really that motivated to go back in 2021. In 2024, Ryan transitioned out of the Lighthouse School and back into the Groton Dunstable Regional School District. He will finish his last two years of school in our home district. He is very happy to be at that school. It is a lot bigger and was a bit overwhelming at first, but he has settled in and I think he really likes it.We asked for the Lord to give our kids more confidence to venture out and try new things. Noah ended up applying to colleges that were abroad and is currently attending Napier Edinburgh University in Scotland. I am sure that took a lot of confidence not only to apply there but to move to another country for college. Ryan started boxing, which he had no previous experience in, and also got a job at Chick-fil-A. Sam is constantly filling in for people in different areas of Target, even if he was not trained in that area. He does what he is asked to do, even if it is new to him. Sam also started a new day program even though he was nervous and didn’t know what to expect. I would say we can give God the glory for answering their prayer of giving the kids more confidence.For Tony and me, we prayed that God would help us to become the parents he created us to be and that our relationship with the boys would grow with love and respect. I believe God is in the process of answering this one. I don’t think we will ever arrive at being perfect parents. I believe we will continue to grow and get better at it our whole lives. I believe God is helping us figure it out in this season. We have learned to lean into one another, instead of away from one another. We have learned to pray together when we aren’t sure what to do. We have learned to communicate more respectfully with each other and with the boys. My relationship with the boys has definitely grown in love and respect. We communicate much better now and we seem to have much more of a mutual respect than we did before. I make sure to give the boys, at least the ones who are at home, a hug before they go to bed at night. If they are not home, I make sure to send them a text message letting them know that I love them.Last summer, August 2024, I decided to write a new prayer when I looked back and saw that most of our praye

Jesus Set Us FreeIsaiah 61:1-3 “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.”While searching for verses on joy, I came across Isaiah 61:3. However, upon reading it, I could tell it was missing context. When I started with verse 1, I knew we all needed to hear all three of these verses. Let’s start at the beginning. The prophet Isaiah is prophetically speaking for the Messiah, and the Messiah is letting the people know that he is blessed and empowered by the Spirit of the Lord God. I looked up these verses on enduringword.com's commentary page. I am so glad I did because it gives such a deeper understanding of this verse. I didn't know this was talking about Jesus.Reading this verse on its own, I did not remember that this was the verse Jesus read in Luke 4. In Luke 4:16-22, Jesus spoke in the synagogue of Nazareth, His hometown. He opened up the scroll to Isaiah 61 – perhaps an assigned reading, perhaps chosen by Him – and read from the beginning of the chapter through the first line of verse 2. When He sat down, He simply said Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Jesus is the person described in Isaiah 61:1-3, and He is the one the Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon.The commentary goes on to say that “as Christians under the New Covenant, we also have an anointing: But you have an anointing from the Holy One (1 John 2:20). In the New Testament sense, anointing has the idea of being filled with, and blessed by, the Holy Spirit. This is something that is the common property of all Christians, but something we can and should become more submitted and responsive to.” This is reminding us that we all have the Holy Spirit living inside of us. This means we are all anointed and we have an anointing on our lives. How many of us know this? How many of us are attentive to the Holy Spirit living inside of us? Are you listening to it? Are we responding to it? Are we letting it lead us in our everyday lives?We do not all have the same anointing on our lives. We are all called to do different things. We are all blessed with different talents and different personalities, and God uses us accordingly. However, He sometimes also uses us for things that don’t align with our talents or personalities. Like when He asked Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, even though Moses wasn’t good at public speaking. If God is calling you to do something, he will equip you with all you need to do it.The next part of these verse is showing us the ministry or mission of the Messiah. Jesus came to:To preach good tidings to the poor. Jesus came to announce that he is hear to heal the damage that sin brings. Sin has done a lot of damage over the many years since Adam and Eve, and so there needs to be a great work of redemption.He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted because sin breaks hearts, when he redeems us he will heal the brokenhearted.To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound. Jesus sets us free from the captivity that we find ourselves in when we sin. Jesus takes that sin to the cross with Him. Freeing us from the chains of the evil one. I had at first written forever freeing us, but then I thought about it. Jesus definitely defeated evil once and for all; however, it may still be a daily battle for us. We still need to choose to live in that freedom. The devil is really good at convincing us not to live in that freedom. He convinces us that we don’t deserve that freedom, and when we let the enemy convince us that we don’t deserve this freedom, then we live in captivity. We live in the prison that Jesus died on the cross to save us from.To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, And the day of vengeance of our God. This part I will read right from the commentary as I am learning right along side you. It says, “Significantly, Jesus stopped reading before this sentence. He stopped in the middle of the prophecy, because to proclaim…the day of vengeance of our God is relevant to His Second Coming, not to His first coming. The comma in year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance has stood for almost 2,000 years. This shows us something of the nature of Biblical prophecy: it may “shift gears” and time frames quickly and without warning.ii. We can compare a whole year of grace to a single day of vengeance.”One thing I do want to point out is that this is a Jubilee Year. It talks about how Jesus came to proclai

Rejoice in the Lord Always!Philippians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”Rejoicing in the Lord is one of my favorite things to do. Praise and Worship are so critical in our faith journey. This month in mentoring, we're discussing finding joy in the struggle. Rejoicing in the Lord is a great way to foster joy. This is something that I love to use to get me out of a funk or a sad place. This works anywhere and everywhere that you are. It is best if you can listen to music because if you are in a sad, angry, or depressed state, you might have trouble worshiping. You might not be in a place where you feel you have anything positive to say to the Lord, or about the Lord. However, when a song that you love comes on the radio, it is hard not to sing along and get into that song. Or, at least, it is not hard for me, as I love music.I love singing along as loudly as I can in my car and in my shower. I listen to Christian music, which, honestly, I didn’t even know existed until 5 years ago. Well, I knew we sang Christian songs in church, but I didn’t know they had contemporary Christian music, pop songs, rap songs, and rock songs, among various other genres. I am so in love with all of it. I love upbeat songs. It’s like my body wants to dance along to the beat, even when I am out walking or running.If you don’t know what I am talking about right now, I invite you to download the KLOVE app on your phone. It is the radio station I listen to all the time now, and it has so many good songs. You might be hesitant at first, but give it 30 days and you will know all the words and love all the songs. You can also go onto the Spotify app on your phone, and I have created a playlist called Walk Boldly With Jesus Favorites, and it has all my favorite upbeat songs. Actually, there may be a few slower songs, but they are all good songs!If you are having a really hard day, put on a playlist of upbeat songs that sing of the glory of God. I am telling you, it is really hard to be sad and to think that God has abandoned you when you hear all these singers reminding you of how great God is and how He has been there for them in their hard times. A real-life example of how powerful music can be is the other day when I was at the courthouse. I had to go there to do something really hard, and I was really sad. I remembered that I had my earbuds in my purse, so I put them in my ears and put on some worship music. I was sitting there feeling sad, and then one of my new favorite songs came on. The song is called My Promised Land and it is sung by Josiah Queen. Here is the beginning verse and chorus:You had me standing on a mountainWalking through barren landsYou took my hand and You saidYou can have this worldBut I won't go with youOh, I won't go with you [Pre-Chorus]But I ran out of placesAnd feelings I was chasingAll I have is You and You aloneAnd I said [Chorus]Hold on, wait a minuteI don't want what You ain't in, andI don't wanna go unless I'm going there with You It's You there, rain or shiningYou're the sun on my horizonsYou are my everythingMy promised land is You! And I know I am probably crying while I am saying it, but the music is so upbeat and I love it! Whenever I hear these songs, it reminds me that God is my everything. If He is not in it, then I don’t want it. It reminds me that He is there with me, rain or shine. I like to play my playlist on shuffle, and I like to believe the Holy Spirit is closing the order of my songs. I am sure the Lord knew I needed this song the other day at the courthouse. I honestly considered going outside of the courthouse and dancing my sadness out. However, I didn’t want to miss my name when they called it, so I just sang in a whisper voice and imagined myself dancing it out.I can't emphasize enough how critical praise and worship can be in changing your mood and lifting you out of a pit. The enemy gets so confused when we praise the Lord when we are struggling. They don’t understand why we would praise God when we are hurting, sad, or angry. Also, the enemy can’t stand the name of Jesus. All you have to do is say the name Jesus, and the enemy flees. I heard a speaker once who asked his friend, who is a Catholic priest and exorcist, what the most powerful prayer is when it comes to fighting the evil spirits and demons, and he said the most powerful thing we can say is, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” That is pretty simple and yet powerful.If music is not your thing, that is ok, you can still praise the Lord. When I joined the Charismatic Prayer Group, they taught me to praise the Lord out loud by using various names for the Lord. For instance, you can say, “You are Lord of Lords and King of Kings. You are a miracle worker and a way maker. You are the prince of peace and the lion of Judah.” The prayer group gave everyone a piece of paper filled with praise phrases to help us out until we got comfortable coming up with our own. There is no rig

Can Your Faith Heal You?Mark 10:52 “And Jesus said to him, 'Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.”How many of us have the faith of this man that Jesus healed? He was sitting on the side of the road, and when he heard Jesus was passing by, he called out to him. The crowd of people told him to be silent, but he kept calling out. How many of us listen when others tell us to be silent? Or worse yet, we don’t feel like we are worthy to speak up in the first place, or we are too nervous to speak out and ask for help for fear of rejection. Bartimaeus did not listen when others told him to be quiet. He kept calling out. He believed that Jesus could heal him, and he was not going to let the chance pass him by. Once Jesus heard him calling out, Jesus told him to call him over. When the crowd told him that Jesus would see him, the bible says, “He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.” How great is that? How many of us are jumping up at Jesus’ call? I know it’s different. Jesus was right there, and he got to see him and talk to him. But we can also talk to Jesus anytime we want to. Even though we cannot see him, he is calling us to him. He wants to invite us into a deeper relationship with him. Do we hear this call? Do we jump up, throw our cloak aside, and run to him when we are called? I love the faith that Bartimaeus had. He knew Jesus could heal him. He did not seem to have any doubt that Jesus could cure his blindness. He also didn’t seem to doubt that Jesus would want to help him or to question whether he was worthy enough. He saw Jesus walking by and called out to him. Do we do this? Jesus is here for us; he wants us to call out and rely on Him. Are we doing that? It seems each week at my Prayer Group, God is showing up for us, and he is telling us to come closer. He keeps telling us to rely on him, that he is our protection and our refuge. Why are we not calling on him more than? When Jesus healed Bartimaeus, He said, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” How great would it be to hear those words from Jesus?One scripture verse that I think is amazing and that I struggle with is Mark 11:22. This verse is Jesus’ reply to the cursed fig tree. Jesus said to them in reply, “Have faith in God. Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him.” This is the type of faith that I strive for, and yet sometimes wonder if it’s possible. I wonder if there are humans who can have this type of faith? I know that God can do anything. I truly believe this. And yet, when I think of myself commanding a mountain to be lifted up and thrown into he see, I can’t seem to wrap my head around that. I have searched for this type up faith for a very long time now. Probably since the first time I actually heard this scripture and let it sink in. The very next verse is Mark 11:23, “Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours.” This again just blows me away. All that you ask for shall be yours if you believe. That seems like a lot of pressure, and at the same time, a huge promise on God’s part. As I said above, ever since hearing scripture like this, I have searched for this type of faith. I would love to believe without a shadow of a doubt that God can do all the things that I ask him to do, that he will answer all of my prayers. I find it a struggle to believe as much as I would like to, and I wonder if this is because I have a human brain and we were trained from an early age not to believe in things that we can’t see or prove. We were mostly taught that there are certain things that can be done and things that can’t be done. I think as humanity grows, we are learning to question that more and more. But it takes time to overcome years of that type of thinking. I thought I would give you one way that I have been able to deepen my trust and faith that God can do all he says he can do. I read books about all the miracles God has done and continues to do. I love to read books about healing. God is so amazing and he is performing miracles every single day, and if we would just be on the lookout for them, we would see them. If we can’t see them in our lives, we can read about them in others’ lives. Harold Hill’s book, “How to Live Like a King’s Kid,” is an excellent example. If you read all the amazing things that God did in his life, you can’t help but start to believe he will do it for you as well. Harold Hill also talks about his faith journey and how he got to a point where he began to see God do amazing things in his life. Also, reading any books on healing, Francis McNutt, Randy Clark, Mary Healy, Matthew & Dennis Linn are just a few that I have read that have been really good. When you read about God’s healing of others and how there are peo

Offer God Your Everyday Ordinary LifeRomans 12:1 “So here is what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life-your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around life- and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him.”When thinking and praying about what to talk about today I look back at scripture verses God has given to my prayer group recently. The first one that I saw was this one. I went to the Bible app on my phone as I did not bring my Bible with me today. It was set for the message translation and when I read this verse I felt the the Lord confirmed this is what He wanted me to talk about.This verse is likely one that you would recognize in another translation, as it is one that I definitely recognized. However, it seems very different in the message translation. In the New American Bible Revised Edition this verse says, “I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as al living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.” Does that sound familiar?I have heard many people do talks about this verse and yet the message translation seems to come at it from a bit of a different point of view and that is what I felt the Lord wanted me to focus on today. I felt God wanted me to focus on the part that says, “Take your everyday, ordinary life- your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life and place it before God as an offering.” What struck me with this is the thought that this is probably harder for many of us than to offer many other sacrifices.Many of you listening are wanting to live your lives walking boldly with Jesus. You are trying to pray every day, you may be saying the rosary often, if not daily, you may be fasting or do something other things as a sacrifice to the Lord. Praying isn’t always easy, but it is familiar to many of us. Scripted prayers, especially if you are Catholic, are easy because you know all the words, you don’t have to think about it, you could say those prayers from mass anywhere. You have them memorized. Sacrificing your time to pray, or to talk about God with others, or even to fast isn’t that difficult because you know how to do it. You feel holier, or closer to the Lord when you are doing these things.However, what about the regular, every day parts of your life? Can you offer those to the Lord as an offering? Can you stop before you begin your day and offer your day up to the Lord? Can you invite Him into your day? I saw a YouTube video about this a few years ago and it has always stuck with me. It was a video with Father Mike Schmitz. I will summarize that video for you now. It was called “3 Steps to Unceasing Prayer,” Father Mike Schmitz. If you google this you can watch the video yourself. It is just over 5 minutes long. In the YouTube video, Father Mike Schmitz lists three steps, he learned from St. Francis DeSales, that you could do to transform everything you do into a prayer.Ask God to be present. Yes, God is always present and attentive to you, but by asking him to be present you are letting him know you will be present too.Offer this moment to God. Offer him all the joy, the suffering, whatever you may be feeling, offer it to God. Accept –Resolve to accept whatever comes out of this momentThis will not only transform how you have a relationship with God, it will transform how you live. This is because when you are asking God to be attentive to you, you are allowing every moment to be a sacrament. You are inviting God into that moment which makes it a channel of Grace. Then, when you offer the moment up to him you make each moment a sacrifice. When you choose to accept the outcome you are making every moment a moment of surrender. For instance you can do this when you are going to bed at night. God, I ask you to be attentive to me and I am attentive to you. I offer this night’s sleep to you as a sacrifice, as a gift to you and I accept whatever comes out of it.God is not just with us when we are praying or when we are at church. He is not just with us when we are calling upon Him or calling out to Him. God is always with us. He really wants us to know that He is in the ordinary mundane parts of our life as well as the glorious parts where we are praying or participating in mass. He want us to know that He is not judging you for not making the time to pray. He is with you in all that you are doing.Yes, He would love for you to spend time sitting down with him one on one and talking together. However, He is also happy when you talk with him while you are driving into work or when you are doing the dishes or the laundry. He is not demanding your full attention. He just wants to be with you in all the ways He can. Can you offer your suffering to God? Can you offer your joy to God? Can you offer it all to God? Why is it so hard for us to believe He is with us in the everyday things we do? Why do we strive so hard to D

Today’s witnesses are from Matthew West’s website, called popwe.org. If you don’t know who Matthew West is, he is a singer, songwriter, and storyteller. This website is for the non-profit that he has with his father, a pastor. Matthew and his father encourage people to share their stories. They have various categories of stories. Today, I chose three testimonies from the Healing Category. Often, we can hear our own story in someone else’s story. When we listen to others tell their story, it helps us see that we are not alone. When we hear how God worked in their situation, it gives us hope that He will work in ours, too! I pray that when you hear these testimonies, you get the faith and hope to believe that miracles can happen in your situation, too. I pray you know that God is there with you, and if you invite Him into your situation, He can help. I hope you enjoy these testimonies.Christine and Darrell Thank you for your prayers for my bestie, June, who had a four-hour brain surgery on Monday in Omaha, NE. She had no side effects. She came home Thursday afternoon. She has 100 stitches in her head and 20 staples. She is almost 80 years old.The doctors were floored by her fast recovery. I’m not! I thank God so much for popwe and all who prayed for her! She told me she cries often with her thanks to God for all He did for her and is in such gratitude for all who prayed for her. She has such appreciation for all who have shown love, caring, and concern for her.I saw her yesterday, and you would never know she had surgery unless you saw the back of her head. God is still in the miracle business. As Matthew says in his song, Don’t Stop Praying, “Mountains move with just a little faith.”We just thank God for giving Juney back to us and for popwe praying!God bless you! My name is Caleb, and I wanted to share my story of healing. In 2017, I had some tests done after I had developed symptoms of lightheadedness, extremely painful headaches and a few other symptoms. One of the tests was a brain scan, where they found an anomaly. My parents and I were kept mostly in the dark with the whole situation. We only found out how serious it was when they rang us and asked for us to send the scans to one of the big hospitals in Sydney, Australia.A few weeks passed with back and forth phone calls and doctors appointments, when we found out what it was. It was a tumor, which the doctors couldn’t work out if it was cancer or an abnormal growth of cells. The doctors said that surgery was an option due to the tumor possibly being cancerous. They declared the date for my operation was the 13th of December, 2017. I was 13 at the time, and scared, as I knew the risks and how quickly things could go wrong. While family, friends, and strangers prayed for me and healing, I couldn’t work out why God was putting me through this.A week or two before the surgery, my mum had a fight with my nan (her mum), after my nan accused her of having no faith or trust in God. Mum did trust in God and had faith, but she was looking at the other possibility of losing me. I remember turning to mum after my nan left and said ” Yes, we must trust in God for healing, but we also must remember to account for the possibility of me not coming out of the surgery”. I know it’s a bit of a grim thought, but I wanted to comfort my mum, just in case.The surgery came and went. I woke up a bit groggy the first day, but by the second, I wanted to get up and run around, go outside and try new things. But the tubes and cables attached to me stopped me. My parents bought me a Lego Technic set to build while I recovered, which was meant to last more than a day, if I rested (which I did not, despite multiple nurses and doctors asking me to). When the day finally came when the results of the tumor came back, we were relieved that it wasn’t cancer. The same day the doctor came for the results, he also checked the stitching on where they operated and was astonished to find it had healed faster than he had ever seen. We were given the all clear to go home a few days later.Later that year, I developed symptoms of migraines and epilepsy, which were confirmed. It was hard with new restrictions on what I was allowed to do. I was banned from getting a license to drive, I was banned from rifle shooting with my Grandfather and wasn’t to be left alone. I became very depressed, I became angry with God and blamed Him for my misfortune. I turned from God. To be honest, I believe that was the worst thing I did. My life became even darker without His light to guide me. Eventually I had thoughts of ending my own life. I went to see a counselor, but it didn’t make a difference.One morning I woke up, in the middle of the first COVID lockdown, extremely depressed and went to attempt to end my life, when something stopped me. It felt like a presence, and like a voice telling me to stop. I felt like I could see again and I realized what I nearly did. I eventually worked through it, opening up more

The Joy of the Lord is Your StrengthNehemiah 8:10 “Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”The theme for mentoring this month is Joy in the suffering. Several bible verses came up while researching this topic. I had already written at least one episode about most of them. However, I had not covered this verse yet. Right before this verse, Ezra the priest and scribe had gathered all the people together so he, along with the Levites and the governor, Nehemiah, could read the law of the Lord. All the people wept when they heard the words of the law. This is where our verse for today picks up. “Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”I decided to go to the Enduring Word Bible Commentary as I wasn’t quite sure what this verse meant. I wasn’t quite sure why the people were crying when they heard the words of the Law. This is what I found on the Enduring Word Bible Commentary page, “All the people wept, when they heard the words of the Law: The word of God was doing its intended work. 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us two things that the word of God is profitable for: reproof and correction. Sometimes it hurts to be reproved and corrected, and these tears were evidence of some of that pain.b. Do not mourn nor weep: Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Levites did not want the people to mourn, even though it is a good thing to be sad under the conviction of the Holy Spirit through the word of God. Yet if the sense of conviction is greater than the sense that God is doing a good and holy work, then tears are not good.Our knowledge of our sin should never be bigger than our knowledge of Jesus as our Savior. We are great sinners, but He is a greater Savior.Therefore, the joy of the Lord is your strength – even when you are being convicted of sin. When we are convicted of sin we know that God is doing a work in us, so we can be glad and take joy.c. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the LORD is your strength: The people felt sad because they were aware of their own sin. But they could walk in joy because God was doing a great work. Our emotions are not beyond our control; we can do God’s will even when we don’t feel like it.They didn’t want the people to be sad because even though they may not have been perfect in carrying out the law, it is ok. God is still with them. Those in charge wanted them to know that it is good to stop everything every now and then and remember the law. It is good to stop and examine your behavior and how you are living, and see if it is in accordance with how God wants you to live. However, if it isn’t, they didn’t want them to be sad and to focus on how much they were messing up. They wanted the people to focus on how great God is and how, no matter how much we mess up, He can still redeem us.The same is true for us. It is important that we examine our behaviors, the way we live our lives, and how we treat others, to see if we are living according to the Lord's will. Are we following His commandments? Are we loving Him above all else? Are we loving our neighbors as we love ourselves? If we aren’t, what should we do? We should bring it to the Lord. We can apologize for getting off course again, and then let Him know how sorry we are, and then we can just try again. God does not expect us to be perfect. He knows we will mess up. He knows we won’t always get it right. He is ok with that as long as we always repent and turn back to Him!Let’s look at the aspect of joy in this verse. This verse said, “For the joy of the Lord is your strength.” How is the joy of the Lord our strength? In this verse we can find joy in the Lord because He always redeems us. I love when it said in the commentary that, “Our knowledge of our sin should never be bigger than our knowledge of Jesus as our Savior. We are great sinners, but He is a greater Savior.” This is such a great reminder that no matter how bad our sin is, our Savior is greater than it. No matter how bad we have messed up, Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross still covers it. We can take joy in the fact that there is nothing we can do that is not covered by Jesus’s sacrifice. It is ok to be sad that we have hurt our relationship with the Lord. It is ok to be sad that we think we might have let God down. However, we can’t stay there. We need to then find the joy that God has given us by sending his son to make up for our sins. God sacrificed His only son so that he could repair the closeness that Adam & Eve lost. This is something we can celebrate. This closeness is something to be joyful over.Another thing I love that the commentary said was, “Do not sorrow, for the joy of the LORD is your strength: The peo

Calm The WatersPsalm 89:9 “You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.”There are several instances in the Bible when the sea was raging and God calmed it. One of the times was when God asked Jonah to go to Ninevah and preach repentance. Jonah did not want to do this and instead of going to Ninevah he went in the opposite direction and got on a boat going elsewhere. While they were at sea the waves began to rise up and a great storm came upon them. They called Jonah to see if he had any ideas as they had all prayed to their gods and nothing had happened. Jonah told them to throw him over the side of the boat into the sea. He explained that God was mad at him because he disobeyed God’s orders. Once they threw Jonah off the boat, the seas calmed, and those that were on the boat offered a sacrifice to God and made vows to him. You can read more about this in the Bible in the book of Jonah.Another time that God calmed the storm is recounted in Matthew 8:23-27. “Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”The third time I was thinking about was when Jesus was walking on water to get to the boat. This can be found in Matthew 14:22-33. “Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”I think each of these instances can teach us a lesson about what we should do when we are in a storm and the waves are rising and we need God to come and quiet them. In the first story, Jonah was trying to avoid doing what God asked him to do. God gave him a direct order, and he didn’t want to do it, so he thought he could run away from the problem. I am not sure if you know the story of Jonah or not, but running away did not solve his problem. In fact, as soon as he was thrown overboard he was swallowed whole by a giant fish and there he stayed until he agreed to go to Ninevah. Has this ever happened to you? No, I don’t mean have you ever been swallowed by a giant fish. I mean have you ever tried to run from your problems, or responsibilities, only to end up in a worse situation than you could have imagined. I am not sure exactly what Jonah was running from. At first I thought he was scared of the people in Ninevah hurting him, as they were terrible people. Then I read that he was running away because he knew they would repent and he didn’t think they deserved forgiveness. Either way, his situation did not improve by avoiding this responsibility. Running from our problems don’t make them go away. Jonah still had to go to Ninevah and preach repentance but he ended up first having to get thrown into the sea and spend a really long time all alone in the belly of a giant fish. Sometimes we are called to do things we don’t want to do. You may feel that you have a completely logical reason for not wanting to do it. Maybe you feel you aren’t qualified for the task or maybe you are afraid, whatever the reason is you don’t want to do it. Running from this task or avoiding it is only prolonging the inevitable. I think what this first story teaches us is that we should just do the task God is asking us to do. We may not think we are capable or qualified to do it but God wouldn’t ask us to do it if he wasn’t going to equip us for the task. If we are doing what the Lord is asking us to do, we can’t fail. He won’t let us.The second story teaches us that we should trust in the Lord. Jesus was on the boat with them. He is the son of God. They could have just asked him to calm the waves and He would have. They could have prayed to

Today’s witness is from a news clip I saw on YouTube. It was a segment that aired on CBN. This witness is about a man who got a diagnosis that seemed like it was a life sentence. The doctors said there was nothing they could do to help this man. The family knew even if the doctors couldn’t do anything, God could. When you listen to this witness I hope you don’t treat it like a nice story. I pray that you hear it and you recognize the power of God working in this story and that you know in your heart that God can do the same in your impossible story story!!When you're going to the doctor and you hear nothing encouraging, that's when your faith is going to have to stand. In November 2020, Gerilyn Baker's husband David started having constant nosebleeds. Doctors removed a polyp from his sinus cavity, but soon after, things got worse.When his face began to swell, his wife thought he had an infection, and she told him they needed to contact the doctor quickly. The results of a CT scan shocked the family. David's brother-in-law, Chuck Denny, was there.They told him he had stage four nasal cavity melanoma. The options they gave him, they said surgery wasn't an option because the facial disfigurement would be too massive. They told us that there was really nothing that they could do.Chemo wasn't for that type that he had. I'd never seen anybody healed of cancer. Every time I heard the word cancer, it was a death sentence.And I felt like unless God moved, David wasn't going to make it. My first thought was that, from my teaching, we need to move into a fast and seek God and see God heal him. David's face rapidly swelled to the point where he couldn't eat or see out of his right eye. Pastor Mark Gilbert remembers the many prayers from multiple church locations and beyond. Both church families were praying for David, and there was a multitude of other people. It wasn't just our churches.David used to be a pastor himself, so there are a lot of people that he knows that was praying for him in different areas of the country, just believing God for the turnaround in his life. Several times a day, we would pray together, and there were times when you felt like you were just lost for words. You felt like you were only repeating yourself because you were worn out.He was worn down from this sickness. His condition just kept getting worse, but the prayers at that point we didn't see much. This was swelling inside of his mouth as fast as it was on the outside, and he couldn't hardly eat.It was just terrible, and we knew that we were facing a horrible storm in life. On Easter morning, Dr. Tom Renfro and his wife Sid were visiting their church for a special prayer service. Remembering her husband's own miraculous healing from cancer, Sid was moved with compassion to pray for David.When I prayed for David, I don't touch people's head. I normally just touch their shoulders, but I did touch his face because I wanted to be very specific and very direct. The wife remembers standing there, and she thought, it's going to come off in her hand because you could feel such a presence of God's Spirit.Sid prayed a prayer that her dad had prayed. By this time tomorrow, this side of your face will look like this side of your face, because that prayer had worked for her dad. The day after Easter, something amazing happened. David said, There's a change in my face. Do you see it? His wife said, I've already seen it. He looked at his wife and I said, I see a change in my face.She said, I do too, but I was afraid to say anything. So they decided to go eat with their family again. They said, well, let's just see what they have to say.And they all saw him, and they said, that thing's shrinking. And it was just a matter of days, it was gone. David's tumor vanished, and doctors later confirmed he is now cancer-free.The Bakers are forever thankful to God for answering their prayers. The wife said, “There are many people who have a diagnosis like David, and I feel like they saw death. Maybe they prepared for death. But I'd say, don't give up. I'd say, take His Word into your spirit, and I'd say, believe it with everything you've got because that's what we've done.His brother said, “When I witnessed David up close and personal with him, I mean, it just boosted my faith. I mean, I know that God can do anything, big, little. It don't matter.”Sid said, “God can move in anything. I felt jubilant when I saw the picture, and the tumor was gone, and he had a normal face.”Someone else said, “When I see David now, I think about the benevolence of God, the mercy of God, that God in this state of David's life, in his older years, that God has proven His faithfulness to him.Well, I'm thankful that, you know, what happened, that God healed me. I'm thankful for that. I've never doubted what God was capable of doing. I've always believed that He's the healer, that He can heal cancer, He can heal heart attacks, He can heal anything that's affected man. He can take care o

I Will Be Joyful In God My SaviorHabakkuk 3:17-19 "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”The theme for mentoring this month is Finding Joy in the Struggle. I was looking through some scripture verses that had to do with finding joy in the struggle this morning, and this verse came up. This verse is a favorite of mine because there is a lot going wrong for the people in this verse, and yet they chose to find joy in the Lord anyway. The things mentioned here are not small things. It might not seem like a big deal to us, as how many of us eat figs anyway? However, it was a big deal at the time. The people who wrote this depended on those crops not just for food, but also for their livelihood. If they did not have figs, grapes, or olives, what would they sell at the market to get the other things they needed? The verse says the fields produced no food. What could they eat if they had no fruits or vegetables? Normally, I would say at least they have animals to eat. However, the verse also says, no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls. I can’t even imagine what I would do if I were in their circumstances. This verse is basically saying that they had nothing. They had no food, they had no animals, and if they didn’t have any of that, then they didn’t have anything to trade with to get the other things that they needed. I know that we often think our situation can’t really get any worse; however, for these guys, I would say that it really couldn’t get much worse. How did they react to these dire circumstances? Did they yell and scream at God? Did they question Him and ask Him how dare He take it all away? Did they turn away from God? No, they didn’t do any of those things. In that very same sentence, they said, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”Wow, that is incredible. Don’t you wish you had their strength? Don’t you wish you felt the same way on your worst days? I will rejoice in the Lord. Not, I will trust the Lord, not I will be ok with the Lord, I will rejoice in the Lord. What did they have to rejoice about? Then it goes on to say I will be joyful in God my Savior. I was about to ask you what they had to be joyful about, and then the words “in God my Savior” rattled around in my head. They weren’t joyful because of their circumstances; they were joyful because of God, their Savior. They knew God was going to save them. They didn’t know when and they didn’t know how, but they relied on the fact that God was their savior and if He saved them before, He would do it again. Why is it so hard for us to remember this? What came to mind was, maybe we haven’t seen Him save us before. What if we have never needed saving before, and so we don’t know that He will save us this time. If this is what you are thinking, rest assured that whatever God has done to those who have come before us, He will do to us. If He has saved His people in the Bible, then He will save us. Those are our people. Remember Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Because Jesus saved His people in the Bible over and over again, we know He will save us. We also know that because of His promise in Jeremiah 29:11, which says, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” God will use all things for our good. The problem is, we don’t want to wait for it. We want things to happen when we are ready, or when we think we are ready. When are we going to come around to the fact that God’s timing is perfect? If things are going wrong for us, God’s got a plan. He might not have planned for you to get yourself into this trouble, but as soon as He saw you headed there, He came up with a plan to fix it. That is what He does. We mess up, and He fixes it. I truly hope He doesn’t get tired of doing that. We would be lost without Him. Let’s say that we are able to come to grips with our situation. We acknowledge that God is doing His thing, and although we don’t know how it will work out, we know it will work out. Then what do we do? We still need to figure out a way to lessen our pain so we can live to make it through to the other side. The people in this verse decided that, although these terrible things were happening, they were going to rejoice in the Lord. Do you think you could persevere in this difficult time? Do you think you could not only keep hope in the Lord, but also rejoice in the Lord?I am currently reading a new book titled Built Through Courage by Dave Hollis. In this book, Dave talked about something that I thought was a really cool idea to help us get through some really difficult times. I know some of you are either really struggling, or you have loved ones

Discipline Yourselves 1 Peter 1:13-16 “Therefore, prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”I really like the first line of the verse. It says to prepare our minds for action. This can be hard for some of us. We can have a lot of ideas, but then we get stuck wanting them to be perfect, and so we spend a lot of time thinking about them and how we should do them, but then we don’t do them because we aren’t quite sure how. Does this sound familiar? I know I can’t be the only person who does this. I can’t be the only one who wants to do things perfectly, and so I get stuck and don’t end up doing as much as I know I could be doing.I want to follow the Lord’s will and I want to follow His commandments, and yet sometimes I don’t do something because I am not sure exactly how He wants me to do it. The thing is, most of the time, I don’t think He cares how we do it, as long as we are doing it with the right frame of mind and with our heart. If we let the Holy Spirit guide us, then we can’t go wrong. Why do we worry so much, then? I think it is because we love the Lord so much that we want to be perfect for Him. I think it is because we struggle to believe that He truly loves us just as we are. We are used to human love, which is fallible and conditional at times. We feel as though we must earn the Lord’s love, and so we want to do things perfectly for Him. I don’t think we even realize we are doing this. I know I wasn’t aware. I was talking to my spiritual advisor about how I felt like I needed to do all these things, and she pointed out that I was feeling like I needed to earn God’s love. We don’t need to earn God’s love! He loves us more than anything, and He has loved us long before we were born, and He will love us long after we die. I know I have probably said this a lot, and I will keep saying it because we struggle to believe it. We do not have to earn God’s love; He gives it freely and abundantly.The next two words are words that we don’t always like: discipline yourselves. This is not easy. This is one thing that we get to work on during Lent. We get a chance to discipline ourselves by fasting from things that are important to us, or doing things that we don’t normally do. During Lent, we get to step outside of our comfort zone and stretch ourselves in the area of discipline. I remember watching a YouTube video of Father Mike talking about why we fast during Lent. He explained it in a way that made me enjoy fasting a little more. He discussed how fasting is a way of demonstrating our love for. Fasting is an act of love. It’s kind of like that question, what do you get the guy that has everything? Well, God has everything; He doesn’t need anything. He loves us completely, and one way to show Him our love is to fast, or give something up, or start doing something we normally don’t do. The thing is, it isn’t really an act of love if we complain and grumble the whole time. If we go through the motions and we do it just because we have to, then that is showing obedience, but it is not showing love. How can you show God your love? What can you fast from? What can you start doing? The next line says, “set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.” To be honest, I almost skipped over this line. I was not really sure what it meant or how to explain it. Then I figured if I didn’t know, maybe you don’t either. Also, the point of this podcast is for us to grow on the journey and for us to understand scripture a little more and figure out how we can apply it to our lives, so I looked up the meaning of this line to see if anyone else had already explained it. The consensus seems to be that we are to hope in the grace that Jesus will bring us, instead of hoping in things of this world, like money, material objects, or even people. I think we have a tendency to hope in the things of this world instead of looking towards Jesus. I found an article titled, Two Ways to Fix Your Hope on Future Grace by Jen Wilkin. (Click Here for Article) It is definitely worth reading. She talks about how we need to place our hope in the day that Christ is coming because the days we are currently in may be filled with trial and sorrow. The two ways she talks about in the article to fix our hope on future grace are to prepare our minds and be sober-minded. It is a very good article, and I would do it a disservice to try to summarize it for you in a few short lines. I recommend you take a look at the article if you wish to get a better understanding of this verse and how you can put it into practice in your own life.The next line says, “Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the d

The Peace of GodPhilippians 4:6-7 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”The other night was very hard. I knew it was going to be a long night, and so I decided, while it was quiet, I would write a devotional. I only got as far as asking the Lord for a scripture verse that would get me through the night. One that was just what I needed for the situation I was in. When I have done this before, I have had my Bible with me, and I would ask the Lord a question, then ask Him to show me the answer in His Word. Then I would randomly open the Bible and read the pages until I found my answer.Tonight I didn’t have my Bible. I mean, I could have gone upstairs to get it, but honestly, I didn’t really have the energy to move. So, I wondered how I could randomly search an online Bible, as I did have my computer. I decided to type into the search bar “A scripture verse to help me make it through the night.” And I told the Lord that He knew my exact circumstances, and I asked if He could give me the verse I needed to read or hear.Today's verse is the one that appeared in the search results. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” I laughed at first because I thought that was a pretty tall order. Not to be anxious in this situation was definitely difficult, as one of my sons was making poor choices, and there wasn't much we could do about it. However, when I really thought about it, I realized I wasn’t anxious. I was mad and I was sad, but I wasn’t anxious.This reminded me of a conversation I was having with a friend the day before. When I told her all that was happening, she asked how I was dealing with it all. She asked how I was getting out of bed in the morning. I stopped and thought about it, and the answer was through the grace of God. This is not just something I was saying because I didn’t know what else to say. I truly mean it. I can look at the situation and know that God’s grace is helping me through it. I can see His hands all over this situation and that makes it easier for me to turn it over to Him.I could absolutely be worrying about my son all day, every day. I could be trying to fix it and trying to make sure all goes smoothly, and I may be doing that more than I need to. I could let this get to me so much that I stay in bed with fear of what might happen or sadness of what has already happened. Yet I am not, and I know that is because God prepared me for this moment. He prepared me for difficult times. There have been so many really hard things that have happened in the last 21 years, and I know that they were all preparation for this moment.I know God will get me through this hard time because He has gotten me through so many other hard times.I know that this addiction will not destroy my son because God has promised me that it won’t, and I can trust in His promises. I can wait for God’s timing on this because I have waited a really long time for things in the past, and although the wait was never easy, it was always worth it in the end. I always say that I don’t know how I developed a deep trust in the Lord. I don’t know why I am not more worried about my son. I think this is because we all expect it to be complicated. We expect some difficult formula to show us how to trust in the Lord. I think it is actually so simple that we don’t want to believe it. Kind of like the story of Naaman in 2 Kings 5.Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. He found out about a prophet in Samaria who could cure him. Long story short Naaman came to Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.We think it m

Today’s witnesses are from Matthew West’s website, popwe.org. If you don’t know who Matthew West is, he is a singer, songwriter, and storyteller. This website is for the non-profit that he has with his father, a pastor. Matthew and his father encourage people to share their stories. They have various categories of stories. Today, I chose a few testimonies from the Addictions and Deliverance Category. Often, we can hear our own story in someone else’s story. When we listen to others tell their story, it helps us see that we are not alone. When we hear how God worked in their situation, it gives us hope that He will work in ours, too! I pray that when you hear these testimonies, you get the faith and hope to believe that miracles can happen in your situation, also. I pray you know that God is there with you, and if you invite Him into your situation, He can help. I hope you enjoy these testimonies. We have all seen God working in our lives. However, we might not all be aware it is God 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 of how God has worked or is working in your life, please email me at [email protected] or 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. Music:"Adding the Sun"fine us. It is not fun, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com CLICK HERE TO DONATE CLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emails CLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily life CLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

God's Heart is Not Hesitant—It's JoyfulLuke 15:10 “There is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”We are closing out out month on Repentance in mentoring and I think this verse is an important one for us all to know about. God's Heart is Not Hesitant—It's JoyfulWhen we think about coming back to God after failure or sin, we often imagine Him standing at a distance—arms crossed, disappointed, waiting for us to prove we’re really sorry. But that is not the God of the Bible. God doesn’t forgive reluctantly. He doesn’t roll His eyes when we repent. He rejoices. He celebrates. He runs to meet us.Repentance isn’t just about our sorrow. It’s about God’s joy.1. Heaven Celebrates When We ReturnLuke 15:7 “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”This verse is from the parable of the lost sheep, part of a trio of parables Jesus tells in Luke 15: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son (or prodigal son). In each story, something precious is lost, then found—and each time, there's celebration. Jesus wants us to know that repentance isn’t the end of joy—it’s the beginning of it. God is not waiting to shame us. He’s waiting to rejoice over us. He loves us and wants us to come home. He is so happy when we come home. He is not thinking about what we did when we went away, He is happy that we made the decision to turn back to Him and to come home.2. The Father Doesn’t Just Accept the Prodigal—He RunsLuke 15:20 “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”In the culture Jesus was speaking to, fathers didn’t run. Running was undignified. But here, the father represents God Himself, and He breaks cultural norms to embrace His child who is coming home. The verse says that while he was still a long way off…God doesn't wait for us to do all the hard work and then come to us. He sees us trying and making the effort, even if that effort is very small, and He comes running!! He sees us turn to Him, even if it is just the slightest turn, and He comes running. The father doesn’t wait for the son to finish his apology speech. He sees his heart, and that’s enough.We might think we must explain ourselves and jump through hoops to be accepted back into the family. We, like the prodigal, don’t even think we are worthy to be let back into the family. So we come up with a whole justification of why we are asking for forgiveness and explaining why it is ok if we aren’t fully forgiven. It is ok if our loved ones want to keep us at a distant.eGod’s joy is not based on how perfect your repentance is, but on your desire to return. He knows the moment your heart turns toward Him—and He moves first.3. God's Joy is Greater Than Your GuiltMany people struggle to believe God can be happy to see them after what they’ve done. They may think: “Sure, He’ll forgive me—but He won’t be happy about it.”But Scripture paints a different picture.Zephaniah 3:17 “The Lord your God is with you… He will take great delight in you; in His love He will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”God delights in you. He doesn’t just tolerate you. He doesn’t forgive you because He has to—He does it because He wants to. His joy is rooted in love. And repentance restores that relationship, which is cause for celebration.4. God’s Kindness is What Draws Us to RepentRomans 2:4 “Do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, forbearance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?”God’s mercy is not weakness—it’s a strategy of love. He’s not trying to trap you in guilt. He’s trying to lead you back with compassion, knowing His joy will become your healing.5. Joy Is Mutual: God Rejoices, and So Do WeWhen we repent, God rejoices—but we’re invited into joy, too.Psalm 51:12 “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”True repentance leads to freedom, not fear. The weight of sin is lifted. Relationship is restored. Joy is revived. God’s joy becomes your joy.What Does This Mean for Us Today?If you’ve wandered, God is not angry—He’s waiting with joy.If you feel ashamed, know that God’s delight is greater than your past.If someone else is returning to God, don’t question their worthiness—celebrate with heaven.If you’re leading others, reflect God’s posture: compassion, welcome, and joy over repentance.Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless each one of us today. Lord, we want to believe that you rejoice when we repent. Please help us. Please soften our hearts towards you and allow us to see you as the loving father instead of the angry judge. Help us to turn to you when we mess up. Help us come back to you every time. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in

What’s Your Story?Psalm 28:7 “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.”The Lord is my strength and my shield. This is something that I am not sure we always realize. I think most of the time, we know that the Lord is our strength. Or, at least we know that we can ask Him for strength and He will give it to us. I think when we think of the Lord, we most often think of Him as our strength vs. our shield. But, did you know that He is your shield as well. This is the part of the job that probably goes most unseen and most unrecognized. If we are weak and God gives us strength, we can usually tell. We are usually aware that He is helping us. But, what about the times when He shields us from things that we didn’t even know about? This is when we don’t know how to thank Him because we didn’t even know that He did anything. I think about this when I get stuck in traffic or hit a red light when I am running late. I wonder what God is protecting me from. I wonder what would have happened if I had left 5 minutes earlier that day. I’m not saying that every time you get stuck in traffic, God is shielding you from something, but sometimes He might be. Have you ever had a morning when no matter what you did, you could not leave the house on time? Have you ever had a series of strange things happen that caused you to switch up your routine?These could be times when God is shielding you from something. The next time that you have an experience where everything seems to be going wrong and you don’t know why, try thanking God for it. I know that may sound weird, but you will be surprised how much better you feel. Having a day or even just part of a day when everything is going wrong is very frustrating. We can get into a really bad mood, dwelling on the fact that nothing is going right for us. Our mood can start to spiral downward quickly. However, if you view this terrible start to the day as a gift from God, your mood will change. Instead of thinking that everything is going wrong and the world is conspiring against you, you can thank God for protecting you from something worse happening.You probably will never know whether God was protecting you from something or not. However, the mindset change will be great. Most of the time, our mindset is based on our view of things. There is a saying that we view things not as they are, but as we are. This means that we view everything through our own lens. This lens is made up of our past experiences. Everything that you have been through up until this point is what makes up how you view the world. Two people with different experiences in life can go through the same experience and yet view it very differently. My husband and I often encounter that. We have different views on life and different experiences. We can both be experiencing something at the same time, and yet we feel very differently towards it. For instance, we can both be in the same car, stuck in traffic. He can be angry and frustrated, and I can be happy and grateful, same situation, different mindset. Also, we can both be sitting at the same football game, and he can be happy and cheerful, and I can be bored and frustrated. What we are feeling in any given situation is based on the thoughts that we are telling ourselves about that situation. I am not sure what you think of all of this. Maybe it makes sense to you, and maybe it doesn’t. I know when I learned about it, I was slow to believe it. However, the more I read about it, the more it made sense. Also, the more I read, the more I paid attention to my feelings and my thoughts. I played around with my thoughts and observed whether they affected my feelings or not. How about you give it a try and see what you think. Think about a circumstance where you recently got upset. Think about why you were upset. What were the thoughts in your head when you were upset? Can you remember the story you were telling yourself? Let’s use the example of traffic for me to try to explain what I would like you to do. I would think about the last time I was upset. It would be when I was stuck in traffic. I was upset because I was going to be late for work. The thoughts in my head were: I should have left earlier. I shouldn’t have taken that extra-long shower. My boss is going to be so mad at me. How stupid I am for leaving late for work. I might get fired for being late. I think you can get the gist of my thoughts. The story I was telling myself was that I was wrong for taking a long shower, and now I was going to lose my job. Can you tell how this story was driving my feelings? Can you see how these thoughts would inevitably lead to upset feelings?Now, what about if I changed my thoughts? What if, when I saw traffic, I told myself a different story? What if I told myself that this was the perfect time to get caught up on that podcast I loved? What if I told myself that the traffic was a small p

Today's witness is from the Encounter Ministries Website. Patrick Reis and Father Mathias Thelen of the Diocese of Lansing, Michigan, founded Encounter Ministries (www.encounterministries.us). They say the ministry’s purpose is “to unleash the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in the world through teaching, equipping, and activating disciples to demonstrate the love of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.” Its work has been endorsed by many bishops in the U.S. and elsewhere. The ministry offers a two-year training program, the Encounter School of Ministry (www.encounterschool.org). I graduated from this program in May of 2024. It was an amazing 2 years of life. The people teaching my class and my classmates were amazing. I learned so much in two years and have been able to put what I learned into practice. That is one of the most amazing things about the Encounter School of Ministry: they teach you something new each week, but then you immediately put it into practice with something they call activations.Encounter Ministries' healing services are like nothing I have ever been to before. They start with praise and worship for a good hour before the service. Then they have a Gospel teaching about healing and give some real-life examples. Next, they have the team come up and give words of knowledge. This means that the team asks the Lord for what He wants to heal that night, and anyone who hears something goes up and shares it. Oftentimes, people are healed just by the word of knowledge. They hear that God wants to heal them, and they are healed. It can be that simple. Next, they do corporate healing. This means that the leader names a part of the body, and anyone suffering from that raises their hand. Those sitting around this person pray over the person. The leader tells them what to say, and the whole audience repeats it. There are so many healings that occur during this section of the healing service, which is amazing because it is just regular, everyday people praying over them. It is not people with special training, it is not people who are super holy and pray all the time. It is just whoever happened to sit next to that person for the service. It is such a good reminder that we are not the ones doing the healing; the Lord is. It is also a good reminder that God can use anyone.The healing services usually end with individual prayer for those who were not healed earlier in the service. These healing services are so powerful, and they even host them on Zoom sometimes. The witness for today, Gabriella, is from their website. Gabby suffered from Lupus, Endometriosis, and Ulcerative Colitis. She happened to be attending an Encounter Conference online when she heard Father call out the words of knowledge for her particular body parts that she was struggling with, and she knew she would be cured. Here is her story. I will put a link to the original testimony in the show notes. Click Here to watch the orignial video of Gabby's testimony. 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

The Lord Rejoices When You Repent!Luke 15:7 “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”The topic for tonight’s mentoring session is God’s joy over repentance. This verse is an excellent example of how much God loves us and how happy He is when we repent. Many of us think God is just waiting for us to mess up so he can say, “I told you so,” and then punish us. The truth is that God is waiting there for us with open arms, just waiting for us to repent. When we do, He rejoices.The verse says there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. I think it is essential to know this because we tend to put righteous people on a pedestal. We look at people who seem to be doing it all right and think that God likes them more than us. We believe they are highly favored, and we are not. We could never compare to them, so why bother trying to be as good as they are?This verse is telling us that this is not true. It tells us that God rejoices more over us sinners who repent and turn back to Him than He does over the 99 that didn’t need to repent. God loves you in the middle of all of your mess. He loves you even when you mess up. He loves you even when you don’t feel lovable. He loves you even when you are sure you finally did it this time. You finally did something that is so bad, He will never be able to forgive you. He loves you even then and is just waiting for you to repent so he can forgive you, pick you up in His arms, and give you a big hug. God loves all of his children, even those of us who mess up and sin. Even if we mess up and sin a lot, He still loves us.This is such an important thing for us all to know. Actually, not just know, but to fully embrace. The enemy loves to take up space in our heads. Did you know another name for the devil is the accuser? Revelations 12:10 says, “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night.” Satan is constantly telling God how bad we are and accusing us of all the things he thinks are so terrible that God shouldn’t forgive us. Even satan doesn’t understand the Lord. He doesn’t understand why the Lord would forgive us. It makes no sense to him. And I kinda get it. I mean, we can be pretty awful to the Lord sometimes. We can say and do some pretty mean things, especially when we are mad.I mean, think about how we feel when our kids do unkind things to us. My sister and I were just talking yesterday about how we don’t understand how kids can go from being so sweet one minute to saying the most cruel things the next. This can be us with God sometimes. When things aren’t going our way, when we are stressed out, when we are frustrated, or when we feel like we are at the bottom of a deep, dark pit, we may lash out at the Lord and say very unkind things. We don’t usually mean them, but in that moment, we say them anyway.We can also hurt the Lord when things are going well. We do this by taking credit for all the good in our lives. We do this by thinking we can do things by ourselves and that we don’t need God. We only call upon him when we need him and forget about Him when things are going good. I am sure this is also painful to the Lord. I know it is painful to me when my kids only come to me when they need something. He wants to be there celebrating with us in the good times, too. He wants to give us a revelation about how we got to where we are, but we need to go to seek Him. We need to look back at where we were and where we are and see all that God has done to get us where we are today.God is so good and so faithful. He patiently waits for us to see the error of our ways and repent and turn back to Him. And when we do, he rejoices, and so does the rest of heaven!Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening today. Lord, we are grateful that you love us and that you forgive us. We are sorry that we offend you so often and are grateful that you never give up on us. We are grateful you keep patiently waiting for us to get it together and repent and turn back to you. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen!Today’s Word from the Lord was received in November / December 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email [email protected]. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “I am here with my joy, my children. Come and have your fill. Let the rhythm of my joy spread to one and all. Announce to the world that the Lord has come.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign u

There is Light, Even In The Darkness!Isaiah 9:2 “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.”This verse was received at my prayer group on Thursday. I thought it would be a good one because several of you have felt like you are in the dark lately. You feel like the waves keep coming, and you can’t seem to get your head above water. I know many of you are suffering from illness and are waiting on the Lord to fix them. You have done all you can do, and now it is up to the Lord. You know He is capable of healing you, and so you are trying to hold on to the hope that He will. Yet, each day that goes by without the healing, you find it harder and harder to hold onto that hope.I know some of you listening are struggling financially. You are praying that you will be able to pay your bills at the end of the month. You are worried because someone is coming out to repossess your car any day now. I am sure that is a really scary feeling and one that you don’t want to have anymore. I know growing up, my parents struggled financially. I remember my mom calling the water company and the electric company and letting them know that she wanted to pay her bills, but she just didn't have the money. The best she could do was send them $20 now and pay the rest at a later date. I am sure there were times when my mom felt like she was in the dark because they went so long without having any money.Others are not struggling financially or medically, but you have loved ones who are, and that is really tough too. This is where I am at right now. One of my sons is really struggling, and I am working hard to figure out how to help him without enabling him. I am trying to find my boundaries and still be there for him with all that he needs. You may be taking care of a spouse, a child, or a parent. Caring for aging parents can be really tough. I wish I knew what to say to you to make your situation easier. I wish I knew what to say to heal you or your loved one. I wish I could say some magic words and you would instantly have all the provisions and money you needed for the month. I do not know what to say. However, I do know what this verse says and what it promises us. The verse for today says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.” You may be walking in darkness, but you have a light shining on you. God is shining a light on you. You may feel like it is too dark to see that light, but it is there. God is always right there with you, trying to light your way. We just need to be looking for His light.This light doesn’t have to literally be a bright shining light, although for some it might be. I have a friend, Bruce, who has gone blind slowly over the last 10 years. He had a conversation with the Lord back in August. He cried out to God and told Gold that he was so tired of being in the dark all the time. He just couldn't take it anymore. Guess what God did next? He did not heal him of his blindness, but he did provide him with a light in that darkness. It was truly remarkable. If you have some time, you can go back and listen to his testimony on episode #836. You won’t be sorry you listened. It is a great witness to how good our God is and shows what can happen if we are brave enough to ask.For some of you, the bright light might be feeling good enough to get out of bed today. It might be getting a chance to sit outside and feel the sun on your face. It might be feeling good enough to eat something or to sit up and watch TV. Your bright light might be different than my bright light. However, the verse says that the people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light. So, what does your great light look like? Where can you see light in your darkness? If you don’t know what that great light is, that is ok. You are not alone. There are many of us who can only see the dark, especially if we have been in it for a long time.One way to start to see some light is to look for things you can be grateful for each day. It’s ok to just start with one thing. If all you see is the bad stuff all around you, then try to take a moment each day to intentionally find something good around you. It doesn't have to be something good about your situation, it could just be that you are grateful for the sun shining, for a good cup of coffee or tea. You could be grateful for a nice text message from a friend or the perfect song coming on the radio when you needed it the most. Gratitude is a great way to start to bring a little light into your situation.The verse also says, “those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.” If you are feeling like you are living in the land of deep darkness, the verse says that a light has shone on you, too. There is light in every situation. God is light, and He never leaves your side. No matter how dark you feel your situation

Find The Gold In PeopleRomans 2:1-4 “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?”We spent a lot of time in class discussing this topic of judging others and calling out other people's sins last night, and it was such a great conversation. I wanted to share the idea with all of you as well. We all know we shouldn’t judge others. Did you know the extent to which you judge others is the extent to which God will judge you? For me, finding that our, taking a minute to let that sink in, was a game changer for me. If I expect perfection from others and don’t cut anyone any slack, will God do the same? I don’t know if that is precisely how it works, but that was enough for me to double down on my efforts not to judge. I know I am not perfect. I know I have many flaws. I know I need God to be very gracious with me, which means I must be gracious with others. To me, that seems like a small trade-off. If I am gracious with others here on earth, how does that hurt me? It may be inconvenient. I may have to be nice to those I don’t like, and I may have to put up with annoyances. I may have to watch them make bad choices and not judge them for it. However, if you compare that to the alternative, it doesn’t compare. If you compare those inconveniences to what might happen if God judged me the way I was judging others, I would suffer a lot more than inconveniences after I leave Earth. I want to spend eternity with my heavenly father. Our time in this world is limited when we compare it to eternity. Romans 8:18 says, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Is it hard not to judge others? Yes. It is worth it in the end, absolutely. When I talk about judging others, most of you are probably thinking about how we judge strangers. How we judge those we see on the streets, or in the grocery stores, maybe even those at work. Those we judge when there is really no reason to judge. We might judge someone’s outfit or their decisions, but they don’t affect us. Our judgment does not really affect them. However, what about when we view our judgment as necessary? For instance, we all want our children, siblings, or family members to be successful. We want them to have a good life. When we worry they are headed down the wrong path, we feel it is our job to correct their course. We are only trying to help them be more responsible, be healthier, be whatever it is we think they should be. Sometimes, if our children, our loved ones, or our friends are doing something that we know is a sin, we feel as though it is our duty to tell them. We feel we are helping them to their salvation if we call out their sin. We are only trying to help. I get it, and yet, are we really helping?In class, we took a look at how Jesus dealt with sin in the Bible. Sometimes, he did call it out, but only if needed and only with love. For instance, the woman at the well, He let her know that she was living with a man who was not her husband, but he never once made her feel ashamed for it. He was letting her know that He saw her, He knew her, all of her, and yet still loved her. The woman caught in adultery, he didn’t scold her, he didn’t tell her she needed to get her life together, he didn’t lecture her on why what she was doing was wrong. He showed her kindness, He saved her life, and he told her to sin no more. What about Luke 19:1-10? Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector who wanted to see Jesus. Jesus called out to Zacchaeus and said, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” The scripture says others around were muttering that the Lord would dare to eat with a sinner. Jesus never called out all Zacchaaeus’ sins. He called him by his name, showing that He knew him, and then He showed love for Zacchaeus by going to his house for lunch. Then in Luke 19:8 it says, “But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Why did Zacchaeus have a change of heart? Why did he change his ways? Why did the woman at the well change her ways? Both of them had a renewal of the mind through an encounter with the love of Jesus. Our goal in life, all of us, should be to lead people to encounter the transforming love of God. I know we worry about our families and friends. I know we love them, and we just want what is best for them. I also k

Are You Living Up To Your Potential?Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”The Lord has planned out your life. Before you were even formed, He had a plan for your life. Isn’t that crazy to think about? His plans for your life are good plans. He tells us directly, we don’t even have to guess, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.” If we know that God has plans for us to prosper, then why do we sometimes run away from these plans? God’s plans are to give us hope and a future, so why do we question these plans? Why is it so hard for us to believe that God has plans for us?I have been doing a lot of personal development, and I am in a Christian mentoring group called Big Life Mentoring. In all of the personal development books, as well as the mentoring, they talk about how we have a God-given potential. They talk about how we were all created to live an exceptional life. God wants nothing but the best for us. Does this mean that we will never have challenges? Nope. It does mean that He will be with us in those challenges and He will use those challenges for our good, not for our harm. I have talked with numerous people over the last several years about my belief that God created us all to live a big life. It is usually met with some opposition. I have been told that some people were created for a big, amazing life, and some people were not. Some people were created to have an “ok” life. Where they just go about their day, and nothing special happens. They were not created to do great things.I disagree with this. I do not think that God created any of us to just go through our days, day in and day out, just existing. I do not believe He wants that for any of us. I am also not saying that every person was created to be a movie star or make some huge impact on the whole world. I do think that we all have the same potential for doing great things with our lives. How we use that potential could look very different for everyone. Someone could use that potential to be a movie star, a priest, a mom, a lawyer, a doctor, anything you desire. I don’t think it’s the career you choose or the role you play that defines you. I think it is more about how you are showing up in that career/role. You do not have to go on a mission trip to another country to change people’s lives. If you are a parent, you are impacting lives every day with your parenting. People are always watching you, and you could be changing lives in the grocery store when someone watches you handle a complaint respectfully. There are many ways that you could have a positive impact on the world. The opposite of this is true as well. If you are walking through life angry and taking it out on all that you see, this will also be observed by others and could be changing lives, but not for the better. If that is you, that is not the life that God has planned for you. I wonder sometimes how many of us are actually living up to our potential. Are you living up to the potential that God has placed within you? A lot of people that I talk to are settling for mediocrity. They are not truly happy with their life, and they think that is just how life is. They don’t seek to change anything because they don’t feel they deserve more, or maybe they don’t think there is anything better out there, or perhaps they don’t feel they’re capable of having more. I want to tell you right now that if you are unhappy with where you are in life, there is more. God has more planned for you. Where you are now does not have to be a final destination. It could be a resting place until you are ready for the more that God has planned for you. What is it that you really want to do? What is it that makes your heart light up when you talk about it? This could be something big, like start a non-profit, write a book, change careers, or it could also be as simple as seeing my grandkids more, being in nature, going to daily mass, or spending more time in prayer. Whatever it is deep inside that you’re longing for, go get it. God has given you the potential to achieve all your dreams. Are you living up to your potential? Is there more you could be doing? You may be listening to this and thinking that I am wrong, that not everyone was made for an extraordinary life. That you were made for an ordinary life and nothing more. I would argue that your outlook might be the difference between an ordinary life and an extraordinary life. Two people may have very similar lives, as far as marriage, kids, career, income, etc. Yet one may be living an extraordinary life, and one may be living an ordinary life. What is the difference? The one living an extraordinary life has a positive outlook on their life. They are on the lookout for the miracles that occur every day and are willing to acknowledge them. They are also looking for ways that they can excel in the roles that they have. They are looking f

Today’s witnesses are from Matthew West’s website, called popwe.org. If you don’t know who Matthew West is, he is a singer, songwriter, and storyteller. This website is for the non-profit that he has with his father, a pastor. Matthew and his father encourage people to share their stories. They have various categories of stories. Today, I chose three testimonies from the God Stories Category. Often, we can hear our own story in someone else’s story. When we listen to others tell their story, it helps us see that we are not alone. Hearing how God worked in their situation gives us hope that He will work in ours, too! I pray that when you hear this testimony, you get the faith and hope to believe that miracles can happen in your situation, too. I pray you know that God is there with you, and if you invite Him into your situation, He can help. I hope you enjoy these testimonies.First is Diane: I run a Christian camp for people who have developmental and physical disabilities, or as I like to say, “diversabilities.” Because isn’t that who we all are? We experienced great tragedy in September of 2020 when we lost many of our physical buildings, including our activity spaces, bunkhouses, and gymnasium, in a fire. Many of which had been built in the 1940s.Our campers were devastated. Many have been coming to camp for over 40 years, but without indoor facilities and bunkhouses to serve and host our campers, the future looked bleak. That said, we dutifully signed up for FEMA support to rebuild and began the process of determining eligibility in early 2021.After much prayer and consideration, we made a commitment to continue serving campers someway, somehow. And we were overwhelmed by the blessing of grants, private donations and many volunteers. We cleared our 18-acre property of fire debris, established and activity meadow, purchased 18 beautiful bell tents and opened our gates to 10 campers a week for 6 weeks. We had only a few doors left after the fires and that first year, all activities and meals were outside. Before the fires and COVID we were serving 25 campers a week, but we promised we would do what we could, and God provided everything we needed!Fast forward 4 ½ years and here we are, still providing camp with temporary facilities. We continue to work with FEMA and have only just begun to receive money to begin the process of rebuilding.We were gifted a master plan through the assistance of the Christian Camp and Conference Association (CCCA) in 2021, and now we are working with an incredible architecture and design firm of which 90% is being paid for through FEMA funds. For us 10% is a significant funding gap, but we trust our Father in heaven to pave a way for us to continue moving forward with rebuilding. If all goes well, we anticipate breaking ground on our new buildings later this year.And finally, to the reason for this long explanation. Our campers love those VBS songs you mention in some of your devos, and I like to re-introduce a few of them every year, so when I read your post this morning, I knew it was time to bring this old chestnut back to our campfire songs, “This little light of mine.” As we rebuild Upward Bound Camp we stand on the firm foundation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, sharing and rejoicing in His love for all of us!Second is Heather: My story is about meeting my husband at the warehouse we where we worked, marrying him and then losing him to cancer after twelve life changing years of marriage and seven kids later.He came to me one day asking, “is this a pimple?” I said,” No love, you should get that checked.” He wasted no time, and the test came back as Melanoma. Within a year of that diagnosis, he went to be with Jesus.He fought really hard and had a heart of gold the whole way through. He said these words to me towards the end” I am at peace with this.”Those words will stay in my heart always. He loved Jesus so much and trusted him. I believed before I met Doug, but I honestly believe that he was put on this earth to prepare me and the kids spiritually for what was ahead. For things we did not know were going to happen.He served God in many ways, but if not for him I believe our lives would have taken a much different path. With him rooting me in the Catholic faith and me coming to truly believe it, allowed me to have the strength to carry on and keep the kids rooted in their faith.He was an amazing man. I thank you God for blessing us with him if even for a short time. We love you Daddy/ Douglas.Third is Roy: Last night, my family and I were at your concert here in Lincoln. What a beautiful evening of worship! Seeing my family laugh, sing, and worship together was a powerful reminder of God’s faithfulness and goodness.Matthew, we met about 15 years ago at a Parenting Simulcast. I was the parenting manager running point that day. It was such a joy to work with you during that event, and I still treasure the memories of that experience.I’m reaching out to tell you how dee

Evidence of True RepentanceMatthew 3:8 “ Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”Repentance is the theme for mentoring this month. This week, we are focusing on Evidence of true repentance. When researching this, I came across this verse. I dismissed it as a very short verse, and I didn’t think it said too much. However, it kept coming up, so I sat with it and asked the Lord what He wanted to share with you about this verse. Repentance is not about just saying sorry. It is about truly being sorry, returning to the Lord, and changing our ways. If we go to confession one day and then return to living our lives the same way we had before, then is that really repentance?I know there are some sins we struggle with, sins we might confess week after week or month after month. We can be genuinely sorry for something and yet struggle to change it. However, we do need to be trying to change it. God is very patient, and He knows our hearts. He will help change our hearts, habits, or whatever we need to change, as long as we invite him into that struggle.The verse above says to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. Matthew 17:15-20 says, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them.” It says twice in these verses, you will know them by their fruit. What does your fruit look like?Is everything going wrong in your life right now? Is it one bad day after another? Do you feel a lot of anger, unforgiveness, and anxiety? Have you repented lately? Have you turned away from sin and back to God? God does not cause bad things to happen in our lives. I am not saying that God is causing these bad things because you have not repented. What I am saying is that our choices can definitely cause bad things to happen in our lives. Our choices can make us miserable, and sometimes we can end up blaming God for the bad results of our choices instead of taking responsibility for them and examining our lives to see where we might need to repent and turn back to the Lord.We ask the Lord why we are so unhappy, and then we decide to drink all night because we are so sad. Then we wake up the next day feeling like crap and so we are unhappy that day too. This cycle repeats over and over again until we stop, repent, and turn back to the Lord. We ask the Lord why our family is falling apart, yet we choose to watch TV and numb our feelings instead of hitting our knees and praying about the situation. We are turning everywhere for answers except for God, who has all the answers.One of the people in mentoring gave an example last week of a sin she had been struggling with. She repeatedly confessed this sin each week during confession. She desperately wanted to get rid of this sin in her life, and yet she continued to struggle with it. She felt so embarrassed and so ashamed every time she had to go and confess this same sin, week after week. However, she continued to bring it to the Lord and confess it. Because she continued to repent of this sin and tried to change it, and invited God in to help her change it, she no longer suffers from this sin. He has healed her of it. God changed her heart and her mind. He is so good. He can do this for you, too! But first, you have to bring it to Him. First, you need to repent and invite Him into it.If things are particularly hard in your life right now, take some time, sit with the Lord, and ask Him if there is any unrepented sin in your life. Ask God to show you where you might need repentance. This can be hard to do, as we might be afraid God might tell us to change something we don’t want to change. God has our best interests at heart. He knows what is best for us, even when we can’t see it. He knows the whole picture, even the things we can’t see.Think about all you did when you were a kid. Did you always know what was best for you? Did you always do what was best for you? I am sure in the moment you thought you were doing what was best, but really, you were doing what felt best. What feels good in the moment isn’t always what is best for you. I am struggling with this with my boys. They think some of the things they are doing are not that bad. Everyone does them, and it’s no big deal. What they can’t see is the long-term effects or the long-term damage. Yes, smoking probably feels really good in the moment, yet how good do you think lung cancer will feel when you are older? They can’t see the future, but God can.The same is true for us. We can’t see the results of everything we are doing now. Just because something feels good in the moment doesn’t mean that it is good for us in the l

Submit Yourselves to God (Replay)James 4:7-8 “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”This is another one of those things that sounds much easier to do than it actually is. Submit ourselves to God. That doesn’t sound too hard, right? It doesn’t sound hard, but have you tried it? It is not easy to submit to God. What does it even mean to submit ourselves to God? Google's dictionary defines submission as "the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person.” I think there are two parts to this. First, the action of accepting or yielding to a superior force. This means that we would accept that God is in control. We would do as He tells us to do because He is our superior force. He created all things, and He gives us a set of rules to live by, so we must live by them. The second part of this definition is accepting or yielding to the will or authority of another person. Submitting to God would be accepting His will as our will. It would mean that we accept His will for our lives. There are times when this is very easy. When we get the job we really want, it is easy to accept it as God’s will. When we meet the love of our life, we can accept that it is God’s will for us to be with this person. However, what about when things aren’t going our way? What about when God’s will differs from our will? What about if we don’t get a job because He has something better in mind for us? Can you think of a time when you really wanted something to happen and it didn’t? What about when you didn’t want something to happen and it did? How easy was it for you to submit to the Lord’s will? This verse tells us to submit ourselves to God. If we want to do this, we need to figure out where we are struggling and then ask God for help. We can ask Him to help us submit. He will always help when we ask. If we are struggling to see how God wants us to submit to Him, then we can always just ask Him. My spiritual director told me one time to model St. Teresa of Lisieux and explain to God that I am just a little child and I need Him to show me the way. I need Him to show me or tell me what He wants me to do. I want to follow His will, I just need directions, just as a child would. This really spoke to me. I sometimes, oftentimes, if I am being honest, I think I need to know what God wants from me. I think I am just supposed to know. It seems like everyone else knows, but why don’t I know? So, I try to guess, I try to listen, and I try to do all the things just in case that is what He was wanting. However, what I try to do now is to ask the Lord to help me understand. I ask Him to explain it to me as though I were a child. I ask Him to make it clear to me and to give me the courage and strength for whatever He wants me to do. We are all just little children in the eyes of the Lord. In Matthew 18:3, Jesus said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” God wants us to become like children. I think he wants us to be like children because there is something so pure about a child’s faith. Children don’t get caught up in understanding every little detail. They don’t ask all the questions. Miracles are miracles because there is no explanation. If there were an explanation as to exactly how it happened, it wouldn’t be a miracle. Adults don’t really like to believe in things that they can’t see. Children, on the other hand, love to play make-believe. They have no problem believing in things they can’t see. If you are struggling to submit to God, ask Him to show you how. He has assured us that if we ask, He will answer, so let’s ask. The next part of this verse says to resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Again, something that sounds so easy and yet is so difficult. I would love to say I resist the devil. The problem is, the devil is always disguised as something else. For instance, he will be disguised as temptation. You know that you should spend time in prayer or in silence, and suddenly your favorite TV show is having a marathon and showing episodes all day. You decide to give up sweets for Lent, and someone drops cookies off at your house. You decide you are going to start running, and it rains for a week straight. Do you see how it is hard to resist the devil in these circumstances because you don’t know it is the enemy attacking you? Another way the enemy might show up is through distractions. You decide you want to spend more time with your children, and suddenly everyone in the family has something else to do, or your work suddenly gets really busy. You may want to spend more time with your parents, but something comes up to prevent you from spending more time with them. We find it hard to resist the other things that are getting in our way, and so f

The Holy Spirit Lives In YouActs 2:38 “Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. And you will receive the Holy Spirit.”I think when most of us read this, we focus on the repent and be baptized part of this verse. Repentance is so important, and it is something that we can read about all throughout the Bible. God is always calling His people to repentance, and sometimes they repented and other times they did not. In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, they were a wicked people and they refused to repent. God sent fire down to destroy the towns. However, when God sent Jonah to Ninevah to tell them they needed to repent, they did, and God saved them. Did you know that Jonah was angry at God for saving Nineveh? We read in Jonah 4:1-2, “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is it not this what I have said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.” Jonah ran from the Lord when the Lord asked him to go to Ninevah. I had always thought he ran from the Lord because he was afraid of the people in Ninevah. However, this verse says that he ran because he knew God would have mercy on them, and he didn’t want them to be saved.This is a somewhat common thing for us to do. Maybe not running from the Lord, but definitely wishing people get what they deserve. Have you ever wished that someone got what they deserved? Have you ever seen a car speed by you, or weave in and out of traffic, and think to yourself, “I hope there is a cop ahead.” Or do you see someone cut in line and hope that someone notices and that they get kicked out of the line? Why do we do this? Why do we wish ill on other people? Maybe you are thinking that you are justified in thinking that you want the driver to get pulled over because you want them to learn their lesson and drive better. But, what if they did get pulled over and they just got a warning, would you be ok with that?Sometimes we can do this with our kids as well. Jonah felt that these people needed to be punished, and he knew that God would have mercy on them. Sometimes we can default to the thinking that when our children do something wrong, they need to be punished, and maybe that is true sometimes. But do we take the time to think about the situation first? Do we even consider giving them mercy? Sometimes our children need our mercy. Sometimes they messed up, did something they weren’t supposed to do, and they know it was wrong. They are truly sorry, and they learned a lesson from it. Times like these are times when we should consider mercy. Sometimes we think our kids will only learn if we punish them; however, I think they can learn a lot from mercy as well.As I said earlier, we tend to focus on the first part of this verse, Repent and be baptized. However, I wonder how many of you also think of the ending of the verse? How many of you truly know what it means? The verse ends with “and you will receive the Holy Spirit.” I am not sure that everyone, or even most people, knows how powerful a statement that is. Did you know that the power of the Holy Spirit is what raised Jesus from the dead? Did you know that the same power resides in you? Romans 8:11 "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”When you are baptized, you are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. This means that when you are baptized, you receive the Holy Spirit. If you are Catholic, then you receive the Holy Spirit again when you are confirmed. This is all amazing to me. The power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in me. I just can’t get over that. I think if we all knew the power that we had through the Holy Spirit, and then used that power for good, the world wouldn’t know what was going on. Jesus said in John 14:12-14, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”Did you catch that? Jesus said we will do greater works than He if we believe. This is only possible because of the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit inside of us; we just need to call on Him. We need to believe in Jesus and believe when He tells us that He sent us the Holy Spirit to guide us. The Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead. That same spirit lives in you. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to just sit around and let all that power pass you by, or are you going to use your newfound power for good? Who do you know that could use some extra blessings? I am su

You Are Loved By JesusJohn 13:23 “One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved,* was reclining at Jesus’ side.”This scripture verse was given at my prayer group, and the following words of prophecy were given: “You are also the one whom Jesus loves. So, your place is to be listening to his heartbeat when you pray. So, put your head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. Say I love you and be at peace.” Is there anything more calming than putting your head on someone’s chest and listening to their heartbeat? I pictured when I was little and if I was scared and I went to lie with my parents. Just putting my head on their chest and listening to their heartbeat would make me feel better. It seemed so rhythmic and soothing.“You are also the one whom Jesus loves.” How many of you believe this? Like truly in the depths of your heart believe this? You are also the one whom Jesus loves. Sometimes, it is easy to say that Jesus is love. It is easy to say that Jesus loves everyone. And yet, even as we are saying it, we are discounting ourselves from that love. We know He loves everyone and yet we don’t believe that he loves us? We don’t feel that love or even understand why He would love us. Who are we to be loved by Jesus?You are the son or daughter of the one true king. That is who you are. You were made in the likeness and image of God. You are deeply loved by Him. Why do you discount yourself from that love? Or maybe you put a lot of pressure on yourself to be worthy enough of God’s love. Maybe you think if you just do things perfectly, then God will love you. If you attend weekly mass and volunteer for every fundraiser, you will be worthy of God’s love. Are you constantly feeling like you are not good enough for God’s love?Guess what? None of us are. None of us are worthy of God’s love, yet he lavishes it freely anyway. You do not have to do anything to earn God’s love. Well, as I wrote that, what came to mind was we do have to accept it. God can tell us all day long that he loves us, but if we don’t accept it, then it doesn’t matter. Yesterday, I talked about abiding in God’s love and how abiding means acceptance. Can you accept God’s love? Can you accept that he loves you just as you are, with no strings attached?This is a new kind of love for so many. Some people have never had someone in their lives who loved them completely, with no strings attached. Unconditional love is not a thing they even new. If you are struggling to believe that Jesus loves you, just as you are, think about your childhood and your past relationships. What do you think of when you think about love? Did you have to earn love growing up? What did you feel you had to do to be loved? For instance, did you have to get good grades, be a certain weight, be quieter, etc? Did you feel like your parents' love was conditional on your behavior? If so, don’t worry. You are not alone. We live in a broken world and don’t know how to love each other unconditionally like our heavenly father does. I think everyone is doing the best they can. We can only love others to the extent that we are loved. If your parents do not know unconditional love, they can’t pass it on to you. The good news is, that you can learn to let Jesus’s love in. The good news is that Jesus does love us unconditionally. If we can learn to accept Jesus’s love, then we can learn to pass this love on to others, even if that is not the love we were raised with.If you struggle with accepting God’s love, I would love to give you some practical tips for how to begin to accept God’s love. I went online to see if others had already written about his subject. I found an article written by Kara J. Lovett called “5 Keys to Accepting God’s Love.” I would highly suggest you read this article. I will put a link for it in the description of this episode, but you can easily find it by googling 5 Keys to Accepting God’s Love. https://karajlovett.com/5-keys-to-accepting-gods-love/ In the article she goes into what God says about love and then a section on understanding God’s love. Her article mentions five was you can accept God’s love. They are as follows: Accepting God’s love with scripture, prayer, grace, and quietness & in unexpected places. Kara says in her article that “by digging deep into Scripture and spending time with God in prayer, I realized that I need to stop striving for love and instead strive to accept God’s love, which He has already graciously bestowed on me.” As I mentioned yesterday, reading the bible is a great way to get to know God’s love. You can see all sorts of examples of God’s love in the bible. 1 John 4:7-10 is a great example of love. It says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not th

Today’s witness is from my friend Bruce. Bruce reached out to me randomly back in November. He found my podcast and wanted to send in his testimony for witness wednesday. His testimony was about how he went to a healing service and regained his sight and then lost it again when he woke up. I offered to pray with Him, and he agreed. We have prayed together three times now. Bruce has not regained his sight, but something amazing happened each time we prayed together. You can find the testimony from the last two times we prayed together on the Witness Wednesday playlist on YouTube. You can also find them on whatever podcast app you are listening to right now. Today’s witness is about when Bruce and his lovely wife Alice came from Canada to visit Gloucester, MA, and my friend and I got to pray with them in person instead of over the phone. It was a great time, and I am so grateful the Lord brought Bruce, Alice, and me together. I know you will enjoy this witness as much as I enjoyed it. God is working in such miraculous ways!Dear Catherine,It is two months from today that we met with you and Nancy in Rockport. In the meantime, you have been to Scotland and back and I have had a new experience which I will tell you about. You may use it in your Witness Wednesday if you would like to. On July 23rd, my wife Alice and I had the pleasure of meeting with Catherine and her friend Nancy for lunch. This vacation had been planned well in advance before we met Catherine. It turned out that Nancy's home was just down the road from where we were staying. Sitting outside by the ocean, the four of us chatted and also prayed together for healing. There was no major change in my eyesight at that time, but I realized that the floaters and shifting debris that I normally saw, were gone. It felt like I had more life in my eyes - just a feeling. This visit was a real blessing and encouragement for us before heading for home a couple of days later.For some time I had been without any sight in my left eye and was able to see light and shadows in my right eye. After this recent change my right eye went completely dark but the movement of floaters was gone. I couldn't tell the difference between day or night. I couldn't see if there were any lights on in the house. Things were the same whether my eyes were open or shut. I had to make an adjustment to this. I found the darkness heavy and depressing. I also felt spiritually let down and more isolated. I heard someone talking about God's light of the world and I thought, we often ask the Lord to shine His face upon us in the Benediction. It was a Monday in August and I told the Lord how I felt. I wanted to somehow have more communication with Him. I didn't want to be in the dark anymore, and would He please shine His light upon me. The next day, Tuesday, I listened to Catherine's podcast which was about Jesus the Light of the world. This felt like my prayer was going somewhere and I became vigilant. That night I went to bed about 1:00 a.m. I was laying on my back in the dark. A small white light appeared in my head space. It seemed to sparkle and it began moving. It became brighter and larger and closer, shining with the brightness of lightning. I felt the light overtake me and I put my face in the pillow. The light was still there and I realized it was within me. It was beautiful and exciting. I began thanking and praising the Lord for this joyful experience. This light would move and pulse brighter then lower going on for an hour and a half until I fell asleep. I wanted to wake Alice but I didn't want to interrupt her sleep or the light. When I awoke in the morning, the light was gone. I figured this was a one time experience. Later that morning, I began telling Alice about it. I stopped and said, It's happening again right now. There was an arch of brilliant white light before me. Beautiful as ever. It stayed with me for a couple of hours, coming and going into the night. This continued daily much to my joy. I noticed whenever I sat at the table it would appear. Whenever I listen to my audio Bible or even thought about the Lord or spiritual matters, it would appear. I found myself talking with the Lord in this light. If I was praying it would appear. It was always with me when I went to sleep. I soon realized I could call on it by asking it to appear. I was quite amazed by the way this all happened, by the communication which took place , and the overwhelming feeling of God's love. There was nothing to do but simply enjoy the moment with the Lord and His light. As I write this, the Lord still shines his light upon me, every day and every night. This has been an unexpected and thrilling blessing for me, far better than I hoped for. I can't help but feel this is leading me somewhere good. My hope and faith has never been more confident than it is now. It is so easy for me to trust the Lord to love me and walk me where He wants to take me. He really is my guiding light. I have in the past

God Provides In Mysterious WaysPsalm 145:14-18 “The Lord upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does. The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.”There are so many good things in this passage. “The Lord lifts up all who are bowed down.” How often is it that we need the Lord to lift us up, especially over this last year? It is so great to know that the Lord lifts us up when we pray to Him and ask Him too. When we are bowed down to the Lord is when we are praying and worshipping Him. When we spend this time with Him He is able to lift us up.“The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time.” This one is hard one for many of us. We do not want to wait for the proper time. We want things to happen on our time line, or maybe we think our time line is the proper time. Then we struggle when God does not agree. My dad told me a story one time that demonstrates how God will give those that look to him food at the proper time. My mom & dad have 11 children. They also had a friend that had several children, I think at least 7. This friend called up and asked my parents if they could watch their kids as something important had come up. My parents said yes because they were always there for those in need. However, my parents had just been talking about how they had no idea how they were even going to feed their own children dinner that night, and now they had 7 more mouths to feed. So, they did what they always did in these situations, they turned their eyes to God and asked for Him to provide.Shortly after their prayer, they received a knock at the door. It was a neighbor holding bags of groceries. It turns out that the neighbors father had to move in with him unexpectedly and they needed to combine his father’s household with his. They had just gone grocery shopping and so they did not have room in their cabinets for all the food from his Dad’s place. So, they asked my folks if they could use any of the food. My parents graciously accepted. When looking through the bags they notice that there was plenty of pasta. My parents prayed, “Lord, if we only had some meat, then we could serve spaghetti to all these kids.”Guess what? There was another knock at the door. It was a different neighbor. He had a cooler full of meat. He said that him and his friend had been hunting and they had too much meat. He explained that he and his friend had already stuffed their fridge and freeze and still they had no room for this left over meet. Again my parents graciously accepted. Then when they looked in the cooler, there was ground meat for spaghetti. They were so thankful. This was not a one time thing for my parents. My parents were faithful in their prayers, not just when they were in need, but even when things were going well. God was faithful in answering them.“You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.” This is another great verse. I believe that God puts our desires in our heart. I am talking about our deep desires, not the desire to eat ice cream at midnight. The desires I am talking about are the desires to have a certain job, the desire to be married and have children, the desire to sing, or act, or whatever it is you feel you are called to do. As stated in this verse, God wants to satisfy the desire of every living thing. I know this can be hard to believe if you have a desire that you have been waiting for God to satisfy. Maybe you have been waiting for the right man/woman to come along so that you can be married and have children. I know it is hard when we want something and we have to wait a very long time. Isaiah 55:9 says, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” God has a plan for our lives and His plan is better than our plan. I know this can be frustrating because God does not always let us in on His plan for our lives. Sometimes we can be left wondering what is His plan and when am I going to understand it? If you have been thinking these things I want you to know that you are not alone. Many of us do not understand God’s plan, and do not understand why the things we have been praying for have not happened yet.It can be easy to lose hope when are prayers aren’t answered immediately. It can be frustrating when we are praying for something, and we don’t seem to get any answers. I found this definition of hope online and I really like it. In the Bible hope is the confident expectation of what God has promised and its strength is in His faithfulness. We know God is faithful to His children. We know He keeps His promises. Therefore we can confidently expect that He will answer our prayers. It says in Hebrews 13:8 it says, ”Jesus Christ is the same y

God’s Mercy & ForgivenessPsalm 51:10-12 “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”These verses come within a series of verses addressing God. The person talking to God in this psalm is David. This psalm takes place after David had been visited by the prophet Nathan. Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. This psalm includes a lot of David asking God to forgive him for his sins. One thing I love about David is that he is so good at realizing he did something wrong and then turning back to the Lord. He messed up pretty badly sometimes. It was not as if he was anointed, and so he always followed the Lord and never strayed. He broke some pretty big commandments. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, thou shalt not commit adultery, and thou shalt not kill, being a few of them.No matter how big the sin was, David never seemed to feel too ashamed to turn back to the Lord. This is so great. This shows such a deep level of understanding or trust, or both. I think he was never afraid to turn back because he knew how much he was loved by God. I wish we all knew and could trust God’s love like David did. How great would it be to know with every fiber of our body that no matter what we did, God would still love us and welcome us back?Have you ever done something and then not turned back to the Lord because you didn’t think you deserved forgiveness? Have you ever thought that you did something so bad that there was no way that God would forgive you? I think that most people have probably thought this at one time or another. I wonder if we would still think it if we remembered in that moment all the things that God has forgiven over the years? David saw a woman bathing on the roof of another house in his town and called for her to be brought to him. Then he had relations with her. I doubt she had much to say about it, as that was not really the culture back then. After he did this, she was pregnant, and he was worried her husband would find out what he had done. He tried to trick her husband, and when that didn’t work, he sent him to the front lines to be killed in the war. Then he took Bathsheba for his wife.Take a moment and think of the thing that you have been trying to hide from God because you think there is no way he will forgive it. Is it worse than what David did? If God could forgive David, He will forgive you. What if it is worse than what David did? What do you do then? Is it worse than what Saul did when he was going around stoning to death those who believed in Jesus? Was it worse than what the soldiers did when they whipped Jesus and hung Him on a cross? Because if Jesus can forgive them, He will forgive you.Why is it that we worry so much about God forgiving us? We know He loves us, and yet we don’t want to turn to Him when we mess up because… why? Maybe we are ashamed and we don’t want Him to see that we messed up? Guess what, he has already seen your mess-ups and already loved you through them. Maybe we don’t want to bother Him with our mess-ups because we feel we should have known better in the first place. Guess what? He loves it when we turn to Him and ask Him for help to clean up our messes. Maybe we don’t feel like we are good enough to turn back to the Lord. Guess what? He is your Heavenly Father, and He made you in His likeness and image. You are better than good enough; you are perfect just as you are.In the verse, David asks the Lord to create a pure heart in him. He knows what he did was wrong, and he wants to do what is right. I think we all want to do what is right. I don’t think that any of us walk around all day wondering how we can sin against God. I don’t believe it is our intent to damage our relationship with God in any way. If we want to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord, we can all pray for the Lord to create a pure heart in us. God knows what is in our hearts. As much as we may try to purify our own hearts, God is the one who can help us with this.It goes on to say, “Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.” I think this statement can be an example of David’s humility. It shows us that even though David was brave enough and trusted God enough to turn back to the Lord, even after David did some pretty awful things, David was humble enough not to assume God would forgive him. In this verse, David is asking the Lord to please not cast him away or take the Holy Spirit from him. God loves humility. It says in James 4:10, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” This is what David was doing. He was humbling himself and asking the Lord not to depart from him.After David asks the Lord not to abandon him, he goes on to say, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” David know

A Conversation With The Lord About Mercy (replay)Isaiah 55:6-7 “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”Today I have something a little different for you. Yesterday at prayer group, my good friend Louise did a teaching on God’s mercy and Justice. She talked about something she had heard in a sermon years ago. The priest said something his spiritual director told him, “God’s Justice is God’s mercy.” After the Lord brought the sermon back to her mind, they had a little back-and-forth conversation, and I am going to share that conversation with you as I feel God was giving us a glimpse into how He thinks and who He is. God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. So, when He gives us a glimpse into his ways, I feel we should all pay attention. Here is what she shared with us.“I am merciful. I pour out mercy and forgiveness in torrents upon all of you, my children. I rain down mercy on every one of my children with no exceptions.” At that point, I found myself getting an image and looking at torrential rain. We've all seen torrential rain, and when it comes down, it comes down in buckets. It is heavy, and the Earth doesn't really have time to soak it all in. What can happen if it's a lasting rain is that things will accumulate, and it can create a little river and start really moving with a swift current. That is what I was picturing when the Lord said to me, “My children who love and praise me, honor me by their lives of holiness, know how to flow with the swift current. By the power of the Holy Spirit, they abandon their attempts to fight this current. And flow freely with it. Its power and speed may seem frightening, but they remain afloat by practicing the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Isaiah gifts can be found in Isaiah 11:2-4a. “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” and the charismatic gifts can be found in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.”Those who don't know me or refuse to accept my existence. Those who no longer have faith in me, those who believe worldly philosophies are the way to live, and those deeply embedded in sinfulness struggle in this river. They fear they will drown. They fight the current of mercy and forgiveness, trying by their own strength and power to stay afloat. I need you to help them, my children. So I asked the Lord how do we do this? What are you asking of us? And he gave me two things. First, he said, "be an example of them of how to float in this current. Show them lives abandoned to God and his love and power, especially in your interactions with them." Then second thing he said to me was, and this I found way more challenging was, "Reach out your hand to them as they pass by you in this current. Help them to stop struggling in this current of mercy and forgiveness. Help to steady them by companioning to them as you float together to the large lake of my calming love that is the river's end.Wasn't that powerful? There is more I want to say about listening to the Lord’s voice, but I don’t want to detract from His message on Mercy, so I will talk about hearing the Lord’s voice on Monday. Today and this weekend, I hope you re-listen or re-read the Lord’s word and really let it sink in. There is a transcript of the message in the show notes, so you can read through it slowly and really absorb what God is telling us about His mercy.Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless each and every person listening to this episode today. Lord, I thank you so much for the blessing Louise is to me personally, to our prayer community, and to all who know her. I thank you for her faithfulness, not only in listening to your word and writing it down but also in sharin

Confess & Be Forgiven (Yes, it is that simple!)1 John 1:9 " If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”This week, we have been talking about repentance. On Monday, we talked about how God is calling us to repent and turn back to him. The verse said, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out.” The verse tells us that if we repent and turn back to the Lord, our sins will be wiped out. God literally forgets about your sins when you repent of them. I feel as though if everyone knew this, we would be more likely to repent of our sins.Today’s verse tells us that God will forgive and purify us if we confess our sins. I think these are two very important things, so I will address them individually. First, the verse says if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins. That is something to pause and really take in. If you confess, you will be forgiven. Can you hear that? Can you believe that? I mean, really believe that? If you confess, you will be forgiven.This goes against what we tend to believe. This definitely goes against what the enemy tells us. We are accustomed to thinking that our sins are too bad to be forgiven. The enemy tells us that although it is true that God does forgive sins, He won’t forgive our sins because they are too bad, or they are too many in number. This we can believe. The world is always telling us how bad we are and how perfect God wants us to be. There are impossible standards set, and so we fail them time and time again. All this so-called failure makes us give up on trying to be good. We figure we will never make it, so what is the point?We know we have messed up. We know that even if we confess our sins, we will just mess up again, so why bother even trying? This is all the enemy talking. He is trying to convince us that God wants us to be perfect, and if we stray from that, then we might as well give up because God won’t forgive us. We are not worthy of forgiveness. We keep messing up, and we aren’t changing. We will always be the same person who did that bad thing. We will keep doing the same things forever. Does any of this sound familiar? Do you find these thoughts going through your head? Yeah, me too.The good news is that we don’t have to listen to them. We know that God does forgive us because it says it right here in this verse, and we can believe all we read in the Bible because it is the Truth. It is not even complicated. It doesn’t say that if we jump through three hoops, stand on one foot, hop up and down, and then run around the building twice, we will be forgiven. It doesn’t say if we promise God we will never do it again, and then we are perfect from now on, we will be forgiven. It doesn’t say that you will be forgiven as long as you are a first-time offender. The only condition put on our forgiveness is that we confess our sins.I know it can be hard to confess our sins. The enemy makes us feel so much shame about things we have done. Then there is also our pride, which tries to convince us that we don’t have to admit what we have done, God saw it, He already knows, and if He wants to forgive us, He doesn’t need us to do anything. The enemy is good at using half-truths to confuse us and to take our focus off God. Yes, it is true that God already knows what we have done. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t have to ask for forgiveness. If we ask, God forgives us. It is that simple. However, we do need to ask. We do need to be sorry for what we have done. But that is it. That is the extent of the conditions put on our forgiveness. If you ask me, that is a small price to pay for my sins to be forgiven. I just have to tell God, that’s it? That seems pretty simple.However, depending on what we did, it could be hard for us to confess. God is patient with us, and He will wait until we are ready. If we need His help, He will help us. We can ask the Lord to come in and help us confess our sins. We can ask Him to help us know and see our sins, as we might not even know all the ways we have offended Him or others. This is a big one. Sometimes we might do or say something to someone, and we have no idea the effect it has on them. We have no idea what is going on in their own life that may cause them to take offense at something you did, even though you didn’t mean it. It is good to check in with the Lord sometimes and ask Him if there is anything you need to confess.The verse next says that God will purify us from all unrighteousness. How great would it be to be purified? Imagine if all your sinful or wicked ways were purified. I would love to be free of my wicked and sinful ways. Those ways that get me stuck in sin. Those ways that get me stuck in choosing the wrong thing. Being purified sounds pretty nice to me. Again, this verse says God will do this if we confess our sins. Even though it may be hard, it seems like the good far outweighs the bad. So,

Today’s witnesses are from the Encounter Ministries Healing page on their website. Encounter Ministries has healing services that are different than all the other healing services that I have been to. I love them, and I am so honored that I was able to attend the Boston Campus for two years to become equipped and activated in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I invite you to go to the Encounter Ministries website and check out some of the testimonies. They will often have people try to do something they couldn’t do before. It is incredible. Today, I have several of their healing testimonies for you. However, they have so many more! The testimonies below are from several different videos they have on their site.There was a man who went to the Encounter Conference in a wheelchair and then, after being prayed over, could walk out of the conference without his wheelchair. They asked him who Jesus was, and he said, “Jesus is the Saviour!”Next are testimonies from a healing service in Akron City. There was a woman who was in an accident 25 years ago. She had her back that had been hurting this whole time and was progressively getting worse. She had been going to the chiropractor but did not get relief. She went to the healing service with a knot in her neck. She said the condition is 80% healed after prayer, and the knot is gone! The next woman, Rose, fractured her humerus and cracked the ball of her shoulder. It didn’t ever heal right, and she couldn’t raise her arm high, and she couldn’t put it behind her back. But after prayer, she could do both. Also, the tendons and ligaments were always sore, but after prayer, she couldn’t feel them at all. Next is Matt, and he had a pinched nerve in his hand a few months ago. The doctor said it would get better, but it hasn’t. The team prayed over him several times, and it improved. Then Father Mathias came over and asked what was wrong, and prayed over him again, and it was completely healed. Next is a woman named Janice who walked up to the microphone holding her right hearing aid. She said she could hear without it, and she couldn’t believe it because she had been wearing it for a long time. Then Patrick prayed over her left ear and asked her to take her left hearing aide out and he whispered into her ear and she could hear him and she could hear the crowd cheering for her.Victoria was in a car that spun for half a mile going 80 miles per hour. She was then flying through the air. She prayed to God, and he appeared in her car next to her. She landed and hit a pine tree. Her body aches with pain, but I don’t want to take medicine all the time. My pain level is always about an eight, and I am pain-free after the prayer. Ellen has had a stiff neck for 4 years. Sometimes it is really bad, and sometimes it is better. I have right hip and back pain. I have been praying that she could see him work and heal. She has relief from all the aches, and the pain is almost all gone. Michael has been having pain in his heel for weeks. Right now, the pain is gone, and he can not make it work. Victoria, Ellen & Michael were all healed before they even did individual prayer. They hadn’t even touched anyone yet, they were healed just through worship & the Gospel teaching.Lyme disease causes constant pain from head to toe. It comes and it goes. I was sitting here thinking I wouldn’t make it through the rest of the healing service because I had so much joint pain. While I was sitting there, it felt like every joint was filled with the Lord. He filled me from head to toe. Then all the joint pain was gone. Another woman had something wrong with her shoulder. When she would move her arm, she would hear a bunch of cracks and noises. However, now she only has one little tiny click. She also has had a headache for as long as she can remember, and now she no longer has a headache. She couldn’t bend down and touch her toes before without doing it really slowly and being in pain. However, she demonstrated reaching down and touching her toes without any issue. She was in zero pain. Another woman lost my sense of smell 6 months ago. One time, the gas on the stove was on, and she didn’t know it because she couldn’t smell it. Luckily, her son came in and let her know. After prayer, now she can smell!Next was a man who had a problem with his lungs; every time he breathed, it hurt. He also had trouble with his knees. He had bad pains, and when he sat down, they were stiff. The pain is all gone. There is no pain in my knees. I can walk straight with no pain and no issue. I can breathe again with no pain. Then a woman talked about how her arm was so painful she couldn’t even move it, and then she raised her hand above her head with no pain!Thank you so much for sharing your testimonies. Your stories will help build the faith of others. Thank you to Encounter Ministries for continuing to hold these healing services and for helping people discover the love of Jesus! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DON

How Do I Repent?Ezekiel 18:30 " Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, all of you according to your ways, says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise, iniquity will be your ruin.”This first sentence is letting us know that we will be judged based on our own actions. At one time, it was believed that we would be judged based on the actions of our ancestors. This verse corrects this thought. When I looked up this verse on the Enduring Word Commentary, it said, “The error in believing in communal or family salvation or damnation is so serious and dangerous that God unmistakably emphasized the individual’s responsibility before God.“It may be true that in my physical being I have inherited tendencies to some forms of evil from my father, but in the fact of my essential relation to God, there are forces available to me more and mightier than all these tendencies. Neither righteousness nor evil is hereditary.” (Morgan)This is important for each of us to understand. We are not bad because our parents were bad. We are not good because our parents are good. We are responsible for our own actions. This is good news. This means we don’t have anyone to blame but ourselves. This also means all the responsibility falls on our own shoulders. I want to take a minute to look at one line in particular in the Enduring Word Commentary. It said, “In the fact of my essential relation to God, there are forces available to me more and mightier than all those tendencies we might have inherited.” In other words, we don’t have to do this on our own. Even though we will be judged on our actions, we don’t have to have the strength to make the right choices all on our own.Because we are children of God, we can call on Him to give us strength and to help us make the right choices. The second part of the verse above says to repent and turn from all your transgressions. The verse I discussed in yesterday’s episode told us to repent and return to the Lord. Today’s verse is telling us to repent and turn away from our transgressions. When I was trying to think about what to talk about in this episode it dawned on me that we might not all know how to repent. Repent is one of those words that we all kinda know what it means but we don’t necessarily know how to define it or how to do it. Repentance is more than just saying “I’m sorry.” It’s a heartfelt turning away from sin and turning toward God. Here’s a biblical and practical step-by-step understanding of how one repents:1. Recognize the SinRepentance begins with awareness. We often live unaware of how our choices, attitudes, or habits go against God’s will.Ask God for clarity. Sin can be obvious (like lying or cheating) or subtle (like pride, bitterness, or fear that blocks faith). Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart.Listen with humility. Sometimes God uses other people, Scripture, or conviction during prayer to expose what needs to change.Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”Reflection prompt: Where in my life am I resisting God’s way? What attitudes, habits, or relationships might be leading me away from Him?2. Feel Godly Sorrow (Not Just Guilt)This isn’t about shame. It’s about recognizing how our sin hurts our relationship with God and others, and it grieves us deeply—not just because of consequences, but because of love.Worldly sorrow says, “I’m sorry I got caught or hurt someone.”Godly sorrow says, “I’ve grieved the heart of the One who loves me most. I want to be changed.”2 Corinthians 7:10 “ For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death.”Reflection prompt: Do I feel sorrow because of what my sin cost, or just because it was exposed?3. Confess the Sin to GodConfession is honest communication with God. It’s naming the sin and agreeing with Him about its seriousness, without hiding or blaming.Openly admit your sin to God in prayer. Be specific and honest. No excuses or blaming.“God, I’ve been dishonest in my work,” or “I’ve held unforgiveness toward ___."Confession is not groveling—it's returning to a loving Father who already knows and still welcomes you.1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”Reflection prompt: What do I need to confess out loud to God today, trusting in His mercy?4. Turn Away from the Sin (Change Direction)This is the literal meaning of repentance: to turn. It means letting go of the old and moving toward a new way of living.Make a conscious decision to change direction.You may need to delete contacts, change your routine, stop certain conversations, or set up boundaries. This part is hard—but repentance without change is just regret.Acts 3:19 “Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out,”Reflection prompt: What do I need t

Repent & Have Your Sins Wiped AwayActs 3:19 "Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out”Peter is preaching repentance in this verse. He is not the first to preach about repenting and turning back to the Lord. There were many prophets in the Old Testament who preached about repentance. The one that comes to my mind first is Jonah. He knew the power of repentance, and he was asked to go and preach this message to Ninevah. However, Jonah didn’t want to preach this message to Ninevah because he didn’t think they were worthy of God’s mercy. He didn’t want God to save them. He thought they were too far gone for God to save.Have you ever felt like this? Have you ever felt like you were too far gone for God to save? Maybe you have felt like someone else was too far gone for God to save. Jonah knew how great God was. He knew if they repented and turned back to the Lord that He would save them. Yet, he decided that they didn’t deserve this. He decided they were terrible people and they deserved what they had coming to them, so he fled this calling. He tried to run from the Lord. As much as I would love to judge Jonah and say how wrong he is, I think we can all relate to him.I think we have all had times when someone has done something and we don’t think they deserve forgiveness or mercy. We almost don’t want them to say sorry because we don’t want to have to forgive them. I think we have all also been in a place where we feel God is calling us to do something, and we don’t want to do it, so we try to run from that calling. We might try to hide from that calling. We know on some level that we can’t really hide from God, but on another level, we really don’t want to do what we are feeling called to do, so we try to hide anyway.Hiding from God won’t get us anywhere we want to be. When Jonah tried to run away from his calling and hide from the Lord, he was thrown overboard from the ship he was on, swallowed up by a huge fish, and stayed in the belly of that fish for three days before he was spit out onto shore. I don’t think the same would happen to us, but as you can see, nothing good will happen, that is for sure. A better idea is to talk with the Lord. Explain to Him why you don’t feel you can do what He is calling you to do, and then listen to what He tells you. God is smarter than we are. He sees everything, and we only see a small fraction of things. If he is calling us to do something, there is a very good reason, and who are we to judge it? Who are we to question it?Let me get back to the verse, “"Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out” There are three things this verse is pointing out to us. The first is to repent. What does this even mean? According to the Oxford language, Repent means to feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one's wrongdoing or sin. The word repentance in the Bible literally means “the act of changing one’s mind.” True biblical repentance goes beyond remorse, regret, or feeling bad about one’s sin. It involves more than merely turning away from sin. Eerdmans Bible Dictionary includes this definition of repentance: “In its fullest sense it is a term for a complete change of orientation involving a judgment upon the past and a deliberate redirection for the future.”As you can see, when Peter is talking about Repentance, he is not just talking about saying I’m sorry for my sin. He is talking about changing our minds. He is talking about realizing that what we did was wrong and then changing our behavior so we don’t do it again. It doesn’t do us any good if we apologize to God for our sin and then go back to doing the same thing. It also doesn’t do any good if we say sorry, but we don’t actually think we have done anything wrong.I feel a prompting from the Holy Spirit to take a quick moment to talk about what happens when we feel the Church has rules that we don’t believe in. Maybe you don’t agree with all of the Church’s teachings. You do your best to follow most of their rules, but some you don’t understand or don’t agree with, so you ignore those. You don’t bring them up in confession because you don’t feel you are sinning, because you don’t agree with that rule or that teaching. At my retreat in April, we had a speaker who was in this boat. She was a devout Catholic and followed all the rules and teachings. However, she did not agree with the teaching on contraceptives. She felt that the church had no right to tell her what she could do with her body.If you want to hear her talk, you can find it on her website, pattyschneier. It is called Prove it God… and He did. I put a link to it in the show notes. Click Here. I don’t have time to recount her whole talk to you, although I really encourage you to listen because it was so good! Even if that is not the thing you don’t agree with, her talk gives you a way to talk to God about the things you don’t agree with and let him teach you. Patty was set in her ways and was convinced of her stanc

A Place Of AbundancePsalm 66:10-12 “For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.”This month in mentoring, we have been talking about what to do when we have to wait a long time for the answers to our prayers. I know a lot of people who have been sick for a long time, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. I know others who have been struggling for a long time, and there is no deliverance from that suffering in sight. Yesterday’s podcast addressed this, and I feel as though the Lord gave me a deeper understanding as to why sometimes our prayers aren’t answered immediately.Then I saw this verse this morning, and I thought it was a good one because of the imagery and because of the message. It begins with, “For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.” The first thing that comes to mind is that not everything is a test from God. You are not sick because God is testing you. You did not get divorced because God is testing you. God does not create bad things in our lives so that He can test us. This is important to remember. Just like if you have children and they are going through hard times, you may let them struggle a bit so they can learn from the situation, but you did not cause the situation.God is for you; He is not against you. This is an important fact that can be easy to forget when all seems to be going wrong in our lives. If you are struggling to believe this, I urge you to write it down on a piece of paper or a sticky note and place it somewhere where you will see it multiple times a day. It is the truth. God is FOR you, He is NOT against you. He does not create illness, He is not the author of bad things happening in your life.All of that being said, God does allow us to go through illness; he allows us to go through hard times because He knows we will be stronger on the other side. He knows we will become different people in that struggle. Who we become in the struggle is up to us. We have to make a choice, or many choices, throughout our struggle to become who we want to be. Going through a really difficult season can help us rely on the Lord more. It can help us become more compassionate to others who are struggling. It can teach us patience and resilience. It can teach us to slow down and to pray more. A lot of good can come out of having to struggle. We have to choose that, though.Going through a really difficult season can also have the opposite effect. Some people turn away from the Lord when they are struggling. They are angry, they don’t understand why it is happening, and instead of leaning in, they turn away. It can also harden people’s hearts and make them angry and bitter. It can make them resentful because they are suffering and others aren’t. They might be frustrated that they can’t do all the things they want to do and they take it out on others.As I said, if you want to come out better on the other side, you have to make a choice. Actually, you will need to make a lot of choices throughout the difficult season. All day, every day, you will be faced with choices to lean into God or to turn away. You will be faced with choices of developing more compassion towards others or hardening your heart towards others. You can search for things to be grateful for, or you can find reasons to be jealous of those more fortunate. You can be bitter or you can be joyful.I want you to know that I am not saying any of this will be easy. It is not easy to choose to believe in God when you feel like He is taking everything away from you, or you feel as though He made you sick. It is not easy to be joyful when you are stuck in bed and are in so much pain, and you have been this way for months with no end in sight. It is not easy to find joy in the pain. It is not easy to be grateful when you feel like your whole life is falling apart. I know this, I have been in really difficult seasons when I had to make these choices too.Do you know what, though, it is also not easy to be miserable. It is not easy to be bitter and resentful. It is not easy to have everyone avoid you because you can’t seem to be kind to anyone. It’s not easy to have everyone avoiding you because you are so negative, and all you do is complain. It is not easy to turn away from the Lord and block all the healing, strength, and love He has for you. Life is not easy. No matter what choices you are making, life is not easy. You just have to decide if you are going to make the hard choices that will benefit you or the hard choices that will hurt you. What will you choose?The ending of the verse today is the part that I wanted you to hear the most. It says, “You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through wat