His words are enough!

A friend recently read a book about Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  I have had the documentary, Bonhoeffer, in my Netflix queue for quite some time and our discussion gave me the incentive to finally watch it. I really liked it and am very interested in reading more about Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

A student of his spoke in the documentary and discussed how his teaching was so drastically different than anything she had ever experienced up to that point in her life. He taught her to read The Bible as if God was speaking directly to her.  I love this!

This is just another reminder to me that I need to read The Bible.  I can and should critically listen to others, their thoughts and interpretations, but in the end I need to read The Bible.  I need to give God the opportunity to speak directly to me.

God, thank you so much for Your Word, for blessing me with a Bible of my own and giving me the ability to read.  Please motivate me everyday to read, study, and reflect on Your Holy Words.

Arise, Shine!

For the last few months I have been waking up every morning about 10-15 min before my youngest daughter wakes up.  I usually check the time and then roll over and try to fall back asleep for a few min before I hear her calling for me.

For the last few weeks it has crossed my mind a few times during this early morning time check that maybe God wants me to wake up early and read the Bible before my daughter gets up.  I haven’t actually done this, but I have thought about it a few times.

A few days ago I started reading another blog.  The author of this blog wakes up every morning to read his Bible.

Well this morning, it happened again.  I woke up at 5:50 am, I checked the time on my phone, laid there for a min thinking about how tired I was, but then I leaned over to turn on the light.

I opened to Isaiah 60:1 and the first two words I saw were “Arise, shine”.  What a beautiful morning greeting from God!

Now I have to practice listening to His words, because unfortunately when I was done reading, I turned off the light and fell back asleep for 5 more min, and when I did wake up we had a very hectic morning.

Jesus, thank You for the beautiful wake up call this morning.  Please give me the strength to not hit the snooze button on You tomorrow morning if I am blessed with another wake up call from You!

Can our children see the Banner of Love?

I heard the song Banner of Love by Luminate today.  I love this song and started singing to myself, but I am notorious for getting the words wrong when singing a song.

The actual lyrics are below

I hear You calling me
To raise a banner of love
Up high in the city streets
One hope for all the world to see

But I accidently changed them to

I hear You calling me
To raise a banner of love
Up high in the city streets
Down low for the kids to see

I am not trying to change this song.  I love it just as it is, but when I realized I was making such a big mistake with the words, I started wondering where my rewrite came from.  I am still not sure on that, but I do think we need to be a Banner of Love for all of the children in our lives.

Thinking about a Banner of Love for the children reminded me of Joel Osteen’s sermon, The Power of I Am.  In his sermon he tells us to build ourselves up, not to bring ourselves down through “I Am”.  Such as saying to ourselves I am smart, I am strong, I am beautiful instead of I am stupid, I am weak or I am ugly.

I completely agree that we should all do this, but why are we not doing this already?  We weren’t taught to do this at an early age.

I am going to raise a tiny banner of love down low for my girls to see!  I am going to teach them to praise themselves in the mirror after brushing their teeth at night.

I believe they are Awesome, Wonderful, and Amazing!
I believe they are Loved!
I believe they are Love!

I want them to believe it too!

It is Our Best Life!  If you already believe it, then let’s start trying to help everyone else see it!  Raise your Banner of Love!