Tag: Praise

A house of prayer

Sweet Lord, please let the waters of my body remember the prayers You have gifted me to pray so that my whole being will be immersed in the infinite ripples of praise and prayer for You and to You in all moments of my life. For then I too can be Your House… A House of Prayer.

Isaiah 56:6-7
And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.

What awaits…

I often think of infinity in terms of time stretching on forever, but within infinity there really is no such thing as time.  In the infinite time is rolled up into an instant leaving space for many other things to extend to infinity within that infinite moment!

Oh Lord, here in this world pure change and growth are free while everything else feels oppressed within the finite bounds of spacetime, but in an instant our chains will be loosed and our souls will fly free.  I pray that what awaits in that instant is for our souls to explode forth with infinite Love, Praise and Glory for You! Prepare us, Oh Lord, for the infinite moment that awaits us all.

Habakkuk 2:14
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

Peter 1:3
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.

Footprints

As I walk along a beach covered in the visible footprints of today, and in the hidden footprints of many yesterdays and tomorrows  – I praise and thank You, O Lord, for directing my steps into the footprints of those who walk in Your ways, and I praise and thank You, O Lord, for leading in Your ways those whose footprints I walk in. Amen.

Psalm 25:4
Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths.

Psalm 86:11
Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name.

Intersections

When two opposing lines, a vertical line and a horizontal line, intersect they create a cross – just like the cross our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, was crucified on.  On that ancient cross, at that intersection, heaven and earth collided, yet we forget… opposites and intersections are a part of our everyday lives and I think heaven can be found at these intersections.

My friends – seek the intersections, seek the opposites and when you find them fall to your knees in worship, prayer and gratitude as if you were before that very first intersection, the cross carrying our sweet and precious Lord, Jesus.

Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
– Luke 23:46

A sense of urgency

Some times when I am thinking of Him, reading about Him, listening to a song that fills my soul with Him… I feel a sense of urgency – a deep need to tell others of the great and overwhelming sorrow we will feel when we arrive at the foot of His throne and realize how little we did if anything and how much more we should have done to praise Him with every breath, every action, every thought during this short life of ours.

Then the moment usually passes and I slip back into the world, but NOT TODAY my friends.  Today is different… today I said a little prayer when this feeling came over me and I asked Him to give me the words to share.  Sweet Lord, I pray that these words are not from me, but from Your Sweet Holy Spirit.

Let our lives be nothing but the echo of God.

Deep in the woods

My husband loves to camp, and I have grown to really enjoy it too. The last time we were camping, I was lying awake listening to the sounds of the night and I had an amazing thought…

What if we have lost our ability to clearly hear and understand the creatures of the night?  To us they sound like noise, usually with a beat and in unison, but nothing more than a mixture of sounds, but what if they are really saying

“Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.”
– Revelation 4:8

Maybe all together and moving in unison and working as one, they become the four living creatures around the throne of God who are full of eyes all around and inside, singing praise to God our Father day and night without ceasing.

That night I listened and tried to hear it, but eventually I fell asleep, but you, my friends, whose hearts have remained holy and pure – listen because I am sure deep in the woods you will hear the the never ceasing praise sung by the very least creatures here on earth for the greatest of all, our Lord God the Almighty!

Teach me

  • Teach me Lord to praise You as the trees do, with their arms stretched wide day and night in praise of You.
  • Teach me Lord to be as flexible and changeable as the clouds as they move and change day and night guided by Your will.
  • Teach me Lord to be as humble as a grain of sand that knows without it’s presence the desert or the beach is not greatly changed, but gratefully realizes that it’s presence is required for the desert or the beach to be complete in Your plan.
  • Teach me Lord to be as reflective as all the waters of the earth so that I might reflect Your majesty back to You.

Thank You Lord for all of the ways you teach us!

Let the celebration continue…

Jesus is here, Jesus is born, Jesus is with us and yet what are we doing?

We are quickly taking down our decorations and we are preparing ourselves for the grind, for the coldest part of our winter and the coldest time in some of our hearts.  Our heads are down and the parties are over.

Was it the same back then in Bethlehem?

The angels were not still singing their praises for us to see and the shepherds had to move on with their flocks.  A few still sought Him in this quiet and peaceful time, but the majority of people returned to the routine of their lives.

Yet in Matthew 9:15
Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

This is not the time to return to our normal and every day lives.  He is here, He is born, He is with us!  I pray to continue seeking and celebrating because He is here!

Glory to God in the highest and on earth may we all seek Your peace!

Out of the mouth of babes…

Tonight as I was putting one of our girls to bed, I was praising her on how kind she had been to one of her sisters this evening and she said to me.

“You know Mom, when I am not good it is because God is letting me try to be good on my own, and when I am good it is because God is helping me to be good.”

I asked her where she learned this, and she told me, “I just feel it in my heart.”

WOW… this is something I have just recently started to understand and I still have a hard time remembering it everyday, and my daughter already knows it.

Thank You God for the three blessings in our life and all of the children throughout the world.  Please keep our hearts, eyes and ears open to their pure and perfect praise for 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!