It’s hard to believe it, but the holiday season is quickly approaching. This year, Advent begins on Sunday, November 27. I’ve been busy updating my Advent devotional, More Than A Baby. Each day’s devotion features the following:

1. A daily scripture to read and meditate upon.
2. A picture to reflect upon.
3. An Advent song to listen to.
4. A focus thought for the day.
5. An application for you to incorporate into your life.
6. A prayer.

You can click here to see a sample page of the 2011 More Than A Baby devotional.

If you’d like to make the Christmas season more meaningful, my devotional will help you prepare your heart for this joyous season.

The updated version will be available for sale on our Web site on November 15. Here is the link to take you to the page. More Than a Baby. (If you click before November 15, you’ll be taken to the sales page for last year’s version).

Let’s approach this Christmas with a heart that’s ready to receive the our Savior by taking a few minutes each morning to study and worship the Lord!

Pray on!

Praying scripture is a powerful way to pray for yourself and others. I often use this way to pray when I find a scripture that seems to speak directly to a person or situation.

For example, I’ve often prayed Jeremiah 29:11-13 for my children. I pray that they will know that God has a plan for their lives, to give them a future and a hope, and that they will seek God with their whole hearts. These words of God filled with hope and affirmation seem just right to pray for my children.

Recently, I’ve realized that I can also take some of the scriptures that are warnings or admonishments and pray them for myself and others as well. I’ve not often used some of these words in prayer because of their negative connotation, but the Holy Spirit prompted me to pray the opposite of them.

For example, a few months ago I was reading in 2 Timothy and came across verse 7 “ Always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth,” (NKJV). This verse perfectly describes a friend of mine who loves to study and learn, but thus far has rejected the truth of God’s word. I began praying the opposite of this verse for my friend. “God, thank you that you have given ______ an incredible mind that is always seeking, always learning. I pray that he will be always learning yet able to accept your word as truth. Amen.”

Another example of praying the opposites came to me just a few days ago as I was reading in Isaiah chapter 1. Verses 5 and 6 are talking about how the whole person has been stricken with sickness due to rebellion. Note: I am NOT saying that anyone who is sick is rebellious! In this particular case God was talking about rebellious Judah and how most of the people were in such rebellion that the “whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint,” (v 5). Verse 6 goes on to say, “From the sole of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it only bruises, welts and raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged, nor softened with oil,” (NASB).

These words struck me, because if any of you have been reading a blog for Andrea Vellinga (For the Love of Andrea), a survivor of the Indiana State Fair tragedy, which her brother has been writing for her, one of the ways he has been asking people to pray for Andrea is a complete “head-to-toe healing.” As I read these verses in Isaiah, I thought, “That’s where his prayer came from!” Then I realized what a wonderful way this is to pray for anyone who is sick, no matter what the illness is. We can pray specifically for, say, someone’s diabetes to be healed, but if we also include prayers for healing from the “sole of their feet to their head,” we can also be praying for problems we don’t know about that may exist and could be contributing to the diabetes. And, these verses also refer to the whole person—the” whole heart,” so we need to remember that praying for spiritual healing or emotional healing is just as important as physical healing, and sometimes they are connected to each other.

Now, I don’t shy away from some of these “hard” verses, realizing that I can use them to “pray the opposites” for myself and others.

What about you? Do you have an opposite verse you like to pray for others? Feel free to share it below.

Pray on!

Image: graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net (image of Bible and praying hands)

How many times have you said, “Sure, I’ll pray for you,” when someone shares a prayer request with you, but then you forget about it?

Or perhaps you hear about a situation on the radio that you want to pray for, or you want to add a particular country to your prayer list. It’s easy for these random thoughts and requests to fall into the black hole in our minds.

Part of the problem is that we often think of these requests or someone shares them with us when we’re out and about in the midst of a busy day or maybe when we’re at church. We’re usually distracted by what we’re already doing, so it’s easy for the request to get lost in the multitude of other things that are already going on.

Well, I’ve stumbled upon a few ways to deal with this situation.

One solution is an idea my sister Mary shared with me. When she fears she may forget to pray as promised later because of all the distractions of the here and now, she stops and says, “Sure, I’ll pray for you. Let’s do it right now.” And then she stops and prays with the person right then, trusting that the Holy Spirit will bring that request to mind later when she needs to pray again.

Just lately, I’ve decided to try another tactic to capture these type of what I call “butterfly prayers” that flutter at me through my day. I decided to make a prayer board and hang it on the wall in my home office. I chose my office, because that is where I spend most of my time during the day. I’ve started carrying a small notebook in my purse, and as I hear of requests I need to remember, I write them in my notebook and then add my butterfly prayers to my board to help me remember them. What’s different about these prayers is that often times they’re for people or things not on my usual prayer lists–which makes me prone to forgetting them. And they’re often requests that are time sensitive; they need intensive prayer for a set amount of time. Well, now every time I glance at the board, I see them.

I’ve also added a few other things to the prayer board that I want to be reminded of frequently. Let’s look at a some ways to use this prayer board and brainstorm what you may want to add to it.

First of all, to make the board, I just purchased a bulletin board. You can stop there if you want and be ready to go, but I also covered mine with colorful paper. I added a few sparkly stickers to the top and purchased some fun tacks. That’s certainly not necessary, but it spiffs it up a bit. Then I hung it right where I would see it frequently.  (Just a home improvement hint: my husband recommends using Velcro strips. They’re fast, forgiving, and don’t leave holes in the walls!) Now for a few ideas on how to use the board.

• Add those butterfly prayers that you need to pray for frequently.
• Hang your current scripture memory verse on the board.
• Put a picture of a missionary you’re praying for on the board.
• Put a picture of your sponsored child on the board.
• Are you praying for a certain country or geographic area of the world this week? Add that to your board.
• Choose a name of a persecuted Christian (see Open Doors ) to pray for each day/week and add that name to your prayer board.
• Don’t forget your pastor. I’m sure he or she would appreciate the additional prayers.
• Add any lesson/character trait you’re working on. For example, for the last two years I’ve attended a spiritual retreat. Each time I was at this retreat, the Lord has given me a one-word concept He wanted me to work on. The first year my word was joy. This year the word is focus. I’ve added that word to my board.

Be sure you change out the information on your board as you’re done praying for past requests and new ones come along. You may even want to change the decor on the board to match the seasons and spiritual holidays to help you focus on them as we celebrate them throughout the year.

These are just some ideas to get you started. I’m sure you can think of others, and I’d love it if you’d share those in the comments section below.

Enjoy your prayer board and …

Pray on!

Who do you think of when you hear the word hero? Perhaps you think of our military. Maybe you think of the first responders who raced into the Twin Towers on 9/11. Or maybe someone you know is your hero.When my son was young, he used to spend hours playing with his superhero action figures as they battled the “bad guys.”

Well, last week my pastor Dave Rodriguez gave me plenty to think about in his third sermon in our Hero series. He said that heroes of the faith “are ordinary people with a deep conviction that spills over into extreme action for the love of others and the glory of God.”

I guess the emphasis on ordinary people caught my attention, because … that means that all of us are candidates to be a hero. As a matter of fact, the subject of his sermon that day was as unlikely a candidate for a hero, as ever has been: Rahab. If you remember Rahab from the Bible, she was a prostitute who ended up saving the lives of the two Hebrew spies who came to scope out the city of Jericho before the Israelites took it over. When the king’s men came knocking on her door looking for the spies, she sent them in the other direction, while she hid the spies on her roof.

Rahab had heard the stories of God and his people, and she chose to believe them and believe in Him. She went against the tide of what everyone else was doing, because she put her faith in the one, true God. Then she acted on that faith. As Dave said, “No one ever becomes a hero by just thinking about it. Intentions play no part in heroism–action does.”

A few weeks ago, Mary and I spoke at a women’s fellowship luncheon at the Foundation of Truth Worship Center in Indianapolis. Our topic was on Defeating Your Strongholds and Rahab’s story was one we used as an example of a woman who broke her strongholds. Her story is amazing, and it doesn’t end in Joshua 2.

Rahab is actually mentioned in Matthew 1 in the genealogy of Jesus (!), and she is listed in Hebrews 11 as one of the heroes of the faith, along with many others. Praise God that our pasts don’t keep us from doing big things for God. You see, it wasn’t that there was anything special about Rahab or the others listed in Hebrews. What Hebrews emphasizes was that by faith they each did their heroic deeds. Not faith in themselves, but faith in the great God we serve.

Rahab didn’t have a lot of time to decide or pray about her decision to hide the spies–heroes rarely do. It’s a risky faith that makes a person a hero, one that’s willing to act by faith when no one else is.

And like Rahab, anyone of us has the potential to be a “by faith” hero–because we serve that very same great God!

Pray on!

I was reading through a book on prayer, and I came across this ancient prayer, which I later found out is an excerpt from a prayer called St. Patrick’s Breastplate. I love the cadence and beauty of the spoken words of this prayer.

 St. Patrick’s Breastplate

Christ as a light

Illumine and guide me.

Christ as a shield O’ershadow me.

Christ under me;

Christ over me;

Christ beside me

On my left and my right.

This day be within and without me.

Lowly and meek yet All-powerful.

Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;

In the mouth of each who speaks unto me.

This day be within and without me,

Lowly and meek yet All-powerful.

Christ as a light;

Christ as a shield;

Christ beside me

On my left and my right.

Amen.

This is such a beautiful, simple prayer to start off your morning prayer time, yet so comprehensive. The prayer begins by reminding us that Jesus is our light for the journey of life that we are on (John 1:4-5), and that each morning we can pray for Him to guide us through our day, to help us stay on His path and not wander off of it.

The next verse reminds us that Christ is our shield, our protection, as Psalm 3:3 tells us. And we need only read through Ephesians 6:10-20 to see the importance of having our shield of faith securely in place for the day. It is only with this shield that we can quench all the fiery darts of our enemy.

The next four verses are so lovely. They remind us that Christ has us completely enveloped with His love and presence. This evokes Psalm 139: 7-12 for me. How completely reassuring to realize that Christ has us hemmed in! Sometimes the words hemmed in have a bad connotation, but not in this instance. We can be assured that Jesus is with us everywhere, always. He’ll be with us in that presentation for work, at home with the children, as we travel, when we have that difficult conversation.

We are then reminded to pray for ourselves and those we meet throughout the day as James 5:16 says, to remember that life is not just “all about us.” Christ wants us to shift our focus onto the people in our circle of influence.

Finally, this prayer points us to Jesus’ character and attributes. Though he was born to a lowly family, He is the All-powerful One as seen in Ephesians 3:20, which means that nothing we face is beyond Jesus. He can handle it all and, consequently, so can we. Actually, His word says we can do above all that we think possible with Him by our sides.

I love praying some of the ancient prayers of the faith. They encourage me in my walk and then inspire me to tell God the thoughts and prayers of my own heart.

I hope they do for you too.

Do you have a favorite prayer? Share it below if you’d like.

Pray on!

Do you ever wish you could do something BIG for the world? I mean something with lasting influence? You may feel as if what you do through your day doesn’t amount to much in the big scheme of things. You look at your friends or family or those in the Christian spotlight who seem to have exciting jobs and callings, while yours pales in comparison. Well, I’d like to suggest that perhaps the problem doesn’t lie with you or your calling.

The problem is how you see yourself.

You’re looking at yourself with your “worldly” eyes, rather than through your spiritual eyes as God sees you.

You see, the Bible tells us that God has given us all spiritual gifts that He wants us to use–not just during special times or events–but everyday (see Romans 12:3-8; 1Corinthians 12:8-10, 28; Ephesians 4:11).  In the ordinary, in the boring, in the busy, in the slow, in the crazy times of our lives, He wants us to use these gifts. But how many of us are really doing that?

Recently, I’ve been challenged to rethink how I look at my days and my gifts.

I’m working through a Bible study called Acts: An Invitation to Courageous Living, written by two women at my church, Corinne Gunter and Julie Meiners. In Week 6, I was asked to think about those people that God has placed in my sphere of influence, and the authors included a diagram (like the one below) in the Bible study. They said to put myself in the place of the green dot in the middle of the circle and then add on the circle the names of people in my life that I may have some influence over.

As I did that, I realized that there were a lot of names on the circle, people of various ages and stages of life, some even of different cultures. Some live close to me, some live farther away.

I then sensed God asking me how I might be able to minister to or influence these people He has put in my life, using the gifts He has given me. For example, I realized I could encourage the first-time mother on my list with a home-baked meal (using the gift of hospitality) to help her after she came home from the hospital. Intercession is another gift of mine, so I could certainly pray for a young person I know who is wandering far from the Lord. Exhortation is another gift, so I could schedule to meet with a teen girl I know to be a sounding board as she struggles with some decisions in her life.

Corinne and Julie challenged me to look at my life and open my eyes to the people God has put there. What have I been missing? Who is God calling me to help, and what is He asking me to do?

I’d like to challenge you to do the same thing. Fill out your circle of influence. Ask God to show you who may be right under your nose that could benefit from some of your time and resources. What are you missing, maybe because you’re looking for the “big” thing?

Well, God does has something big for each of us to do, and often times He has us start right where we are. What’s He putting on your heart today?

Pray on!