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Joseph Wept

April 29, 2011 by Fritz

Joseph’s brothers … sent a message …”Before our father died, he told us to ask you, Please forgive the crime your brothers committed” … Joseph cried when he received this message. – Genesis 50:15-17 (GNB)

Joseph’s family relationships never completely healed. In fact his whole life was a strange mix of joy and sorrow.

So is ours. Some things can’t be fixed, only endured — yet through the endurance comes something obtained no other way.

The apostle Paul wisely decided not to just endure but to embrace these, focused on the results.

And so we boast of the hope we have of sharing God’s glory! We also boast of our troubles, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance brings God’s approval, and his approval creates hope. – Romans 5:3-4 (GNB)

Difficulties show God is not finished, yet. Our value to him isn’t in what we can do for him, cast off like an old shoe when we’re done. We still have future and God is preparing us for it; changing our character to be able to embrace it.

Prayer: Thank you, Father, for giving grace to endure and a living hope for the future.

Sound Bite: I shall not only endure, but embrace God’s character building process!

-fritz@langgang.com

Posted in Endurance, Hope, Joseph | Tagged , | 2 Comments »

How to Connect Life and Prayer

April 28, 2011 by Fritz

Anthony Bloom

Take a moment to read and consider this prescription for connecting life and prayer; I think you will be blessed, I was!

Prayer arises from two sources: either from our wonder at God and the things of God …or else from the sense of tragedy, our own, and especially other people’s.  But otherwise? At other times life and prayer must be made one. For instance, get up in the morning, stand before God and say: «Lord, bless me, and bless this day that is beginning», and then treat the whole day as a gift of God and consider yourself as God’s envoy in this unknown which is the new day.

This simply means something very difficult: that nothing which happens today will be alien to the will of God: everything without exception is a situation in which God will have placed you in order that you should be His presence, his love, his compassion, his creative intelligence, his courage… And on the other hand, every time you encounter a situation, you will be the one whom God has put there to perform the office of a Christian, to be a particle of the body of Christ and an action of God.

If you do that, you will easily see that at every moment you will have to turn to God and say: «Lord, clarify my intelligence, strengthen and direct my will, give me a heart of fire, help me.» At other moments you may say: «Thank you, Lord!» And if you are wise and know how to be thankful, you will avoid the folly that is called vanity or pride, which consists of imagining that one has done something that one could have left undone. It is God who has done it. It is God who has given us this marvelous gift of having that to do.

And when in the evening you present yourself again before God and make a quick examination of the day, you will be able to sing his praises, glorify Him, thank Him, weep over others and weep over yourself.

If you begin to connect your prayer to life in this way, the two will never again be separated

– Anthony Bloom, September 2, 1967

Sound Bite: You are the one God put there to perform the office of a Christian”

– fritz@langgang.com
Read Metropolitan Anthony’s whole message here.
Related Post: God is At Work – Feburary 24, 2011

Posted in Anthony Bloom, Prayer, Quotes | Tagged | 2 Comments »

Sent, or Just Went

April 27, 2011 by Fritz

“I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go” – Isaiah 6:8-9a

Seeing a need and volunteering is every bit a valid anointing and call from God.

It gives him pleasure when we respond without waiting to be told — being “guided by his eye”1 — responding from a willing heart without need for command.

Don’t we desire the same from others?  My sweet wife seldom asks and would never tell me to get her more cola but sometimes she will say, to no one in particular, “Oh! My glass is empty!” When I or one of the children say, “I’ll get you some!” she feels loved.

Prayer:Father, help me to be so in love with you that I can see what is dear to your heart and volunteer to help. Amen!
Sound Bite: God’s call is valid whether you were “sent” or just “went”!

– fritz@langgang.com
Related Post: Better Guidance – April 21, 2011

Posted in God's Calling, Guidance | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

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