A Continual Invitation

Blessed be God, Who has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me! Psalm 66:20 NKJV

God assures me through His Word that my prayers do not fall on deaf ears and His mercy is not withheld. His goodness endures continually! I find comfort in that, especially when it seems I often bring the same issues to Him. He knows that with each time, He is bringing me that much closer to freedom and His desired growth in my life. He knows what insecurities still lie buried in me. He knows what areas still need His redemptive touch. But each time I come to Him in sincerity and truth He peels off yet another layer from my heart. He does not set limits on the number of times I confront internal issues, external circumstances, or anything else that weighs heavy on me.

What does this do for me? It gives me the freedom to approach Him with my needs. It encourages honesty! I don’t have to play pretend with Him. I can come as often as I want to come and stay as long as I need to stay. I don’t have to try and rush the growth process.

I can remember a time not too long ago that I hugged a person and proclaimed I was free in a certain area in my life. At the time, I thought I was. God knew better! He knew there was still work to be done. I had not faced all the issues yet or dealt with all the pain. I wanted the freedom so badly but really wasn’t there yet. I tried to rush things. The result was that I crashed big time the next day. My emotions revealed the true state of my heart. God’s invitation was clear. “Come to Me. We still have work to do.” And as I came, He listened and extended His mercy!

What am I learning? If it is still on my heart and mind it is still an area for prayer. I will know when the lesson has been learned, the truth has been grasped, and the full freedom has been embraced. God is patient. He knows how long each issue will take. I don’t have to fear I will wear Him out or exhaust His loving kindness. He does not change. I speak my words into His open ears, grasp His extended hand, and hold His undivided attention. May I offer those same things to Him as He speaks to me.


Father, nothing in my life is insignificant or off limits to You. Thank you for instituting prayer and desiring open communication. May the dialogue between us be productive and precious. Amen.

Someone Is Praying For You

I pray for them. I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word. John 17:9, 20 NKJV

We often read of the times that Jesus prayed. Sometimes those prayers were in private and sometimes they were in the company of others. The 17th chapter of John gives us an opportunity to listen in on one of His prayers. As I read it this morning I was struck by the things Jesus lifted up to the Father on my behalf. And not just my behalf but for anyone who knows Him as Savior. Hebrews 7:25 assures me that He continues the intercession for us in Heaven. He is still praying for us! Do you have certain people in your life who pray for you? Have they ever shared the specifics of those prayers? What would it mean to you if they wrote down the prayers and shared them with you? Let’s take a look at those things Jesus has already prayed and continues to pray for us.

He prayed that we would have unity. That they may be one as we are one. He prayed that we would have His joy. That they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. He prayed for our protection. That You should keep them from the evil one. He prayed for our sanctification. That they also may be sanctified by the truth. He prayed that we would experience His love. That the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.

When I dare to slip my name into each of those phrases I begin to grasp the personal, loving nature of Jesus’ prayers for me. Those prayers have not changed and yet I am aware of the fact that they are also not limited to just this list alone. He knows me inside and out. He knows my past, present, and future. Therefore, His prayers for me are thorough, passionate, effective, and powerful.

His invitation to me today is to begin to grasp the preciousness of such a Prayer Partner, to pray in agreement with Him, and then extend those prayers to others. And one of the most powerful ways to do that is implement Scripture into my prayers. I can use these very verses or numerous other ones when I am praying about a need in my own life or in the life of others. http://www.biblegateway.com/ is a valuable tool for doing just that. I can put in a word and it will show me every verse in the Bible that uses that word. Plus it will give me a choice of numerous Bible versions to choose from. I simply pick a verse that I then want to include in my prayer. This is what is meant by praying God’s Word and He delights when we do that! May many of us choose to make this a daily practice.

Father, Jesus knew the power of prayer. He demonstrated it to us and continues to be our example. Help me to be more like Him. Amen.

Seeing What Needs to Be Skimmed

Remove the impurities from silver, and the sterling will be ready for the silversmith. Proverbs 25:4 New Living Translation

I notice a pattern within myself. Walk a journey with God long enough and patterns become very evident. My most recent “pattern” has to do with unresolved hurts, disappointments, and thoughts. Avoidance, positive thinking, and denial are not the right paths for me to take. Allowing things to stay buried in hopes that they will somehow go away or resolve themselves is self-deception at best and self-destruction at worst. As a wise Teacher, God allows me to experience the pain and consequences of choices and then reveals to me where my thinking has become skewed, truth is being blocked, and healing is being hindered.

My heart’s desire is to grow and mature in my faith. I want the changes that God can bring about in my life. The problem comes when I want to rush the process and conveniently side step issues of my heart. God will not allow the success of either one. He urges me to keep pace with Himself and remain transparent and teachable to Him. It is not always easy but indeed it is necessary.

I have certain harmful mindsets that continue to wreak havoc in my life. They stem from lies, distortions, and misperceptions that I have carried with me since childhood. They affect the way I interpret things. Painful events leave a mark on me and unless I allow God to redefine my interpretations I begin to build up a huge amount of wrong thinking that eventually affects my attitude, moods, and quality of life. For a while I can seem to do fine, and then the dam of my own making breaks and I am enveloped by the very things I thought I had kept hidden and refused to bring out in the light.

This morning I have come out of one of these experiences and God is showing me the truth of today’s verse. My heart is the silver. The impurities are the wrong mindsets. Each time I am willing to voice to Him what is really going on inside of me, it is like setting a pot of liquid silver over a fire. The heat causes the impurities to come to the surface and God graciously skims them off the top. Are there still impurities to be dealt with? Yes, but each time things become clearer, purer, and more refined. This was His way of letting me know that if I do not allow Him to take me through the skimming process, the mindsets will forever remain obstacles in my life.

Father, You are so patient with me. May I continue to learn it is always safe to confide in You. Trust in You and transparency with You are my pathways to lasting change and freedom. Amen.

Where to Take the Hunger

O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1 NASB

David penned these words in a wilderness. A place where food and water would be scarce if existent at all. He could easily relate his physical hunger and thirst to his spiritual hunger and thirst. The way his body craved sustenance was the way his soul craved God! God often times will use our physical world to help enlighten us on the spiritual world. Hence, Jesus’ use of parables to explain kingdom principles to His disciples. God knows I am a visual person so He is creative and extravagant with the visual aides He uses in my life.

Yesterday He used a moment of hunger to teach me some valuable truths. He reminded me of all the times I sought to avoid hunger at all costs. I would often choose to eat before hunger sat in as a way of preventing myself from even experiencing it. Food choices were poor, amounts were ridiculous, and the results were not good. I could not grasp the idea that hunger did not have to be feared. I can remember many days whereby I would eat whatever I wanted, in whatever amount I wanted, and every time I wanted. Yet, it never satisfied me. Talk about frustrating! What I had to learn was that there were right times to eat and right ways to eat.

God took those thoughts and opened my eyes to the spiritual significance. Just as I would avoid hunger at all costs, I had learned to avoid emptiness at all costs. I needed to be on spiritual highs and looked to fill my soul with relationships, knowledge, and activities. Always on the hunt. Always trying to take in “stuff” from my external world to fill up my internal world. God has shown me that although those things are good in themselves they are not my answer. He keeps saying, “Let Me be the One you hunger for and let Me be the One to satisfy you. When no one is available it becomes OUR time to be together. I will answer your questions, meet your needs, fill your emptiness, and satisfy your heart needs. I created you and know what’s best for you. Let me take care of you. Trust Me.”

Will going to Him bring about permanent results? No. As long as I live in this world and in this body I will have needs to bring to Him. I will have areas that need fixing. I will have places that need filling. Going to Him is a daily necessity! He will let me know when I am “feeding” on the wrong things and when I am looking to the wrong sources. He will not let the substitutes work for me. He loves me that much!

Father, I know what it is to be internally hungry. Keep teaching me to come to You with the needs and find true filling and satisfaction. Amen.

Whose Will?

I do not seek or consult My own will [I have no desire to do what is pleasing to Myself, My own aim, My own purpose] but the will and pleasure of the Father Who sent Me. John 30:6b Amplified Bible

Jesus set the standard high when He spoke these to the very people who were seeking to kill Him. They were the truth by which He lived His life. From the moment of His conception to His ascension, He had but one mindset….to do the will of His Father. With Jesus, there was no other longing, desire, or purpose in life. His actions stemmed from it. His words were birthed from it. His attitude was a result of it. He did not make a plan, perform a miracle, have a conversation, or draw a conclusion that did not coincide with His Father’s will and pleasure.

As I go through my day can His words be my own? Will I allow Him to do such a work in me that everything comes down to God’s will over my own will? Knowing that His ways are higher than my ways and His thoughts are higher than my thoughts should be grounds enough for preferring His will over mine. With that said, what makes it so difficult?

I live in a fallen world…so did Jesus. I taste rejection and hurts from people….so did Jesus. I come up against trials, temptation, and troubles…so did Jesus. I have faced misjudgment, mistreatment, and misunderstanding….so did Jesus. I know hunger, tears, and heartache…so did Jesus. I have an enemy who seeks to destroy me…so did Jesus. The list could go on and on but my point is this, Jesus faced most of what I face in this world. He knows what I face each day because He faced it as well. And yet there are differences that reveal the nature of my difficulties to voice His words for myself.

I have a sin nature. My view of life is limited and my view of the future is blocked. I can only be in one place at a time. While I house divinity within myself in the form of the Holy Spirit, I am not divinity itself. My flesh is at war with my spirit. These are just a few of reasons it is imperative that I pattern my life after Jesus. He spent time in prayer, saturated Himself with Scripture, spoke the truth to Himself and others, and lived with the sole purpose of doing His Father’s will. In order to do that I must come to the place of seeing my need for His help. May I learn to whisper “Not my will by Thine be done” to every circumstance, situation, difficulty, loss, and tear as I go through my day. Trust Him, follow Him, listen to Him, and obey Him with abandon! May His words be my heartbeat today!

Father, may Christ’s words live in me! Amen.

Only God

Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Psalm 62:8 KJV

Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “Happy is the man who feels that all he has, all he wants, and all he expects are to be found in his God.” David must have lived by this same truth when he penned such phrases as My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation. Any believer who finally comes to realize the same thing as these two men steps into a whole new realm of faith. I want that kind of walk!

I look at Psalm 62:8 and I want God to be the one I trust in at all times, confide in with abandon, and rest in with complete confidence. I don’t want to go after the counterfeits. I don’t want to seek out someone else’s ear or heart. I don’t want to look for a person to make me feel safe, secure, or protected. I want all of that to come from my relationship with Him. The truth of the matter is that I am not there yet. I have known it for decades but was only able to admit it in recent years. Does that admittance discourage me? No! It frees me!

I am coming to realize that growth in the Christian life is a step by step, gradual process. Many times I have had to look back over months or even years to see that any progress has been made. In the area of looking to God alone I see two encouraging advancements. First, I now long to experience God in the way I have described. Years ago it never entered my mind…wasn’t even something that appealed to me. Second, I don’t sense condemnation or disappointment from my Father. He knows where He intends to lead me in all of this and cheers me on as I move toward His goal for me. Within that context of acceptance and embrace I now feel free to admit the things He already knows about me.

This morning I am asking myself some necessary questions. What are my trust issues with God? What is it that I need to voice to Him? What are my insecurities that need to find refuge in Him? I will find the answers and healing as I acknowledge anything He reveals to me. No more hiding, excusing, blaming, or running. Trust, communication, and safety are but a few of the many gifts He holds out to me on a daily basis. Praise Him!

Father, I hear Your invitation to intimacy. Show me anything that still hinders me from seeing You as the ONLY one! Amen.

I Still Miss Her

In March of 2000, I sat in the balcony at my church and took in the fact that I would soon be facing my first Mothers' Day without my mom. She had been killed in a car accident after suffering a heart attack the previous February. I still remember the profound ache and extraordinary loss that enveloped me. Physically I felt like someone had taken a piece of barbed wire and shoved it into my chest...then proceeded to twist it. My mom who was so full of life. The one with whom I could laugh the hardest. The one I took after in so many ways. The one with whom I enjoyed Christian fellowship for the last 14 years of her life. The one who over came her alcoholism but struggled with depression. The one who loved me and cheered me on in life. The one who adored my children. Gone. Heaven held her and I couldn't get to her.

It was in March when the Lord gave me a poem which I would like to share with all of you. Written with my mom in mind, I now dedicate it to all of you who have lost your mothers....whether years ago or recently. While my personal pain and sorrow have subsided and good memories have replaced them, my heart goes out to any who face a difficult Mothers' Day this year. God bless you and may His presence be your comfort.

I Still Miss Her

It seems like only yesterday
I sent a Mother’s Day card away.
I didn’t think it would be the last,
I signed it with love and mailed it fast.
Now that she has gone away,
It doesn’t feel like Mother’s Day.
There are no more chances to send a card,
To ship some flowers, to make a call.
There’s no more thanking her for all she’s done.
No more visits,
No more fun.
I cannot hug her or kiss her cheek.
I cannot even share a laugh.
It all too quickly became the past.
I took each visit with her for granted.
I thought there’d always be more to come.
The camera lies still now
From her use and mine.
All the pictures have been taken,
All the memories have been made.
All the words have been spoken,
All the letters have been mailed.
The thing I miss the most of all
Has got to be her voice
Whether on the telephone or talking face to face.
I’d wish for one more conversation either here or at her place.
I know I’ll see her again some day,
We’ll share the sights of heaven.
We’ll talk, we’ll laugh, we’ll hug,
We’ll kiss….it’ll be Mother’s Day once more.
But until then I’ll be a mom for Mother’s Day instead of
Being a daughter.

Pam Shattuck
March, 2000