Filling the Gap Ministries blog

"Sensing" God

2010-09-26T15:20:00.000-05:00

“…Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5

I think it would be safe to say that many Christians have moments in our life in which we say that we “just don’t feel God” or we just don’t “sense” His presence. I know I have said this…that is, until God finally showed me the truth about Him and His presence. The truth about God’s presence is that when a person asks Christ into their heart, the Holy Spirit takes up residence. Not temporary residence, but permanent residence (Eph. 1:13-14). Christ, the Holy Spirit, and God, the Father, are ONE…the Holy Trinity. So, if you do the math (even someone who is as bad at math as I am can figure this one out!), God is always with His children. Living inside of us is about as close as you can get. However, Satan loves to sell believers the lie that when we fail God, He will abandon His children. When we believe this lie, we begin to pull away from God by spending less time with Him in prayer because we have been told He isn’t listening. We pull away from God by letting His word sit on the night stand beside our bed or remain in the car from the Sunday (or two…or three Sundays) before. Why? Because we have been told the lie that He is so angry with us that He couldn’t possibly have anything to say. Lies, all lies. Today, God is using this post to speak to my heart and to you who feel as though He is far from you. He is speaking to you who are undergoing a very difficult trial with no end in sight; to you who plead, with tears falling, to the God who has done so many great things; to you who wonder, "where is He in all of this?” May your view of God’s presence be changed through this post.

God’s word challenges His people to walk by faith and not by sight. He tells us this because we, as humans, have difficulty applying this concept in the ‘land of the living.” We often need to see it, touch it, smell it, or hear it, to believe it. Too many times we count God out because we don’t feel Him through our 5 senses. As His children, it is crucial that we believe God regardless of what we “feel” (Hebrews ch. 11). This is faith. However, I have also noticed that many times God is showing Himself to me or speaking to me…but it is me who does not notice His presence. God has shown me that in order for me to see or hear Him, I must have a relationship with Him to even recognize His voice, His presence, His fingerprints. Today, I want to share with you examples of how God has made His presence known to me through my 5 senses.

Hearing: Things that I hear are evidence of God’s presence. Listen closely to what you hear around you and you will hear Him. —A few days ago, I was shopping at a small grocery store. It was early in the morning and I had ran in for a few items. I was almost to the check out line when I turned the corner and heard the most beautiful sound… the sound of a man praying. It wasn’t loud and I never saw the man who was praying. But, I heard him. I stopped my buggy and fought back the tears as I listened to this man praying in his office as he began his day at his job. I listened as this man showered our God with praise and adoration.– I know my God is near when I hear the sound of a check being torn from a “check book”. Why? Because as a child, that was one of the first sounds I heard every Sunday morning as I watched my parents write out the check for their tithe, tear it out, and place it in an envelope to put in the offering. That sound was eveidence of God’s presence as He blessed their obedience and how He now meets our every need in my home now.– I know God is with me every time I sit under the reading of His word. I hear His words and they wash over me like water… “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”–Mark 4:23

God is speaking to you also. Do you hear Him through His word?

Touch: I know God’s presence is with me when: – I touch the pots and pans that my grandmother used to cook with. I touched that handle of that pot this week and I recalled the memories of my grandmother’s hand on mine as we cut out biscuits together. I thank God for putting four wonderful grandparents in my life that began a spiritual legacy; –I also was reminded of God’s presence a few days ago, as I felt my 5 year old son take my hand and remind me that we hadn’t said our prayer before school. I was in such a hurry that I almost forgot the most important part of our day, and praise God, it was important to Canaan too.–I feel God as I touch the pages of my Bible. My hands sometimes tremble at the very thought of what I am holding. As my fingers turn page after page of His spoken word, I can just imagine Paul (and many others) sitting for countless hours writing…writing…writing, as God impressed His words upon their hearts. We have His word at our fingertips, yet we don’t even pick it up. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”-2 Timothy 3:16-17

Taste: I know God is near me when I thirst for Him and His word… When I was a young girl, I loved to spend the night with my grandparents who lived in the country. Before they had “city water”, they had”well water”. I would stand at the bathroom sink before bedtime and drink a million Dixie cups (it seemed like) of that cold well water. It was so different. The taste wasn’t like anything I’d had before. When I asked my grandmother why it tasted so good, yet so different, she said, “because the well flows from a spring.” Are we tapped into the Spring of Living Water? Or, have we dug our own wells and come up empty? We have become empty in our spiritual life, empty in our marriage, empty in our churches, etc. The closer you grow to God, the more insatiable your appetite becomes for Him and who He is. ”Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!”– Psalm 34:8

Smell: God’s presence is ‘right under my nose’…The night I take my shot for my disease, I mentally prepare myself for the pain that I know will come. Even though it’s painful, the smell of the alcohol gauze pad reminds me that this body is owned and operated by my Lord. It is a temporary body and one day there will be no more pain, no more medicine. I will receive a new perfect body and all the trials of this disease will have been worth it all!! Praise God!! “But our citizenship is in Heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body.” –Phil. 3:20-21

Seeing: I saved this one as the last of the 5 senses to write about. I believe that through this post, God wants us to know that we can “see” Him all around us, all the time…if we just take the time to look…or smell, taste, touch, or hear. To me, “seeing”, in this case involves discernment. Knowing God’s personality and His fingerprints so well, we immediately recognize Him and His presence. Seeing God is looking at my son, whom God promised to me and Shane when we thought we would never have a child; –Seeing God is looking closely at the precise detail of a daisy or watching the enormous sun rise and set every day.– Seeing God is looking in the mirror and actually seeing my reflection starring back at me, 4 years after being diagnosed with a rare disease. But seeing God around us also involves faith…faith that He understands and sees what we cannot. Seeing God around you isn’t about understanding what you see…it’s about believing that He understands and controls what you are seeing. “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” –1 Sam. 16:7; “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry…” Ps. 34:15; ”But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”–Job 23:10

These are just glimpses my God has been so gracious to allow me to see, hear, touch, smell, and taste His presence around me and recall it when I need Him close. His presence is with His children every morning when we rise, throughout the day as we carry on, and during the night as we sleep. I hope you will begin today to refuse to believe the lies of Satan. The lies that say God has abandoned you. Though believing God in complete faith is sometimes a difficult challenge, it is also a challenge to open our eyes to His presence as He comforts us through our senses. No matter how long or how far you’ve walked away from God, tell Him you want to draw near to Him and He will draw near to you (James 4:8 ). It’s really as simple as that.

Love,
Corrie

My prayer for today:

Dear gracious Heavenly Father, may you be exalted above all. For you alone are to be praised and glorified. Thank you for giving me the gift of salvation. And thank you for leaving your Holy Spirit to dwell within me. Thank you for allowing me to know you are close. May I walk by faith in that You will never leave me nor forsake me. Recall to my mind and my senses that you are always close to me…

A Voice Behind You

2010-07-22T19:12:00.003-05:00

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." Isaiah 30:21 It's funny how God uses weird things like a kid's baseball game to speak, but He does... This past summer was my son's first year to play (what he referred to as) "real" baseball. At the ripe old age of 5 (the age of "I know everything!"), Canaan quickly began to learn the fundamentals of America's favorite past time. After the first practice, my confident 5 year old, quickly realized he knew much less about baseball than he had originally anticipated. Coach Jeremy Penny (may God forever bless this man!)saw Canaan's hesitation and lack of self-confidence and began to teach Canaan. By the fist game, Canaan knew that if he just listened to his coaches (and his "very proud and loud" momma from the stands), followed through with what he had learned, he would be able to make great plays. One game, Canaan was on third base, ready to run across home plate and score another run for the "Crimson Cats"! If you know anything about baseball, you know that if you are on third base, you take off running when the ball is hit, but you MUST, I repeat, MUST listen to your third base coach (thanks Coach Jason!)to know if you need to run home or come back to third. I can see this in slow motion in my mind...---The ball was hit. Canaan took off running toward home...but you could tell his ears were listening for Coach Jason's voice behind him telling him what to do. Then, when Canaan crossed the half-way mark between third and home, Coach Penny stepped in front of Canaan, beside home plate, motioning him to come on home and slide. For that moment, it seemed as though time stood still as God spoke to my heart. All Canaan had to do was listen to his coaches and then do what they said to do. The voice behind him told him when to go, and then his coach was waiting on him at his destination and told him what to do when he got there...if only we did the same for God. Do you ever feel like you can't hear God? I know I have felt that way so many times in my life. You have a situation in your life (or several situations!)that you have no idea how to handle or what to do and you desperately need God's clarity. You pray and...nothing. You become frustrated, anxious, even depressed. You may even begin to think God is angry with you, that He has turned away from you. The deadline of the "situation" draws closer or, it just feels like you are "stuck" because everything stays exactly the same. We think to our self, "Why doesn't He answer??!!!" It's taken some time, but God has and is teaching me how to hear Him. Alot of the answer is found in Isaiah 30:21. I have come to know that my calling on this earth is to tell as many people as I can that God wants a relationship with them. He wants to give us an eternity in Heaven with Him too, but while we are here on the earth, HE WANTS A CLOSE PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP with those who are His children. One lie that Satan tells the Christian is that God only speaks to "certain Christians". Let me tell you why this is a lie. When Christ died, the veil was ripped and His children are able to speak to God at any time, any place, and about anything, through Christ. You may be saying, "Oh I do TALK to God, Corrie, but I need God to talk to ME." See, I missed this for a really long time. If you are a Christian, God speaks to you. Period. Now, "how" He speaks is the key. If you have asked Christ into your heart, then the Holy Spirit lives within you. This is crucial to know and believe because the Holy Spirit is one way through which God speaks and answers us. Among many things, the Holy Spirit is the convictor. For example, you may be praying about a relationship, job, financial issues, etc. The Holy Spirit helps you know that acting a certain way to your spouse is wrong; that pursuing a certain job isn't bringing you peace; the guilt we feel when we mismanage HIS money. That, my friends, is God speaking. Many times, THAT is the 'voice behind you saying..." Hearing God is about paying attention. Another way to hear God comes through the reading of His word. Often times, we pray, but forget to pick up His written word. If you are His child, every time you read God's word, He is speaking. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." Thoroughly equipped...hmmm..sounds good, doesn't it? I don't know about you, but I sure do want to be "thoroughly equipped" in my marriage, in my job, as a parent, friend, etc. The second part of Isaiah 30:21 speaks of faith and obedience. Once you know the way, you must be obedient to "walk in it." One more thing regarding Isaiah. 30:21... don't doubt.The scripture doesn't say, "I thought I heard a voice behind me saying...", or "the voice behind me said, "this might be the way for you, but I'm not really sure,". God WILL answer us. It will be only on His time frame and He does NOT consult with you or me about His answer. I have found in my life that sometimes God has been speaking...I just didn't recognize His voice because it wasn't the answer I was looking for. Doubt can interfere with God's guidance for our life. God says, in James 1:6-8, "But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord.He is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does." Wow. Unstable? Doubt in God's ability to come through or even hear us causes us major problems. If you really read Isaiah 30:21 carefully, our job is not to look for "signs"; never to crawl in a hole feeling sorry for our self; or to be angry that God isn't moving fast enough. Our job is to listen and walk. And just like Canaan, our "coach" will tell us when to go and He will show us what to do when we get there. All Canaan did was listen and obey. What about you? Have you bought into the lie that God can't speak to you? Spend time with Him and His word. Pull back your heart and allow Him to wash away all your sins of doubt, fear, worry, depression, and whatever else that DOES NOT come from Him. Tell Him you will be listening for the voice behind you and will be ready to run when He says go. And then, keep your eyes on Him for direction...when you get close to the plate. It's funny how God uses weird things like a kid's baseball game to speak, but He does... :-) Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, thank you for teaching me such a valuable lesson. Forgive me for buying into Satan's lies that tell me You aren't listening to me when I come to you. Help me to keep my ears open and be willing to wait upon you for as long as You say "wait". But when you say "go", help me to run toward You with no doubt. You will not and cannot fail me...

First Fruits or Leftovers?

2010-06-18T14:00:00.000-05:00

Not long ago, on a Wednesday afternoon, I stopped in a clothing store to "look around" (I never know when my husband, Shane, reads my posts, but better to be safe then sorry! ha!). I was confused on the actual price of a pair of pants (not that I was buying them, of course), so I decided to ask a sales person.I noticed that all three of the store employees were assisting one woman. They were all gathered around her, each holding different articles of clothing.I walked over to wait to ask my question. As I was standing there, the young woman, whom the ladies were assisting, began to chat. She seemed very uncomfortable to have all this attention, but at the same time, she seemed very greatful. The woman was not dressed in lavish clothing, nor did she seem to even care about the styles and colors of clothes she was being shown. She laughed as she said how long it had been since she had gone shopping. There was something about her, something that just let you know she was excited... but not for the reason you would think. She just kept smiling. And then, the woman explained the reason for her smile. She said, "Tonight, I am going to church for the first time and I want to wear my best." It was then that I realized that the store employees were not just helping her with one item. She had asked for new everything! Shirt, skirt, shoes, undergarments, necklace, etc! I felt my heart break into a million pieces. My eyes welled up with tears so big that I almost couldn't hold it back. I thought to myself, "How often have I withheld the very best for my Lord?" I don't know the complete story of that woman. All I know is that she knew she was entering a Holy place before a Holy God and she wanted to present herself in nothing less than her very best...her first fruits.She withheld nothing and gave everything. I want you to know that this post is not being written to critique fashion or discuss what is proper church "dress code" for Sunday mornings or Wednesday nights. Let's just get that out of the way, really quick. This post has everything to do with looking deep into our hearts and dumping out those things or people that we give our best to and then give our God the leftovers. God used this woman to remind me that we often fail to offer Him our first fruits, our very best.I guess the overall point God desires to make to me, to you, is that times have changed, but God has not. It blows my mind to read stories in my Bible about the incredible things God did for His people thousands of years ago. But the mind blowing part comes when I look up from my Bible and realize that HE IS THE SAME GOD TODAY!!!! WOW!!!!!! The God who parted the Red Sea; the God who flooded the earth, yet protected Noah, his family, and animals to begin again; the God who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; the God who ripped the veil when He sacrificed His only Son on Calvary so that you and I could have a relationship with Him...the same God I pray to. Mind blowing. But somewhere along the way, we, His people, have forgotten that we serve this kind of God. We have fallen into materialistic legalistic mumbo jumbo stuff that does not honor Him nor does it honor what He has asked us to do--"Go and make disciples." His own people have sought to give our best to our spouse, our children, our careers, our own selves...and this God, whom we say we are devoted to...gets the leftovers and sometimes nothing at all. This is very serious. This will not and is not being tolerated by our Lord. So what does God say about first fruits and how can we give Him what He has required of us? Obviously, first fruits are the "first" portion of a harvest. In the Bible, the first of harvests and animals were given to God. The offerings were given to God in obedience to show Him honor and prove that they trusted God to bless them with a greater harvest to follow. God's people also dedicated their firstborn to God to bless them and their household (The first fruits ceremony is well described in Deut. 26). They wanted God to bless their households...hmmm. The best was given to God...not kept for one's self. Wow. In 2010, that concept seems so foreign. We scout out the harvest, give God little to nothing at all, and keep what we want and give Him the leftovers. You may be reading this and say,"Corrie, we are not Israelites nor do we live in Old Testament times. We don't have to offer our fruits, veggies, and animals to God." But we are required to give Him our first fruits, or in other words, put Him first in every aspect of our life. This includes our finances (yes, I do mean tithing and no, I don't back down from that concept at all.),our time, our decisions, etc. First fruits are about obedience, faith, and keeping God as our first priority. Yet, as His people, our homes, churches, and our nation, does not reflect these three things. Instead, we are disobedient in our hearts, thoughts, and actions. We have replaced Him with idols of our self, our family, and things. But still we wonder why we feel as though God isn't moving in our life. We wonder why it feels as though when we pray, He isn't listening. God's word is very clear about how putting Him first in every aspect, will bring us into a closer relationship with Him, which in turn, blesses us abundantly. What about you and me? With our time, does God get the very first words that come from our mouths that morning in prayer with Him? After all, He did wake us up. Do we fit Him into our schedule or do we schedule everything around Him? Of course, He "MADE" time, but does that really matter to us? With our finances, do we give God what He requires (10%) off the top or do we buy what we need and if there is any left to drop in, we give it and feel as though we have pleased Him? Then we wonder why our finances seem hopeless. Do we parent our children the way we want to or do we seek His wisdom and read His word on how God says to parent? Do we wait when He says wait and go when He says go? We often think He isn't answering the way we want Him to so we take it upon ourselves to "fix" our families. Yet, we wonder why we feel as though we are failing. Maybe you have read this post and say, "Corrie, this is all well and true, but it is difficult for me to put God first, be obedient, and walk by faith." At least, this is what I said, and I wrote this! Ha! Then God showed me a verse that will be the wind behind my back to make Him a first priority, to walk by faith and to be obedient: James 1:17-18 says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change, like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruit of all He created." There is our motivation. WE can read those verses and be reminded that we and all we have belong to God. And by that fact alone, we know that God is devoted to those who belong to Him. This ensures His provision for our lives, fostering trust(faith)in Him, moving our feet in obedience, and placing Him at the very center of our life...that is the purpose of first fruits... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: God forgive me for not giving you my very best in every aspect of my life. Help me from this day forward to remember that I belong to you and that you love me more than I could ever know. You show your mighty strength when you move mountains for me, yet, you sit quietly beside me while I sleep at night. I place you at the very center of my life, my body, my family, my home, my church, my friendships, and my nation. May you have free reign, Lord, to do as you please. And may I glorify you by giving you back my first fruits...Amen

You... Are... Surrounded

2010-05-18T22:14:00.007-05:00

"Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in Him." Psalm 32:10 I want to begin by saying "thank you". You have truly blessed my heart and the hearts of my family with all your prayers, calls, cards, emails, and visits, during these last three months. Since my last post entry in February, I've had a few set-backs with my health and my grandmother passed away and went on to be with our Lord. Every day, I wanted to write a new post. But every time I sat down to try, I just felt God saying "No, it's not time." So, I waited. During that "wait", God began to provide just what He knew that I needed and that was rest...rest in Him. Rest for my mind, body, and emotions. So, that's where I've been. I've been at His feet. I've been in His arms. I've cried, I've laughed. I've sang praises to Him and I've listened to Him through His word. He provided just what He said He would do and that was give me rest. But now, as the Holy Spirit speaks to my heart, it is with great excitement that I write! May God speak directly to your heart with His words, and may you and I receive them into the innermost places of our hearts... The last part of Psalm 32:10 has come to be one of my "go to" verses for this season of my life. My heart seems to perk up and skip a beat when I see the words, "the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in Him." To me, this verse can be broken down into three parts: 1.) surrounds 2.) unfailing love 3.) the man who trusts in Him. I choose to focus on "surrounds" first. I'll explain why. By definition, "surround" means, "to enclose on all sides". This phrase in this verse is meant to be viewed positively. But why do we feel this so negatively? Why do we, God's people,feel as though some days, darkness surrounds our thoughts like a cloud. Why is it that some moments, our bodies seem surrounded by pain with no end in sight? Why is it that we feel trapped with financial strain, broken families, or death? Enclosed... on...all...sides. The reason to the "why" is that we buy the illusion of Satan. His version of "enclosed" twists and turns our minds (and stomachs) into knots with anxiety and depression. But this verse, my friend, Psalm 32:10 is just one of the many verses of truth that exposes Satan for the liar that he is!!! The truth is found in the next part: God's unfailing love. If I wouldn't break every bone in my body, I think I would do a cart wheel right here in my house when I think of this concept!!!!! As humans, this is where our faith breaks down. We are sinners, therefore, capable of failing. And as humans, who interact with OTHER humans, we also have BEEN failed. So, accepting the concept of a God that CAN'T fail, is so hard for us to grasp. Satan studies and knows this about each one of us. God's unfailing love can change everything about our perception on a day to day basis. It makes being "enclosed on all sides" a wonderful thing! I know that no matter what form the fiery dart takes when Satan hurls it, I am enclosed on all sides by my God. He will not fail me. He cannot fail me. No matter what my problem 'appears' to look like, God has me surrounded. That's a big deal. I can't help but think of the great escape artist, Harry Houdini. He devoted his life to purposely being enclosed on all sides and then showing he could escape. But illusionists always have ways to make the crowd think the problem is just to big to take. But as I said, it is only an illusion. Satan does the same. At this point in my walk with God, He is showing me where I am left unguarded in my mind, emotions, prayer life, etc. God shows me that the only way to believe I am safe and 'surrounded' by Him, is to look at the last part of that verse: the man who trusts in Him. It always comes down to faith in our Lord. The man who trusts in Him doesn't try to "fix" the illusion...because it's just that---an illusion. I am in no way saying that our problems aren't real. My disease is very real, but the thoughts that perpetuate fear within me are not from God. The thought of "why would God choose me to have a ministry when I am so physically challenged?"--that's the illusion. The thought of "God is angry with me" or "God must not love or need me as much as so and so"---that is the illusion. We must understand that as God's people, we have an eternal home awaiting us. We must understand that by accepting God's son into our heart through salvation, we have been bought and paid for and are sons and daughters of Jehovah. But I think what we often fail to remember that AS God's people, we are also hated by Satan and are very often walking around without our spiritual armor on. We are so quick to blame God for the insecurities we feel or the "problems" we have. Yet, we fail to see in this verse alone, that we are loved with such a deep, unending, precious, unfailing love. Let us hold fast to God's word. Let us be aware of the illusions that Satan puts before us each and every day and waits for our sinful reaction. What about you? What illusions does Satan engulf your thoughts in day after day? Do you FEEL as if the walls are closing in or do you BELIEVE that you are enclosed on all sides by the unfailing love of a mighty God? What's the difference? To me, the difference is ...the man who TRUSTS in Him. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I bow before you pleading with you to forgive me for doubting you and your unfailing love for me. I can't count the days that I have bought the illusions of Satan that have brought me nothing but fear and sadness. May my eyes stay fixed on you and may I be seen in Your eyes as the one who trusts in You. I pray every piece of your armor on so that I may be ready to be Your soldier and to finish the purpose you have created for me on this very Earth...

FTGM Women's Conference Recap

2010-04-10T02:47:00.009-05:00

FTGM would like to thank the ladies at Crooked Oak Baptist Church for giving Corrie the opportunity to serve them last month. On March 13th, Crooked Oak ladies held their annual women's conference and Corrie served up a strong Word for us that day. I always look forward to Corrie's conferences. Not because she is a lot of fun or because she has this uncanny way of addressing a large group of women like she was each one's closest friend. All this is true, but I love going because I never leave without being deeply challenged by God through His Word. Corrie's goal for every speaking opportunity (I know this because I never fail to hear her pray this before every conference) is that she would fade into the background and Jesus Christ would take over. Girlfriend may look cute, but when the Spirit of Christ takes over her mouth, you forget about her cute accent and charm and you suddenly find yourself in a personal wrestling match with the Lion of Judah (Jesus Christ) Himself! And that weekend was no exception.

Before I continue the recap I have to mention that this particular conference was a double treat because Corrie's closest friend, Heather, was able to attend for the first time. Heather is a major part of FTGM in many vital facets. She lives in Orlando, FL with her husband, Adam (also to whom FTGM owes many thanks!), but grew up with Corrie in north Alabama and was home this weekend for her BABY SHOWER! The FTGM family is tinkled pink (literally) for baby girl who will be coming soon! Hopefully, we will have more details later on, but for now let me see if I can finish this recap as succinctly as possible.

As soon as we arrived, Heather and I found a perfect spot on the back row (not because we double as bouncers) and eagerly awaited the conference to begin. Before I unpack a little of Corrie's message for you I wanted to mention a clip I caught, or actually it caught me, from some of the special music. I don't remember the song's title, who wrote it, or blast it, even who sung it (I am so sorry if you are reading this!), but I certainly rememeber how she sung it. That's what caught my attention. This woman had lived the Word she was singing, and she belted those words with an authority that could have only come from having been with and witnessed Jesus Christ herself. I scrambled to find my pen and paper in enough time to scribble a version of the lyrics.

There is victory through it; Its up to you to stand firm.

Wait for Him and see it through.

Before this bold woman of faith took her seat, she exhorted every soul in that room to seek out what God says in His Word about your trial or circumstance, stand firm on that truth alone, and refuse to move.

And that was only the beginning.

Corrie brought us a message from the series she authored and is currently walking through with her God Seekers Bible study group on Tuesdays. The message is entitled, "If the Walls Could Talk" and it is based on Daniel 5. She spoke on the secret places of our lives. Our thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors that live in our hearts and are seen lived out daily behind the "safe" walls of our homes. However, every bit of it is exposed to God. And of course the key question is, "If the walls could talk in your home, what would they say?" Well, I don't mind telling you that after she finished I didn't stay on that back row for long. Even now, while I am recapping this message for you, the conviction is being renewed. I'm sorry I can't list all of the points from this message here for you, but you can contact Corrie to receive her complete notes and handout if you want. There was one major thing she said that resonated with me then and now that I want to share here.

He wants us to do it His Way....even in the secret place.

And isn't that where the fight is the fiercest? It's scary how its too easy to grow weary of fighting and relaxing our grip on Christ when it is only just me and Him in my thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors at home. Yet, His eyes and opinions are absolutely the only ones that ever count, and that won't become more evident to us than on that Day when we stand before Him and Him alone to be judged (see 2 Corinthians 5:9-10). Some of our toughest battles seem to also be the most private, where it is just us and Jesus and maybe our closest family members present. We think its no big deal to give in to the attitudes and behaviors that are not brought under the control of the Spirit of Christ, especially since no one really notices when you agree with that thought or maintain that attitude toward your husband (ahem, this may or may not be coming from my own personal experience). And all the time scripture reminds us that there is a spiritual war between two kingdoms waging all around us and all of heaven and all of hell looks on to see what choice you and I will make in that, what we believe to be, most private moment.

Who will be glorified?

As Beth Moore says, in every harrowing circumstance and trial there is "glory at stake". Thank you, Lord for your faithfulness to convict your people of abundant life-stealing sin so that we will cry out to you for a new heart. Thank you for having zero tolerance of sin in a people made holy for your Name. For not allowing any of us to remain comfortable with the attitudes and behaviors we practice in our secret places that are against You and who You have recreated us to be like in the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask you to come expose us. It is You our deceitful hearts really want. We are dependent on you for any stitch of healing, and we are hopeless to change apart from you doing the work in us. Point out each sin and give us godly sorrow over each one, then we trust that you will forgive us our sins and create a new and pure heart within us that seeks to do God's will and not ours...even in the secret places.

To God be ALL glory forever and ever. Amen.

A Plan-B Puddle

2010-02-16T17:01:00.000-06:00

The Story of Jacob (Please read the entire story when you have your quiet time with God): Genesis Chapters 27-33

Galatians 5:25: "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."

1 Thessalonians 1:3: "We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."

Titus 1:2-3: "-a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, and at His appointed season, He brought His word to light throughout the preaching entrusted to me by the command of our God our Savior."

I hope you enjoy reading this post. Yes, it is longer than usual, but I praise God for what He showed me through writing it! May He reveal much to you as well...

The other day, while driving to take Canaan to preschool, I saw a mother duck walking down the side of the road, with two baby ducklings following closely behind. I had to stop for road work, so I began to watch the ducks (Hey, if you could see where I live, you would totally understand! haha!). Based on where we were, I knew the ducks had walked a long way. Their journey came to an end when the mother duck led her babies to a small mud puddle on the side of the road. She stopped, hesitated, but then ushered everyone into the puddle. I felt sorry for them because they were trying to swim in a dirty overcrowded pool of muddy water. As the traffic moved, I noticed that right past the puddle, there was a huge beautiful pond! I thought, "Why didn't you keep on walking to the pond and not settle for the puddle?" Then, I saw why. The pond couldn't be seen from the puddle. A big bush was in between, obstructing the view. Those ducks were so close! They had no idea that what they really wanted was right around the corner...if they had just kept walking. I'm sure the momma duck was looking for a pond, but she had a plan-B...the puddle. I know this sounds silly, but God allowed me to see those ducks. He immediately reminded me of how often I tend to become spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally frustrated. How instead of waiting on Him to give me His very best, I settle for what "I" view as His best. God showed me that when I become weary from walking, I often stop at the puddle when the pond is just around the corner. But, there is good news for us "plan-B puddle ducks"!! His word is full of people who did the very same thing! And His word shows us the best part...how to keep walking to find the pond He promises.

As I mentioned, the Bible gives numerous accounts of Godly men and women who went ahead of God and tried to "speed things along", by orchestrating their own plans. First, you have the lovely couple, Adam and Eve, who decided that God must be 'holding out' on them with the whole, 'don't eat the fruit' thing (we know that didn't go well). Abraham thought he would help God along with His promise of blessing him with children. That didn't go well either (I can sure see why! Women don't share men very well). The Israelites thought they would just say and do what they wanted to, even though God kept telling them the game plan (We know that just led to alot of walking). We get so frustrated with these people of the Bible and are eager to point out their flaws. It is easy for us to sit back and say what they should have done. But, we KNOW the rest of their story. It's so different when it is our own self who is waiting on God to move and we can't see past the bush. Don't we, at times, think God is holding out on us? Don't we get impatient with God? Don't we grumble and gripe while we walk, even though we have His promises? We even go as far as having a 'back up plan"...just in case God doesn't come through for us. Or, just in case God doesn't answer us exactly the way we want Him to. In preparing this particular post, God brought to my mind, the story of yet another child of God who stopped at the plan-B puddle. I am referring to Jacob. If we read the end of the story of Jacob, we see a patriarch who saw the very power of God in his life. We see a man who God protected and blessed. We see one of the men that would continue the very bloodline of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. But at first glance, Jacob was a complete mess. His name even meant "cheater, heel grabber". He wanted God's blessing so bad, that he was willing to take it by force by deception. In other words, he stopped at the puddle and made himself fit. But then, the greatest part, God takes Jacob's failure and works it to Jacob's good. Picture this(Genesis ch. 27 & 28): Jacob has just ran away from his home for deceiving his father and his brother. He steels a blessing that wasn't even for him. He breaks his fathers heart and his angry brother vows to kill him. It is night and Jacob is tired, sad, and even afraid. He has never really been away from home and to leave on such harsh circumstances was even more depressing. It was there at Bethel that God meets Jacob in a powerful way. God gives Jacob a promise for the future: "All peoples on earth would be blessed through you and your offspring." Then, God ministers to Jacob's immediate problem. He promises this lonely wanderer that he would be with him and never leave Jacob. Verse 15 says, "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." What an awesome meeting with the Almighty God!! This gives Jacob fuel to keep walking. Now, if you are like me, you read this and say, "Corrie, this is Jacob, not me. I have been walking my Christian walk and waiting on God to speak and I don't hear Him. I see alot of puddles, but there is no pond in sight." We must remember that God's word and the Holy Spirit, allows us to have encounters with God any time we want or need to. People in the Old Testament did not have access like this. You and I can pick up God's word at 3:oo in the morning and read His words and hear His promises to us. We also have to remember that God spoke to Jacob when He was in the wilderness. He was walking to "no where" (in Jacob's mind). But we are never walking 'no where' with God. As His children, we must realize the sovereignty of God. We mustn't, at any point, think that God doesn't care about our cries and our discontentment. In fact, just as the Israelites did, we must cry out to God for the pond and not settle for the plan-B puddle. No plan that you nor I have for our life will EVER be greater than God's plan for our life. The last part of the story speaks of Jacob's doubt of God. After this encounter with God at Bethel, years pass and Jacob gets word that his brother, Esau, is looking for him. Yea, the ANGRY brother that Jacob ripped off a blessing from, then left! Instead of continuing to walk to "the pond" in faith and trust God to be true to His promise, Jacob develops a Plan-B puddle to soften the blow with Esau. That night, God meets with Jacob again and reminds him of His promise. By deciding to trust God, Jacob's reunion with his brother is then greater than he ever could have imagined OR ARRANGED HIMSELF. Good story, right? The question is, what do WE do? Maybe you've read this whole post while thinking about an area in your life that you just don't understand. Maybe you have been like me, at times, and tried desperately to figure out a way for you to be content with this area...but peace never comes. Doors continue to close. You continue to look for temporary fixes or "puddles". But God, being the perfect loving Father, must keep His promise to us by only giving us the best...the "pond". The answer to this is found in Galatians 5:25. God's word tells us to keep in step with the Spirit. In other words, we keep walking to the pond by faith and never stop at puddles. But how is this possible, when we walk that narrow road for miles and miles? I am learning Paul knew this secret. Paul knew that faith is about perseverance and going with what you know about God, rather than what you don't know about Him. The problem is we are only willing to know so much. Instead of walking in the Spirit, we look for a 'spiritual bench' to sit and complain a while. I have noticed while I sit on that bench, the Plan-B starts to develop in my mind. This is dangerous. This is when we risk missing the pond. So, to find the pond, pray when you don't feel like it. Read God's word even if you don't want to. This, is keeping in step with the Spirit. I hope you will join me in continuing to seek God for the pond. Let us not find ourselves "making do" with a dirty puddle, or starring at the obstructive bush that appears to have blocked us. May we cry out to our Father, keep walking in faith, and thank Him in advance for keeping His promise of the pond...no matter when it is we find it.

Love,
Corrie

My prayer for today: Father, please forgive me for being impatient with you. You have given me so much evidence that you know what is best for me and if I will just keep seeking you, you will give it to me when it is the perfect time. Help me to realize how significant being YOUR child, really is. May I turn my head away from all the puddles that Satan tells me is the best for me. May I keep my eyes on you so that they forever lock with yours. After all, you have never taken your eyes off of me...

Meeting Beth Moore

2010-02-15T21:15:00.000-06:00

Last Wednesday me, Corrie and Canaan loaded up in the Kia and headed to the Family Christian book store. Beth Moore, one of our generation's most beloved Bible study authors and teachers, was gracing the Birmingham area with her presence on behalf of her new book, "So Long Insecurity". We were very excited for the opportunity to meet her and have our books personally signed by her. Here is our little posse awaiting Mrs. Moore's arrival :

Mrs. Corrie Clay

Corrie's Aunt Nancy

Our friend, Devin

And in case you are thinking "poor Canaan, I wonder how he managed being immersed into girl world like that?" Rest assured, he came out of the deal with 2 wrestlers (R Truth and the Edge if you are up on that kind of thing and care to know) added to his collection.

Here he is holding up his prize:

Around 5pm we met up with Aunt Nancy and Devin at the bookstore and began to line up as we waited for Mrs. Moore to arrive. Our Canaan did so well. Here he is sitting in the floor by Mommy waiting patiently.

Things started to get really interesting after the bookstore staff announced that Mrs. Moore was standing right outside the door about to enter. I took this picture of Devin to fully illustrate the intensity of the moment. I think she was trying to get a really good shot of Beth. This is passion people! (Devin, this is why we love you!)

Canaan really didn't understand who we were waiting all day to see or why. When asked on the phone earlier that day what we were doing he replied, "I don't know. Waiting to see some Bible study lady". Then, when she finally walked in Canaan asked "is that her with the red lipstick?"

Next was my favorite part. Before we started, the whole store quieted down while someone led prayer over us and Mrs. Moore. Then one by one, we each got an opportunity to thank her personally for doing what God has called her to do and have our books personally signed by her.

Corrie went first out of our group. Corrie was personally grateful to Mrs. Moore for an encouraging letter she wrote Corrie. This letter came during the extremely difficult time when Corrie first learned of the incurable autoimmune disease she had, amidst many other overwhelming circumstances she was facing. God used Beth's letter to confirm to her that He had a purpose through all that was happening. Corrie says that Beth's letter put wind to her back to persevere. And as Corrie faithfully put one step in front of the other with God through all those incomprehensible hardships, the ministry God had promised her so many years before began to take form and bear fruit for Jesus Christ's great Name. Yes Beth, you were right, "glory is at stake" in each one of our lives. This blog and Corrie's speaking ministry is in so many ways a testimony to the importance of encouraging and exhorting one another to keep confidence in God and persevere (Hebrews 10:35-36). Let nothing make you quit. Corrie, you will be richly rewarded for doing this very thing, and you are already receiving so much of what has been promised.

Here she is with Beth,

I, on the other hand, was unusually speechless. There seemed to be too much to say in less than 5 minutes to someone who had been used so greatly by God in my life, but whom I didn't know personally. That seemed odd to me as I quietly stood there while she signed my book. I think I mumbled something to her about my love for God's Word being birthed through doing her Bible studies, but I was seriously about to lose it emotionally. I reasoned that no words could be adequate enough to explain what God had done inside of me as a result of her mentoring me through her Bible studies, and that she could never understand this side of heaven all that it meant to this one life. She is a mother to me in the faith. I've learned how to study and apply God's Word in my everyday life from watching how it works in her life.

In case you are thinking that is out there, I hope that you see that this is scriptural. Check out examples of this in Titus 2:3, 1 Cor. 11:1, Phil. 3:17, and 1 Tim. 4:12 just to mention a few. In all of these verses you see that it is Biblical and also vital that people of the faith live their lives as an example or a model to be followed. This godly way of life is unique from the world we live among and is a pattern that is passed down from generation to generation. In my own personal life, Corrie was the first person to show me that being a Christian is about having your very own relationship with God and NOT about all the seemingly mindless, legalistic chores I thought it was about. Mrs. Moore was the first person to whet my appetite for the study of God's Word, and to see it as personal to me. Their fire and passion for God spilled into my little life, and I am overwhelmingly grateful for them.

Here I am with Mrs. Moore,

Here is Aunt Nancy with Beth,

While we were there, we also had an unexpected opportunity to meet up with 2 fellow bloggers in the faith. Here is Corrie with Jennyhope and Mary Snyder. I'm not sure how to link their names, but here are the links to their blogs:

http://www.maryrsnyder.com/

http://www.jennyhope-jennyhope.blogspot.com/

Corrie has been working on a new post, so that should be up soon. Also, be praying for her and her husband Shane as they will be traveling to Boston soon for her annual doctor's appointment concerning her autoimmune disease.

To God be the glory!

And the Soul Felt Its Worth

2009-12-17T09:44:00.005-06:00

This past Monday, I was driving down the interstate and passed a cemetary. I noticed that a grave site was being prepared. Though I didn't know the family, I couldn't help but think about them...that they would gather under that green tent and bury the body of someone they loved. But then, immediately, my heart was filled with a burst of excitement, as I thought about the hope that we have in Christ! The body is buried but the soul... Oh the soul! Praise God for giving us a soul that can (if we choose salvation) live beyond death in Heaven with Him! But before the birth of Chirst, the 'soul' had no understanding of it's purpose. This is one of the reasons I am so thankful for the birth of Christ. Even though I had imagined the sadness of that family, I also imagined the joyous night Jesus was born. Inside of my head, it unfolds like this... I see Mary laying in the stable on hay that Joseph had fixed for her. He tries to make it as comfortable for her as he can. I see rolls of sweat falling from her brow as she thinks, "It shouldn't be this way. Not for this baby." I see Joseph pacing, his mind filled with concern for the 'love of his life' and now... a new love, that would be here any moment. It is time now. Joseph kneels beside of Mary and whispers that he loves her and that God would be faithful to them. He reminds her of what they had gone through and that it was almost over. Little did they know...it was only beginning for them. The baby is born and Mary wraps him in whatever she can find. She holds Him close to her. She whispers His name over and over again..."Jesus". I see that precious chosen couple holding this child. The child that changed everything they ever knew. They can't take their eyes off of Him. Of course they feel the happiness of being new parents, but, there is something else. It's their hearts... They feel a spiritul completeness that they had never felt before. And then... then I hear Heaven singing. I see God, the Father, stand up from His throne. The angels have gathered for the most wonderful thing they have ever seen or known. For they know that this baby, this Christ child, has changed the world. He has arrived! God's plan to save the world, is now in motion... Perhaps that is not exactly the way the night of the birth of Christ really happened, but in my mind... it is. I do believe that the night Christ was born, the world felt it. We know this from reading, in God's word, of how the shepherds (and later on, the wise men), were drawn to see this particular baby. I guess what I think is so wonderful is that because of this night, you and I have hope. Hope that can never be taken away by death or tragedy. Hope that won't waiver or fail. Hope that is not only certain, but actually grows bigger inside the heart of the believer. Hope, because of a Savior. I was singing, "O Holy Night" in church, the other day, and God showed me something about that song that will forever change the way I sing it. It was the phrase: "Til He appeared, and the soul felt its worth." Many Biblical commentaries say that the soul is what contains the spirit of the body. The soul can mean life, spirit, or breath. Genesis 2:7 says, "the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." God has breathed breath into all of us, thus giving us each a soul. I find it amazing to think that I am a part of God! He breathed life into me! And the night of Christ's birth, the soul felt it's worth! In other words, the soul always had purpose, but on that night, it realized it's value! Do we truly understand that a God as Holy as ours, loves us so much, that He would send down His son to be near us and to give us a place for our soul... Heaven. I guess my question is, does your soul feel it's worth? If you have never asked Christ in your life, you must do so to truly feel and understand how loved you are! Maybe you are a Christian, but lately, you don't feel worth anything to anyone. Let me encourage you in the Lord, today, and say that you are so very valuable to God. Maybe your eternity is secure, but you feel hopeless in your walk here on Earth. My sweet friend, don't buy into Satan's lies and allow him to rob you of what God says you are. We can rejoice, not because of ourselves, but because we have God's breath in us! How can we still feel the worth today? How can we feel His "worth" when we have buried those we loved? How can we feel His love when we feel abandoned by our family or feel as though we are drowning in depression? How? Because we have the best thing with us already... God's spoken word. Dive into His word and you will see Him change your life. When our soul hears the one who created it, it recognizes it's worth. You will find that in His spoken word, you do have hope, even though the world tells you there isn't any. You will find that this story that happened so long ago, will come alive in your heart! Why? Because the 'soul felt it's worth'! God came down as a baby and that's what changed everything. I pray that you will join me today in just meeting with God and telling Him that you want to draw near to Him... I pray God's blessings upon you and your household. May you have a very Merry Christmas and may you rejoice in the birth of our Savior, the whole year through! Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Father, I praise your Holy name for sending your son to this world! Thank you for loving us enough to find a way that I may spend eternity with you and not in Hell, apart from you. I pray that if there is someone who is reading this that doesn't know you, Lord, draw them unto you. I pray for my brothers and sisters in Chirst who are undergoing trials. Lord, run to them. Remind them of your love for them...

Forfeiting Peace

2009-11-26T08:04:00.003-06:00

"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you." Isaiah 26:3 Not long ago, I was sitting in church singing an old familiar song. I guess I have sang these words a thousand times in my life, even had it memorized, for the most part. But this time, God revealed something in that song and suddenly I realized my eyes were locked in on this phrase. My voice had stopped singing as God let this phrase take over my mind and my heart: "Oh what peace we often forfeit". My eyes filled up with tears when I realized how often I had forfeited peace, God's peace. Why do we do this? God answers that question in this post... One definition of peace is, 'freedom from oppressing thoughts or emotions'. One definition of forfeit is, 'to give up or to loose the right to, especially by some error, offense, or crime'. After reading these two definitions, why in the world would we ever want to use the words, forfeit and peace, in the same sentence? The reason is that Satan tells us they go together. He sells us the lie that we can't have peace in our hearts as God's children. God's word tells us differently. In fact, BECAUSE we are God's people, we are offered peace, daily peace. So why do we feel so empty at times? Why do we feel so uneasy? Why does our mind run and run, feeling as though we can't turn it off? Why do we wake up with an unsettling feeling, and go to bed with the same? It is because we are choosing to forfeit, or give up, our peace. Yes, I did say choosing. Once a person accepts Jesus into their heart, the Holy Spirit dwells within them. The Holy Spirit gives us the feeling and the concept of peace. All throughout the Bible, we find evidence of this (Rom. 15:1; Acts 9:21). So why do we abandon this peace we ALREADY have access too? Isaiah 26:3 tells us. It says that God will 'keep' us in perfect peace (not a little bit of peace but perfect peace!) if we keep our mind steadfast. So, forfeiting peace begins in the mind, the thoughts. Satan loves to lounge around an 'unguarded mind', placing defeating, depressing, and anxious thoughts about our life. God's word tells us to keep our mind steadfast. This means we must focus on God with our thoughts at all times. We do this by taking the thoughts captive, that shouldn't be there (the one's that are forfeiting our peace) and making them obedient to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). We then make up our mind not to worry (Luke 21:14) and replace unsettling thoughts with scripture, or in other words, find out what God has to say. We do this over and over again until the peace comes. And, my sweet friends, PEACE WILL COME!! We can then find joy in our trials!!! (James 1:2). Today is Thanksgiving Day. But maybe, you are finding it very hard to be thankful for your trials in your life right now. Maybe you woke up this morning with an empty feeling. If you are God's child, this means you have chosen to forfeit your peace. The song I wrote about at the beginning was "What a Friend We Have in Jesus". I can sing this song with a light heart today because He is my friend. He wants to be your friend too. Maybe you have forfeited your peace because of a relationship that has gone terribly wrong. Maybe it's because you have hurt God and others in your past and the guilt consumes you. Perhaps you can't feel peace because your health is failing or a loved one is very critical. God needs you to know that you don't have to feel that way. Because you are God's child, we are given peace...if we just seek Him for it and begin with making our thoughts obedient to Him. I will end this post with evidence of that. The following is the blessing God gave to the Israelites...His people. We, my friends, have this same blessing. Remember it today: "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace." Numbers 6:24-26 Happy Thanksgiving, Corrie

CrossRoads' Women's Retreat

2009-11-26T00:04:00.003-06:00

Just a note to say "thank you" to my own church, CrossRoads Baptist, for giving me the honor to lead the Bible study for our annual women's retreat. Words cannot express the love that I have for my sisters in Christ in my own church family. I will never forget the fellowship, laughter, and tears we shared together (and of course, other 'memorable moments' that will forever keep me laughing!!!). But most of all, I will never forget how God revealed Himself to us in that cabin that weekend. Hearts (including mine)are forever changed because God showed us more about Him, ourselves, and the Body of Christ. We know that an intimate, personal relationship with God is possible in the 'land of the living'. Go West, my friends!! (wink) Love, Corrie

Depth Perception

2009-10-24T16:05:00.004-05:00

"The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen." 2 Timothy 4:18 "Because he loves me," says the Lord, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name." Psalm 91:14 "...and I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:17(b)-18 Let me begin by saying 'thank you' to those who have been praying for me and my family for the past few weeks. For those of you who don't know, Canaan had a terrible stomach virus and my grandmother's health has begun to severely decline. Canaan is well but my grandmother is continuing to collect fluid around her heart. Please continue to pray for her. Many of you have been asking about my health as well. I praise God to say that He answered alot of my questions through the visit with my vascular surgeon on Thursday! New medicine is going to be given to me to try and help control the problems caused by the blockages on my left side.Thank you, also, for patiently waiting for God to reveal to me another post. God's timing is always perfect. So, I know that God will use this post to speak to your heart as He did mine... Every time I have been to a public swimming pool, I always see the following scene: A mom, dad, or adult (of some importance to a child), standing in the water with their arms out stretched. They are reaching to an "unsure" child that is standing on the side of the pool. I always hear the adult say, "Come on. Jump to me! I promise I will catch you. I promise I will not drop you. Jump to me!" You can see the child's mind turning and assessing his/her surroundings, weighing the risks of jumping. They crouch down and get ready... then they back out. Why? It's not like they are jumping to strangers, right? I, myself have had this "pool" conversation with Canaan too. I found that when Canaan was smaller, he jumped to me without hesitation. But as he became older, it took more coaxing from me or from Shane. What causes the child to hesitate? Why must they ponder jumping out on the faith that this person, he/she trusts, will catch them? The reason is the same when we, as God's children, 'hesitate' to jump into the arms of a God we supposedly trust and that has 'never missed'. The reason? We, and those children on the side of a pool, are more concerned with the depth of the water than the depth of the love of the One who is waiting to catch us... Psychologist have studied depth perception for years. Countless numbers of tests and studies have been conducted to find out just how early humans recognize depth. One test was called the "Visual Cliff". In this particular test, a flat glass table was used. One side was considered 'flat', while the other side of the table presented an illusion of a drop off(with clear glass). Infants, who were able to crawl, were placed on the table and urged to crawl toward the pretend cliff. Most of the infants crawled, but stopped just shy of the pretend drop off. To many psychologists, this showed that even as early as infants, we have a sense of depth perception. As babies, the first thing we learn is our dependency on our caregivers, usually our parents. We learn that if we cry, we are responded to and our needs are met. We learn to trust. I noticed that during this stage, Canaan, at the swimming pool, would freely jump to my arms no matter the danger because he was only acting upon his trust for me. As we continue to grow, we learn that there is danger around us. We learn this through physical injuries (Lots of band aids!). As our mind learns to assess danger surrounding us and what 'could happen', it becomes harder to trust. We learn that humans fail, even our parents. The child, standing on the side of the pool, becomes clouded by the danger of the water, rather than focusing on the trust they have for the parent. What about our spiritual depth perception? Could it be that we are so busy giving God our excuses of why we can't give Him control of our problems, that we are standing, paralyzed on the side? Perhaps you are going through a difficult time of one problem after another in your life. You have asked God to 'help' you, yet you find you are in the same place you began. When you read His word, you find scriptures on how you can trust Him. When you talk to your Godly friends, you hear them tell you that you must let go of trying to control. And in your heart, you feel the Holy Spirit tell you to step out on faith and that God will help you if you trust Him. God is speaking to you. The reason I lacked a relationship with God for so many years is that I did not realize Ephesians 3:17-18... to know the depth of His love. Maybe you only know the 'pits' of the world, the heartaches, and struggles. Tell God you want to know the depth of His love in an intimate relationship with Him. This is what increases our faith. I noticed one more thing about Canaan and the other children when they stood in hesitation on the side of the pool: they only jumped when they locked eyes with the one they trusted. The more Canaan looked around, the more frightened he became. But when I said, "Look at me and jump," it changed everything. Where are your eyes and to what or whom are they locked in on? Only looking at God through His word will keep you from 'backing out' in your faith. Many of you have major decisions to make in your life right now. Fear is creeping in because the jump of faith to God would be so crazy! All I can tell you is, out of all the times His children have 'jumped to Him', He never missed...from Genesis through Revelation :-) Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, forgive me for the times I have doubted the very One who gave me eternal life. Why would I doubt a God who made a way for me to escape Hell? I know everything you do for me is for my good. I want to grow in knowing you each and every day. You are incapable of failure. Help those who read this and are struggling, to turn everything over to you. Help them and help me to trust in who you are and the power of your word. Thank you for your faithfulness...

Rainbow

2009-09-26T20:54:00.006-05:00

"As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless." Psalm 18:30 "My comfort in my suffering is this: You promise preserves my life." Psalm 119:50 (Solomon's prayer) ..."You have hept your promise to your servant David, my father; with your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it-as is is today." 1 Kings 8:24 ***Before reading the post, if at all possible, please go and get your Bible*** For the past couple of weeks, we have had so much rain in our area. It has rained day after day. Creeks were overflowing, water was standing everywhere, and dripping constantly from the trees and the rooftops. My son Canaan and I were riding in the car a few days ago. It was raining very hard as we were driving. Canaan asked me, "Mommy, is God mad or upset with us?" Even though I have learned that age 4 is an age of what seems like, 'never ending question-time for mommy', I will admit, this question made me smile. It made me smile because I knew God was about to teach me something through this child, as He has so many times before. I asked Canaan what had made him think that God was mad or angry. He said, "Well, you know a long time ago, God got upset with all those people that were being ugly and He told Noah to build a boat and then He sent rain. Lots of rain! And it flooded the whole world!" I told Canaan that he was right in what had happened in the story. But then I told him that he had forgotten the best part of the story... the rainbow. I told Canaan how God sent that rainbow to show Noah that He promised never to flood the Earth, in that way, again. I heard myself end the conversation with, "And when God promises something, we can always believe Him." At that moment, I felt the sweet, still, small voice of God say to me, "But in my word, I have promised much more, Corrie, than withholding a flood. The promises to you in my word are much greater than that of the rainbow. You must believe in all my promises like you believe in my promise that I won't flood again. My word is full of even greater one's for you." This moved me to probe deeper into my own heart. I hope you will too... Is is me or does life seem to be getting harder? Sometimes, I like to think back to my childhood and spending time at my grandparent's house in the country. When I was four, I stayed with them during the day while my mom worked at a local sewing plant. I can remember the only cares I had were if I would be able to watch Sesame Street that day (if I got up from my nap in time) and hoping that my mom would be a little late picking me up so I could stay with my Mamaw for a few more minutes :-) As a four year old, my heart was light. All I needed, I knew my parents could take care of. Now, the world is so very different. Stress is a feeling that all of us know too well. Anxiety, depression follow stress and can be frequent 'visitors'that weigh down our heart and mind. It is true, the world is changing and trials come harder and faster. But as Christians, this should come as no surprise. God's word tells us from the very beginning what we must prepare for. Currently, I am learning, in my walk with God, the importance of the His infallible word. God's word. The Bible. That is what this post is about: God's promises to us; Do we even know them? It's not to place focus on our trials because those are guaranteed. And to be honest, focusing on the trial is what brings us stress, depression, anxiety, etc. But it is better to place focus on how to seek answers from God through His word, while the trial is whirling around us. Kind of like, finding the eye of the storm. The question God was asking me through what Canaan had said was 'did I believe that His word is true and is it applicable to every single question, situation, or trial that comes to me?' The answer is 'yes'. God's word is not to be read just on a rainy day, or when just because it's Sunday, or only when something is wrong. It is not a last resort. It was given to us to help us to endure, be empowered, and stand firm. It is what sets us apart as His children. A simple Proverb may sound good to even a non believer, but it is the Holy Spirit who, for the believer, takes that wording on a piece of paper and speaks to our hearts, causing us to feel a 'lighter load' and to build our faith in our Lord. God's word has power. It has power because it is God's very breath spoken to you and to me. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." If you can, pick up your Bible and hold it in your hands (right now, as you continue to read). Thumb through the pages. Do you know that you are holding the very breath of God in your hands? Have you searched in that word for your answers to a problem that is on your mind right now? Not just a couple of times to let your finger fall on a verse and then read it, but have you begged for God to speak to you through His HOLY word? We must believe that just as God promised not to flood the entire world again, we must also believe the other promises He states in His word for you and for me. But we must search and read His word for these answers. I know that so many of my brothers and sisters in Christ are going through fiery trials. This includes myself. Sometimes those trials feel as though you are hanging on by a thread. But God is showing me that while He is a God who comforts, He is a God who helps. He is a God of miracles and He is a God of power! You and I must dive into His word to find our answers, these promises. I want to be in His word everyday. I want to study to find these golden nuggets of what God wants for me. We must understand that the answer to a distant relationship with Him is in His word. The answers on how to give to Him a relationship that is broken between you and your spouse, your child, or your friend, is found in His word. The answer to breaking free from a dark past, doubt, and fear is found in a new identity in His word. His word tells you how to finally feel His peace for the grief you feel in the death of someone you loved. His word offers direction to having financial security. I could go on and on. The point He is making is that what we need has to be sought in His word, not in the world. I was surprised to realize that in all the times I had seen heavy rain, even flooding in some areas, I had never worried that God would break His promise that He made that day with Noah. But how I have worried in other areas of my life... and He had given me His promise not to fail me in those situations either. It wasn't Him, it was me and my unbelief in His flawless word. His word is full of promises. Promises that He has never broken to you or to me. It is up to us to make the effort to go there first. The answers are there...the promises are there. It wasn't about a colorful rainbow, it was a promise to His children. We can count on Him to be faithful in every problem, every season, every detail. Next time you see a rainbow, I hope it means more. It definitely will to me now... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Father, I come to you, with your word laid our before me. Help me to remember your faithful promises, Lord. Prompt me to search for you day and night. For those who are reading this now and are weary, show them the answers that they need, God. Show them the power of your very breath leaping off the pages! For those who are reading this in places that they cannot have even one piece of paper of the Bible, bless them Father. Give them your word, somehow. Provide a way. Forgive me for taking this very copy of your inspiration for granted and sitting it aside while I look elsewhere for you. Thank you for you word. Teach me your promises for my life...

Midnight

2009-09-12T21:26:00.001-05:00

"About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once the prison doors flew open, and every body's chains came loose." Acts 16:25-26 "At midnight I rise to give you thanks, for your righteous laws." Psalm 119:62 When I was a teenager, I always had a curfew. It was always earlier, it seemed, than the curfew of most of my friends. I thought it was horrible when it started at 11:00 p.m. and it stayed that way for a long time (my friends from high school are laughing because they know this was true!). My parents said that as long as I lived there, I would have a curfew. This curfew thing was always an issue with me and my parents. I would beg and plead to stay out until at least 12:00 a.m.. For some reason, that midnight hour seemed like such a mile marker for me and my maturity and Independence. But, my dad would always say, "If you can't do what you want to do before midnight, then there is no reason for you to be doing it." I hated that saying (of course, now I know he might have been right... ok, he was right. Shhhh!)! I remember the day that my curfew got moved up to midnight! 12:00 a.m. (you are going to laugh... I was a freshman in college!). Wait a minute.. As I pause to remember all of this, I also remember my younger brother, Kyle, NEVER had a curfew! Where is justice? Justice, I say! ( I will have to talk to my parents about that matter a little later...even though Kyle is married now :-) . Anyway, back to me. One thing that sticks out in my mind about my midnight curfew is that I viewed the 'midnight hour' as free and liberating. My father, however, viewed it as the darkest part of the night. I remember that when I came in, my dad was never asleep. He would be in his bed, but he never went to sleep until I was home... safe. Two very different views of midnight... Midnight by definition means, "Intense darkness; a period of darkness and gloom; an ending of one day and the beginning of another." As I was praying about this post, God revealed to me that so many of His children are going through very dark times. Trials that aren't just difficult but trials where no end is in sight. They are trials that push your mind and body to a limit you never knew you had. This post is God's very breath to speak to us with a simple message: He wants us to seek Him at midnight. I am not saying that we should all set our clocks to have a 'quiet time' with Him at 12:oo a.m. (We could and I bet it would be cool, though!). He wants us to seek Him in the darkness. To reach out for Him, even though we cannot see Him; to believe He is there and in complete control even though we don't feel Him. In Psalm 119:62, I found it interesting to find that David, the King, rose to pray to God at midnight. Why? I don't know for sure, but based on the rest of what I read from David, he wanted God to know he was making the effort to do everything he could to be close with Him. He was a man after God's own heart, remember? He chased God's heart to mirror it. We know that David went through very dark times. Many theologians believe David even battled depression. But in the midnight hour, the darkest time of the night, the time when you just can't seem to sleep for your mind turning and turning, David chose to go to God and praise Him, to give God thanks. How long has it been that you were able to just thank God, even through the darkness around you? David viewed midnight as intense darkness, but he saw God as his light, his hope, his ending of one day and the beginning of another. God also showed me the reward of seeking Him in the midnight hour of trouble in Paul and Silas. Here are two men who had devoted themselves to sharing about the love and saving grace of Jesus Christ... yet they found themselves at midnight shackled, chained, and guarded in a cell. Sometimes, Satan convinces us that our trials we are going through have us trapped, bound, and fill us with hopelessness. I found it interesting that instead of Paul and Silas worrying about the fact that it was midnight, almost time for them to start a terrible day over again, they were singing praises (like David) to God! And guess what? God moved at midnight. There chains were broken and they were set free! Paul and Silas even lead a guard and his family to Christ! You may say, "Corrie, you don't understand. I can't possibly praise God with what I am going through. I have drifted from Him. I don't even know where to start." My friend, all I know is what is true and who has never ever failed me. I know that God says all we have to do is utter His name and He will come to where we are. He heals the broken hearted. I will tell you that when it feels like midnight to me (and it so often does), I have learned that I can dread the next day or I can go to God with every fear, doubt, and tear that I have. And with a pure cleansed heart, only then am I able to praise Him. He changes my view. The shackles come off, the chains are broken, and my faith is strengthened that much more. I pray that if you are at the midnight hour, the hardest trial of your life, you will no longer view it as the darkest part of the night, but you will see it as liberating and a time to have freedom in Christ... "We can trust God not only above our emotions, but also above our thoughts."----Corrie ten Boom Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how I love you. I am so thankful for those 'midnight' hours, for it is then when I see you and your power in my life. Without my trials, I would never know how deep your love is for me. I lift up every person who reads this post, Lord. Run to them, Father, as they seek you in the darkest time of their life. Help us to wait for you to come and break us free from our shackles, chains, and doors of the strongholds. We love you and give you thanks for who you are. Our identity lies in you...

Responding to the Power of God

2009-08-24T01:33:00.002-05:00

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 1 Corinthians 1:18 I first want to begin by thanking those of you who have been praying for me and my health. These last 2 and a half weeks have been very difficult, both physically and mentally. For those of you who don't know, I have a rare disease that (when active) causes my arteries to narrow and close, causing little to no blood flow to my heart and brain. The main artery in my left arm is almost completely closed due to the disease's beginning. Since then, every so often, I have problems with that arm constricting and minimizing my blood flow in my arm and to my heart. My doctors are beginning more tests to find what is causing this and to know how to stop it. As you can guess, I have been doing alot of thinking. I thought alot about my faith and God's power. I want to be able to have that faith that melts the very heart of God. I want to be in such a deep relationship with God that my eyes never fall away, that they stay locked in His. I want to have a trust in my Lord that is so great, no circumstance could make me doubt his power. Yet, sometimes, my eyes do fall away from His. The swirling wind and waves around me get my attention. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever wondered why, as a Christian, you feel so cowardly and confused in the trial you are going through? Have you ever asked yourself, "Why can't I just trust God like I'm 'supposed' too?" Well, for 22 days, I have prayed for God to reveal to me His next post. I am pleased to say that He answers those questions in this post... When I think about what happened at the cross all those years ago, my response is bitter sweet. It hurts me to think about how badly Jesus was beaten, how much He bled, how much pain He endured. It is difficult for me to think about the insults He heard, the thorns that were pushed into His head, and the nails driven deep into His hands and feet. But then, I am filled with so much love and gratitude that I smile when I think about the fact that He did that for me, for you. I think of how God gave up His own son so that you and I could have an eternity with Him and our loved ones. I am so happy Jesus has gone to prepare a place that is so beautiful, it is called Heaven. Even though what happened at the cross makes cry with both tears of joy and with tears of sadness, what happened at the cross was powerful! It was God's power! When we accept Christ into our hearts as Lord and Savior through salvation, we are responding to this very power (Romans 1:16-17). By making this profession of faith, our response is that we believe that we are sinners and are in need of being 'saved' from the eternal punishment for sin, which is Hell. We are also saying that we believe that God sent His son, Jesus, to die on the cross in place of us and took on our sin (John 3:16). He became our Savior. By accepting this gift of salvation, this in turn, gives us eternal life in Heaven. We also believe that Jesus arose from the grave and ascended into Heaven and is someday, coming again for His Bride (Matt. 24:44; John 14:2-3; Rev. 19:7). Wow! We serve a God who is so powerful that He defeated death, sin, and is preparing a place for us to be with Him one day! POWER. As Christians, the power that God showed through His son's death and resurrection is our very reason for living. It ensures our eternity. As 1 Corinthians 1:18 states, it is the 'power of God' and certainly not 'foolishness'! But here is a question: Why doesn't our response to the power of what happened at the cross (the power of God), change our response to the trials in our lives? Ephesians 1:19-23 tells us that we (God's children), have the same power working within us that raised Chris from the dead. I believe this is a concept that Satan doesn't want the believer to know. Do we believe that God's power is limited to the cross? We believe that God could save us from an eternity in Hell, defeat death, but that He will fail to carry us through a fiery trial? My friends, we must realize that we are still responding to God's power in our lives today... we either believe Him to be faithful and at work within us or we believe Him to fail us. God is showing me that when I fail to believe Him and trust Him, it is because there are pieces of me that I have failed to give over to Him completely. These are also known as strongholds. They create distance between us and our Father. They are lies that Satan uses to keep us from having an intimate relationship with God. What about you? Are you a going through a trial in your life right now? Are you a Christian and wondering why you just can't seem to get rid of fear and doubt that God might not come through for you? We must go to God with those thoughts of fear, doubt, anger, etc. We must find out who He really is. If we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. He will provide you energy when you are tired (Col. 1:29). He will give you strength, endurance, and patience when you think you can't make it even one more day (Col. 1:11). Allow God to show His power in your life. It's the same power that raised Jesus from the dead! It's the same power that we believed at the moment we accepted Him into our hearts. We must let go of trying to control it and do it 'our way'. It never works that way. I hope you will join me in 'responding' daily to God's power. Give God complete control of your life. I would like to share one of my favorite passages in God's word with you. It is Isaiah 49:16: "See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands: your walls are ever before me." In the earlier Jewish times, it was customary to puncture one's hands with a symbol of their city and their temple as a sign of commitment and devotion. This verse and the verses before it show us God's amazing compassion and His promise to never forget His children, even those children who disobey Him and then return. When you feel afraid that He is going to leave you or doubt that He won't come through for you, reflect on that verse: Close your eyes and imagine that you are standing at the foot of the cross. You can see Him hanging there. Jesus, the Deity living in bodily form. His arms are outstretched. Look closer at His hands. Closer. Do you see it? Your name is written on His palm. God won't forget us... Calvary has already proven that. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I am so grateful for your power. Words can't express the love I feel for you when I think about the cross. But I know that you want to show that power in my life on a daily basis. Help me to give you every part of me. Break my strongholds. I want to deepen my trust in you. I want faith that is unshakable. I want a heart that mirrors yours. Help me to give you my life fully...daily...

Rockwood Women's Conference

2009-08-21T11:00:00.002-05:00

Thank you, ladies of Rockwood Baptist Church in Russellville, Alabama, for hosting a wonderful women's conference! Our theme was, "Reflections of a Lovely Lady." Throughout the day, God revealed who He says that we are in Christ. The Holy Spirit moved in such a mighty way. It is so good to know our true identity in Christ! It was an honor for me to be with you and I am so thankful for the invitation to share God's word. May we continue to remember Debbie King and the entire Bolton family, in the loss of Bro. Oneal Bolton. We lift you up in prayer to be bathed in God's grace and His comfort. We also rejoice in the fact that Bro. Oneal has been called home by our Father... Love, Corrie

Hugging God

2009-08-01T15:27:00.004-05:00

"The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemy before you, saying, 'Destroy him!" Deuteronomy 33:27 At 32, I finally understand why my dad used my brother and I as illustrations so often in his sermons: kids are great material. Yes, they are hilarious but they also say those things that are so very profound and leave you speechless; Especially when it comes to things about God. The other day, Canaan (my 4 year old son) and I were discussing things about God and I was answering his questions the best that I could (no one told me that when your kid is about 4, you need to take a class in theology!). You know, the usual questions about how God made everything and everyone, and how...why... and when. I had just finished answering a question that had something to do with God and dinosaurs. I breathed a sigh of relief (thinking the conversation had ended and hoped I had answered his questions without making anything up :-) when Canaan asked me a question that I think I will never forget. He said, "Mommy, how can I hug God?" He continued with, "I just want to hug Him but I don't know how." I felt a lump rise in my throat and wanted to cry right then and there. I wanted to cry because of the love I knew Canaan had for God. To him, a hug is one of the biggest ways to show someone you love them. I wanted to cry because Canaan's question made me check my own heart. How often do I really tell God how much I love Him? Do my actions reflect that my heart beats for Him above all else? I knelt down by Canaan and told him the only answer I could think of. I told Him that we show God how much we love Him by telling Him in prayer, showing Him by our actions, and telling other people about Him. Later that day, Canaan went on about his business, but that question about hugging God stayed with me. I looked up the definition of the word 'hug'. It means, "to press tightly, especially in the arms." I started thinking about God's arms and the times they were there for me. How that during my trials, God's arms were around me, protecting me, sheltering me, comforting me. Sometimes His arms were stern, as a loving disciplining father, directing me and keeping me from making harmful decisions. There were even times that I ran away from those arms and then wondered why I didn't feel Him near and felt afraid. I am slowly learning that as God's child, it is absolutely necessary to press into God's arms. This not a suggestion or something you 'could do'...it is a must. I was turning through my Bible and saw that Deuteronomy 33:27 was underlined. Out to the side are the words, "Proof that God Protects". As His people, we MUST believe this verse. This verse cannot be skimmed over, it must be broken down and studied piece by piece. The beginning of the verse tells us that God is eternal. He exists even when we don't believe He is there. No doubts that you or I have about Him, makes Him less powerful or effective. He is eternal. He has always been here and always will be. How? I don't know; that's one of the reasons I call Him God. The next part of the verse says that He is our refuge. He is that place of shelter in times of distress. His word doesn't say that times of distress won't come, but that when they come, we will press into the arms. The last part tells us that God will protect us from our enemies. I think that sometimes, we believe that people around us are where are battles are. But we forget that our biggest enemy is Satan. I believe that if God protects me from Satan himself, He can handle anyone on this earth that threatens me with harm. This whole verse is powerful, but I must say that my favorite part is the middle... 'underneath is the everlasting arms.' Underneath means 'beneath the surface'. This tells me that at the end of every trial, every tear, every struggle, there are the arms... His arms. To me, stepping out on faith feels like I am just free falling. Falling and falling and having no idea where I will land. How wonderful it is to know that at the end are His arms. The arms are everlasting. There is no end to His help. You and I never have to wonder when God will leave us or abandon us. He won't. Perhaps you feel like you are completely alone in a trial in your life right now. Maybe it is comfort you long for from His arms because of the pain that you feel. You must press into His arms. Perhaps you need protection from the fire that is flames from those around you. You must press into His arms. When you do this, He will deal with your enemies and not a hair on your head will be singed (Daniel 3:27 ). There are a million reasons to need God's arms. We must remember that as His people, we must not worry about 'what the arms will do'. Our job is to press tightly into them. I guess there is a way to 'hug' God after all... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, thank you for Canaan and showing me that I need to press tightly into your arms. Thank you for loving me, disciplining me, comforting me, and just simply holding me up with your everlasting arms. Help me to rid myself of arrogance and pride and know I am nothing without you...

Strings and Knots

2009-07-16T22:47:00.004-05:00

"As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the maker of all things." Ecclesiastes 11:5

When I was younger, I used to love to cross stitch. Of course, back then I seemed to have more patience to sit there for hours. Moving the needle in and out, hoping that soon, what I was 'attempting' to make would look something like the picture it came with :-) One day, I was about to continue with one of my projects. As I went to get the cross stitch piece I was working on out of my sewing box (yes, I had a sewing box! What of it!!), I noticed all these knots and strings on the back of my picture. For a second, I was amazed that so many ugly looking pieces of strings and knots could actually turn out to make such a beautiful picture. God has since then brought my 'cross stitching' days of glory back to my mind. He reminds me that His children (myself included!) are always looking at the knots and strings of His will for our life, questioning, wondering, why, why why? Yet, our Father, the designer of our life, is looking at the finished product. He knows the purpose for every string, every knot, every turn, and every loop. We plead for glimpses of that finished product, but sometimes they come and sometimes there is only silence. What does this mean for us as God's people? He will tell us in this post... I think I could learn something new about God every second of my life until the day I die and I would have still never scratched the surface of who this magnificent God really is. However, at the present moment in my Christian walk, He is working with me on belief. A question that I have often asked myself is, "Why can't I just believe God?" The answer to this question goes back to the Garden of Eden. Believing God seems like such a simple concept. Though the concept is simple, God's people often find it to be so difficult. The reason is sin. God told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of life. He didn't tell them every detail or go over the complete plan, but He told them what He wanted them to know for the moment. You know, the 'strings and knots'? But then, Satan came into the picture. He gave Eve reasons (illusions) of why she should eat from that tree and not believe God. Sin is still the reason God's children find it difficult to believe Him today. You see, sin creates distance between us and God. We often think of sin to be murder, stealing, big lies (as opposed to little white ones), sexually sins, etc. But in God's eyes, sin is sin and sin equals distance. Do we ever think that pride is sin? Arrogance? Putting other people (even if it's our own family) before God... it's sin too. The reason we fail to believe God is because we allow (notice I said 'we' allow) sin to wedge itself between us and God, slowly creating distance. Satan does this by telling us lies. You may be saying, "Corrie, what lies? I know when I am being lied to!" No. Satan is very good at deceiving. Have you ever found yourself asking the question of, "Will God really help me in this trial?"; "What if He doesn't rescue me?"; "What if everything I know about God really isn't really true?" My friend, these are the lies that take our eyes off of our Father. And the moment we look down, the waves seem to wash over us, crashing, smothering us as if to feel as though we are drowning. So, how do we believe God and not the lies? How do we wait when we only see the 'strings and knots'? I believe the answer is in God's word. I started looking at people in the Bible who God gave instruction to trust Him, believe Him, with only knowing very limited information: Abraham- God tells him to just pack up everything and everybody, move'm out and follow Him! Strings and knots. Abraham is also a good example for us to see what can happen if you want to flip over the cross stitch to see the finished product way too early! (But after that, Abraham did believe God for the rest of his life); Moses-God tells him to go tell this big scary tyrant to just 'let the people go' and if he didn't, to threaten the big scary tyrant with a bunch of plagues! Strings and knots. Mary-God tells her she is having a baby (and we all know all the biology that was missing there!) and the baby would be the Messiah! Strings and knots. David, Samuel, Job...strings and knots. I could go on and on of people who believed God when they didn't know what the completed picture would be like. So, if sin existed then as it exists now, how did they believe God? The reason is the relationship these people had with God. These people spent time with God, talking to Him and listening to Him, confessing sin so that they could be close with Him. When they became afraid, they drew closer and closer to God (James 4:8). That is the answer for us today. We believe God when we are close to God. The closer I get to God, the more I seek to be like Him. The more of His identity I can take on, the less sin can wedge its way in between us. When the distance is gone, trust is built! Spending time with God also includes reading and studying His word. But, in order for God's word to bring us comfort, encouragement, power, etc, we must be able to believe the one who wrote it (Proverbs 30:5). What about you? Are you struggling to believe God in a trial right now? The way we can believe Him is to confess the sin that is causing the distance between us and God. We must stop buying into the lies of Satan and allowing him to intimidate us into doubting a God that is true. I love to read Hebrews chapter 11. It is a chapter completely devoted to God's people who believed Him when they only saw the 'strings and knots'. You and I must be willing to believe God even though the wind howls around us. We must choose to believe Him when Satan stages the illusion of no hope being anywhere in sight. When Satan roars in our face, we must remember he was stripped of power at Calvary and that he is a lion with no teeth. We are God's people. We must prove faithful. I will end the post with Lamentations 3:21-24: "Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness, I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him." ****Here's to 'strings and knots'! Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, forgive me for wanting to rush ahead of you in your plans for my life. Those strings and knots that I have seen have been so purposeful in my relationship with you and they still are. Help me to wait on you and boldly follow you with total belief in who you are... not only for what you do..

Fireworks

2009-07-05T22:27:00.002-05:00

"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, encourage each other with these words." 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 "Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming." Matthew 24:42 As I have shared with you before, after God gives me the post to write, I immediately begin to pray for Him to give me the next one. Then, rather than panic, I have learned to wait for Him. Just a few hours ago, God overwhelmed my heart with this particular post. I must say, it is perhaps one of the most encouraging and exciting post He has ever given me. I hope in reading this, God will change the perception of your day today... I am sure many of you celebrated the Fourth of July with fireworks (unless you are like me and live in the woods and can't because you might start a forest fire that would burn for days!). Anyway, tonight at my church, we continued the celebration by gathering together to honor both our Lord and our men and women of service. We also had the privilege of hearing our Congressman, Robert Aderholt, share his heart. After the service, hot dogs and ice cream were served. And then came the fireworks. As we all stood outside, everyone seemed to stop eating and talking as the fireworks show began. The sky was beautifully lit up with an array of color and explosions of loud sounds that indicated the beauty that would soon come behind them. All of a sudden, God allowed me to see something wonderful and exciting... so exciting that I have chills again writing about it. There, all around me, stood 2 or 3 hundred people, gazing up at the sky. They couldn't take their eyes of what was happening in the sky. Suddenly, I felt as though I had caught a tiny glimpse of what it will be like when our Lord returns for us. I feel as though some times, we begin to think that our lives, our trials, are to hard to bear here in this old world. Satan plants the doubts of 'is this man really coming back for us?' My friend, God placed this post on my heart tonight to encourage you who are weary. This includes me. So many of us are undergoing trials that seem to take away our very breath. The endurance for another day seems almost to hard to bear. We must remember that we are not orphans who have been abandoned or discarded. We are sons and daughters of the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords! We are royalty, but we wait as though we are forgotten children. You and I must understand that HE WILL BE BACK! Prophecies have been and are continuing to be fulfilled. It is getting closer and closer to the day when the trumpet sounds and our eyes are drawn to the activity in the sky, once again. But this time, not for fireworks. The Lord Jesus has come to do as He promised! Our loved ones ,who have accepted Him through salvation, will rise first and then us--His children! We will be changed! My heart beats faster as I write this post. But as much as I long to see my Saviour and those who have gone before me, there is much work to be done. Jesus did not tell us to rest with our feet up while He went to get everything ready. No, you and I must share with others about the day of our Lord. Even though I know I will be a part of that glorious day, if it were today, I would be heart broken. Heart broken for those I have not told about my Lord. Do you know if your spouse has accepted Christ into their heart? Other family members? Your best friend? What about that person who is sitting next to you right now? I have failed my God miserably in this area, but I am going to strive to change that. Perhaps your are going through a difficult trial in your life right now. You never seem to be able to 'get everything together' here on Earth. If your are God's child, He tells us that we are aliens and strangers to this world. We are temporary. And for that reason, we must depend on God and His power to take us through the 'land of the living'. We have work to do, guys and gals. He is returning. What we have read is true. My heart tells me it is. But for today or tonight, whenever you are reading this, I challenge you to do something that I did tonight: Look at the sky for just a moment. If you are His child, anticipate that day where we will be caught up in the air, the trumpet... the rapture. As for our trials we face today, 1 Thess. 4:18 tells us that the return of Christ should encourage us as believers. But until that day comes, we must continue to do the work... His work. Love, Corrie (Note: If you have never asked Christ into your heart to be your Lord and Saviour, I would be honored to share with you how to do that. Please contact me by phone or by email (both my email address and phone number can be found on the home page of the website). It will be the best decision you will ever make :-) My prayer for today: Lord, how thankful I am that you have gone to prepare a place for me. A place that I can't even imagine. I nailed you to that cross and you gave me eternity in return. I don't know what to say except that I am thankful. I will proclaim who you are until you return.

Against All Hope

2009-06-23T00:26:00.004-05:00

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead--since he was about a hundred years old--and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness." Romans 4:18-22 My husband, Shane, and I had the privilege of attending a Christian marriage retreat, specifically for coaches and their wives, this past weekend (coachesoutreach.org, by the way;-). It was wonderful! In the worship sessions, we studied the first 5 chapters of Romans. As I was reading along with the pastor, we came across the above verses. It seemed at though time stood still for me as I read these verses over and over again. It was as if they were written in darker ink than any of the other text. The entire day and night, I thought about these verses. Then, God spoke to me and said this would be the post... You cannot study God's word without learning about Abraham. If Abraham lived in our world today, he would totally be on the front of every tabloid magazine. Why? Because he had an incredible life story. If you only knew the ending of Abraham's story, then you would think he had been this young, strong, well-educated man that was from a strong Christian home and had a beautiful young trophy wife to match. After all, who wouldn't choose this type of man to say he was 'the father of all nations'? Wouldn't this type of man be chosen to begin the bloodline of Jesus, the Messiah, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? The truth is, Abraham's life story is incredible because of one thing: Abraham believed God. That's it. We find in God's word that Abraham's father worshiped many gods, while Abraham worshiped the one true God. So, it wasn't his monumental upbringing that moved God's heart. And as for physical appearance, Abraham was an elderly man (and so was his wife for that matter!) when God decided to let the blessings begin. God showed me, after reading this text, that believing Him was the ultimate characteristic He is looking for. Abraham did not only believe God, but he put his hope in God when there was no reason to hope. The beginning of Romans 4:18 says, "Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed..." So here is a question: How do you hope in God when there is no reason to hope? The definition for the word 'hope' in the dictionary is very different from the definition of how 'hope' is used in God's word. The dictionary says hope is: 'to desire something, yet having no assurance that it will really happen'. The Bible tells us that here, hope means, 'strong and confident expectation'. That's it. Abraham was confident that God would come through on the promises He had made. Perhaps you are at a place in your life today that you are finding it extremely difficult to find hope 'against all hope'. Maybe you really wish God would come through, but that doubt that He just might not, takes your thoughts captive. How do we fix it? How can we have this confidence in God that Abraham had? Well, to be confident that someone will come through for you, you have to KNOW them. Right? I mean, would you meet a stranger or someone you talked to every once in a while, and ask them to do something for you and really be confident they would come through for you? I wouldn't! But don't we do it with God? We don't know Him. That is the problem with the hope. Abraham KNEW God. Verses 20 & 21 say that Abraham was actually strengthened in his faith after facing the fact that he was too old for this to be humanly possible! How often do we totally give up when we see how big our obstacle is and we run the stats on if we can get past it? It makes me want to jump up and down when I think about the fact that Abraham knew God so well, that he was 'fully persuaded that God had the power to do what He had promised him'!! If you read through Genesis, you will find many examples of where Abraham is talking to God. He went to God with his problems. I also noticed that Abraham didn't forget to praise God in the good times too. The Bible tells us of numerous times Abraham stopped and build an alter and gave a sacrifice to God. This was done because He praised this Almighty God for just being with Him, being faithful. O how I forget to praise Him for just waking me up in the morning. If you feel hopeless about your situation, God wants you to know that He can provide you hope. To me, Abraham was the most blessed person by God in our history. God began a legacy with Abraham; a legacy that gave us a Saviour! God didn't choose to bless Abraham because of his physical, mental, or emotional characteristics. It wasn't about Abraham's status at work or the money he had or didn't have. It was the fact that Abraham believed God 'against all hope'. You may say, "Corrie, it's 2009 and my circumstances are alot different from Abraham." This may be true, but thank goodness having different circumstances won't matter... it's still the same God. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, thank you so much for recording your journey with Abraham in your word. It makes me feel so much better to know that when I feel hopeless, hope can be found in you. Help me to remember to take the time to get to know you so that I may be confident in who you are and your power. Draw me closer to you so that I may depend on you for my every breath...

Do Not Forget: Part Two

2009-06-13T21:05:00.004-05:00

"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want." Galatians 5:16-17 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22-23 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Matthew 16:24 In the last post, 'Do Not Forget', God reminded me just how often I place other things and other people in front of Him. In writing that post, He refreshed my mind and heart in knowing how involved He wants to be in every aspect of my life... if I would just spend time with Him. As Christians, we know this. But, why is it so difficult for us to do this? Why do we find ourselves failing over and over again to spend more time with God? Thankfully, God gives us the answer in the following post. Part 2 begins... Have you ever been on a diet? I don't like diets because I don't do well on them. You know why? I don't like to NOT eat stuff that taste good! :-) Diets mess with my mind, I think. When I know I can't have something, it makes me want to eat it even more! I can be full up to my eyeballs and Canaan will leave a couple of chicken nuggets and you know what? I eat them!!! Why? Why? Why? The answer is lack of self-control (yep, I don't want God to go here any more than you do). But before I can use it in my eating, I must learn to use it in my spiritual life first. Self-control. Not a great topic for us but a necessary one, according to our Lord. This past month, God has opened up my heart to focusing on the fruit of the spirit. He began working with me on self-control. At first, I was confused by this because self-control is the last fruit of the spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:23. But the more I learned, the more I realized this is the key in strengthening my relationship with God and that's why I needed to begin here. In Galatians 5:16-18, Paul tells us that, as Christians, we must be led by the Holy Spirit. If we are not, we will gratify our own desires, which are sinful. Several places in the Bible, we find Jesus saying that we must 'deny' our self in order to follow Him. Deny, by definition, means 'to restrain oneself from gratification of desires'. I began to think about that and I realized that there is very little that I 'restrain myself' from to follow Christ. What do I deny myself from or when do I exercise self-control with God? God sacrificed His son so that you and I can have a home in Heaven. He wants to be close to me and only asks for my time; Time to worship Him and praise Him before I do something I want to do; Time to ask Him for forgiveness for hurting Him before I need to go somewhere I want to go; Time to offer up my burdens that HE asked me to bring to Him before I spend my time with the very people He put in my life. That, my friends, is simply nothing for me to sacrifice or to deny myself. So, a closer walk with God, (going from an introduction to an intimate friendship) has alot to do with self-control. We must exercise self-control in putting Him first. This is difficult, I know. But God's word tells us that it is difficult because what we want and what God wants is contrary to each other (makes sense of why it's hard sometimes to do the right thing). God tells us we will feel this controversy, but we must choose Him. We can't afford to have distance between us and God, so this is extremely important. When we want to watch TV to wind down at night, we must go to God first. When we want to eat in the morning or get ready, we should spend the time with Him first. I hope you will join me in thinking about your day and night and finding ways to deny our self something in order to put Him above our wants and desires. If you are a Christian (meaning, you have accepted Christ into your heart as Lord and Savior), and you feel that there is distance between you and God, this is the way to close the gap. 1 John 1:5-6 says, "...this is how we know we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did." Well, if there is one thing we know Jesus did, it was to spend time with the Father. He made time. Spending time with God was everything to Jesus. It must be everything to us. We will set the DVR or rush home early to prevent missing our favorite show. But, seldom do we deny ourselves or move something or someone out of our way if it threatens to come between the time we have with our Lord. I hope that you and I will exercise that necessary fruit of the spirit: self-control. If we do this, we will 'not forget' Him. If we are tempted to do something else when God is prompting our hearts to spend time with Him, may we remember Calvary... enough said. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I want to be close with you. I hate when there is distance between us. And most of all, I hate that I caused the distance. I want to put you ahead of everyone and everything in my life. You have given so much for me. Help me to use this precious gift of self-control in every aspect of my life. i praise and honor you for my every heart beat and my every breath. May I live my life for you alone.

Do Not Forget

2009-06-03T23:08:00.004-05:00

"Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them." Deuteronomy 4:9 "Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws, and his decrees that I am giving you this day." Deuteronomy 8:11 I can't wait to get to Heaven. We will finally get to see Jesus face to face! We will be able to worship this God we have believed in for so long. And seeing all my loved ones! So exciting! You may laugh at this, but when I get to Heaven, there are people from the Bible that I really want to meet too. I want to meet David (I bet the Goliath story is even cooler hearing David tell it in person!) and I definitely want to meet Paul. I want to sit and talk with Moses for a while. I have a bone to pick with Eve, though (I blame all my pain of childbirth on her! Thanks Eve!--Just kidding). Heaven is going to be a wonderful place where we can worship our Lord. And, we will worship Him along side all these believers we read about in God's word. I believe one of those people will be Solomon. Ecclesiastes is written by Solomon. If you haven't read it, I challenge you to do so. It is only 12 chapters, but it is so very powerful. This is Corrieology, but when I read Ecclesiastes, I imagine it is being written as sort of an interview with Solomon on what he has learned in his life. Have you ever heard the phrase, "they've got everything under the sun" ? This comes from Solomon. He shares that though he was wise (the wisest man ever, as a matter of fact), had pleasure, power, and wealth, he was empty. He tells us that nothing mattered without God. He says that everything 'under the sun' was worthless and that a relationship with God was everything. He mentions more than once, to 'remember your creator'. Throughout God's word, we are told time and time again, not to forget God. At first, that seemed silly to me. I thought, "I could never forget God!" Then, I looked at the definitions for forget. One definition really bothered me. It read, "to treat with inattention or disregard". Wow. Do you know how many times I have paid more attention to something or someone else more than God? Countless times. In Judges, we read the story of how God's people, the Israelites, disobeyed God when He told them to drive out the Canaanites. The Canaanites were ungodly people, doing their 'own thing', living their 'own way.' God didn't want His children to conform. Judges 3:7 says, "The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord: they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs." They forgot God. They worshiped something else. Do we realize that we worship other things when we refuse to make time for God? That we are 'inattentive' or 'disregard' the fact that He wants us to talk with Him when we get up in the morning before we eat our breakfast or drink our coffee. BEFORE. I must stop trying to fit God in where it is the easiest for me then mark it off on my 'spiritual checklist'. This is my creator. As a Christian, sometimes we feel so very distant from God. Satan loves when we feel this way. We feel sorry for ourselves. We get down and out because we think, "God's just not hearing my prayers." We must not forget. God is teaching me that when I get into a spiritual rut, I can just go to God and tell Him that I remember. I remember the day He saved me. I remember the day He did 'this' for me and 'that' for me. And pretty soon, the distance is gone! We are together again. What about you? Do you feel distant from God today? If you are His child, all you have to do is remember. What has God done for you? Satan needs us to feel alone and isolated. He doesn't want us to remember how God rescued us before. God tells us all we have to do is utter His name and He will run to us. That name is powerful, my friends. That name conquered death! But that name can never be forgotten. I hope you will join me this week in remembering God on a daily basis. There will be a 'part two' to this post. But for now, we must not forget our creator. Look at the clock for 10 seconds before you read the rest of this post(Stop here). (Resume) Now, know that it was God who allowed you to breath during those 10 seconds... He is sustaining us even when we don't realize it... we must not forget Him. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, please forgive me for forgetting you. I break your heart so often, yet You continue to love me and bless me. I want to remember Your power, Your love, Your mercy every day. Help me to know I cannot exist without you, nor do I wish to...

Five Stones

2009-05-20T15:19:00.003-05:00

"Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd's bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine." 1 Samuel 17: 40 Since I was a little girl, one of my favorite Bible stories is David and Goliath. When I read it as an adult to my little boy, I can't help but visualize of how that day of battle might have taken place. Let's look at the story more closely... I can just see David, this young shepherd boy who came to The Valley of Elah that day, bringing lunch to his big brothers. I am sure when David left, he didn't think bringing some cheese and bread would turn into such an eventful day! How creepy it must have been to hear the loud, obnoxious voice of a nine foot giant, yelling and screaming death threats! As his brothers shared their frustrations and fears of this angry man named Goliath, David listened. In 1 Samuel 17 verse 26, David couldn't believe that someone would actually challenge the 'armies of the living God'. Out of all the things David could have said, he is more worried about this man challenging the power of his God! No wonder the rest of them looked at him like, "This guy is going to kill us and your worried about what God thinks?" But you see, that is why David is known for having that phenomenal relationship with God. David immediately is defensive of his God. How often do we think about God's feelings in our battles? Then, David stands to basically say, "Well, I'll fight him." God's word says that people around him took this gesture as being arrogant and conceited. But the confidence that David exhibits, comes from the fact that he already knew the outcome of this battle. Why? Because he knew his Lord. David had such a close relationship with God that he knew God would prevail. I don't think he cared much about the 'how', but the outcome was a sure thing. We fail at this time and time again. We have a battle and then we worry and stress over the outcome. Why? Because we don't know the one who holds the outcome. The more I read God's word and the more time I spend with Him, the less doubts I find that come in my head. The worry is diminished because I know God is for my good. God has shown me that David agreed to fight Goliath because he knew he was only the 'body' that God would use. It was God's battle; not David's. David could have made it his battle, but he knew from the beginning and continued to remember that the battle was the Lord's (vs 45 ). Then I noticed that David meets with Saul because (let's face it) everybody wanted to meet this fool that was going to take on this giant! Saul gives David an armor. David refused. God then leads David to pick 5 smooth stones for his slingshot. It is interesting to me that David refused the defense the King offered him. Often times, we are in a battle in our life. And rather than trust what God gives us to fight with, we feel we need more protection, so we put on whatever the world suggests. The world suggests alcohol/drugs to numb things just a little; it suggests that maybe we just need to run away from it all; the world suggests harsh words that lash and cut; the world suggests we fight with self-help books and talk shows; the world suggests we hold resentment and put only distance between us and the ones who hurt us. Then we wonder why we feel as though we are drowning and the battle rages on. God gave David 5 stones. Not 4, not 6...5 stones. David had these 5 stones, a staff, and a sling shot. If I were David, I probably would have said, "God, are you kidding? Don't you think I need at least some kind of little dagger or a sharp- kind- of- something?!!! How about a bigger rock at least!!" David picked up the defense God gave him and defeated that giant. I guess what I am trying to say is that I want to be content with God in battle. I want to trust Him with every single aspect of my life. I want Him to control every part of me; my mind, my heart, my body. With this trust, I will be able to fight with whatever and however He leads. God placed this story on my heart tonight. I know many of us are facing battles in our lives at this very moment. If you are God's child, He promises to be your defender. I noticed that none of the circumstances surrounding David ever became an obstacle for him. He never said, "I'm too small; I'm too young; I'm not skilled; everybody is talking about me and saying I can't do this." David knew none of these factors changed the outcome of the battle. David knew who was 'really' fighting this battle. How often we get side-tracked by the obstacles around us. For you see, it wasn't the 5 stones that defeated Goliath, and it wasn't the boy who slung them...it was God's power which came because of David's obedience to fight the way God wanted. We have to remember that if we ask God to fight the battle, then we have to fight it His way. What are your stones God has given you to fight with? Is it silence in the heat of an argument? Is it forgiving someone who has hurt you? Is it simply waiting on Him? Is it burying yourself in His word for more time with Him? To me, the stones are symbolic of David's faith and obedience to God in the battle. This story tells me that the reason David won the battle with 5 stones is because David trusted the One who told him to gather them... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, thank you for this powerful story. Thank you for showing me the significance of David's 5 stones. Help me to grow closer to you so that I may know you more. Help me to give my battles to you and be obedient to fight with what you tell me to. I trust you with my life, Lord. Be my defender...

Mothers' Day Celebrations

2009-05-09T22:28:00.003-05:00

Thanks to the ladies of New Prospect Baptist Church in Haleyville, Alabama, for allowing me to speak at their Mothers' Day Banquet. The fashion show was hilarious and God's presence was sweet as we opened our hearts to His word. I would also like to thank the women of Harmony Grove Baptist Church in Winfield, Alabama, for inviting me to share my heart at their Mothers and Others luncheon. After a time of wonderful fellowship (and the best mashed potatoes I've ever eaten!), we learned of the great spiritual responsibility God has entrusted us with, as mothers, until He comes. I had a wonderful time with my sisters in Christ! Love, Corrie

Grace > Sin

2009-05-09T21:30:00.007-05:00

"For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them-yet not I but the grace of God that was with me." 1 Corinthians 15:9-10 I do not like math. I didn't like it in school and I don't like it any better now (and by the way, I don't use all that math in real life like some of my math teachers said that I would!). I guess when Canaan starts to get past addition/subtraction/ division/multiplication, I will have to call in a tutor! I can remember a section in math that was called: Greater than, less than, or equal to. It had these symbols at the top of the page: > < = Rember those? All I remember of that section was that it was about finding out how one particular number (or X...why X? :-) measured up in comparison to other numbers. This moved me to think about how we feel sometimes. We are given the illusion by Satan that our pasts and mistakes automatically make us 'less than' others. Let's see what God's word says... Have you ever compared yourself to other people and then walked away feeling so much less as a person? Perhaps you have said to yourself, "Well, I am just as good as they are." As humans, we are constantly motivated by the world to keep up with the latest fashions, technology, political issues, music, and the list goes on and on. We even become convinced that our body isn't like "so and so's" or that we need a better career, car, house, etc. This concept of comparing can spill over into our Christian walk as well. Many times, Satan preys on God's children. He tells us that we will never be close with God because of our past. He tells us we can never be the Godly spouse, parent, child, boss, employee, grandmother, etc., because our past sin is too great. When this lie from Satan is re-enforced with depression, an abusive childhood, a rocky marriage, or low self-esteem, distance from God is formed. So, what do we do to block these thoughts from creating distance from the God who loves us? To dispell a lie, one must know the truth. The truth about 'measuring up' with God is in His word. Grace is the word that destroys the lie of Satan. What is grace? Grace, by definition, means the 'unmerited favor' of God. Unmerited tells us that when we become God's child by salvation, we do not have to do anything to earn His love. Grace is given to us to help us live in the land of the living. God's favor is given to us because He loves us, not because of what we do or even who we are. Wow. It absolutely blows my mind that the God of Abraham, the God who knows the number of every grain of sand, wants to favor me! Insignificant, inadequite, me. Perhaps you struggle with feeling 'less than' in your Christian walk. God wants us to know that we don't have to worry about qualities that we do or don't possess, but that we understand that it is He that works within us. Understanding God's grace gives us the courage to walk in this old world until He retuns for us. Paul explains grace wonderfully in the verses above. Paul is one of the most renound warriors for proclaming the gospel. But Paul didn't begin that way. Paul's past was one of persecuting God's people. But because of grace, everything changed. Paul simply says that as a human, He is so unworthy. The fact that God worked through Paul, made the difference. Great things were done by Paul only by the grace of God working in and around him. Today is Mothers' Day. Are you a mother that feels as though she has failed at everything, especially with her children? Are you a mother that feels as though she is always less than other people in every aspect? Maybe you are God's child that has walked away. If you want to close this distance between you and God, take time to understand the awesome concept of His grace. Perhaps you are burdened by mistakes you have made in your past or even yesterday. Romans 5:20 tells us that where sin is increased, grace is increased all the more. How comforting this verse is to me. Though we must strive to flee from sin, it gives me hope to know that even though I fail in my walk with God, grace is greater than my failure. Grace is greater than sin. You must understand that God works through you to minister to your family. God reaches out through you to help others. God loves through you to your family and friends. That is the greatest news to me today. I know that as long as I stay close to God, Canaan will have everything he ever needs. God will love Canaan through me. What a concept!I hope you will join me in accepting that grace is greater than sin (grace > sin). That is one math concept I can use! :-) Give God your feelings of inadequacies and allow Him to do something awesome through you. Give Him your past so He can give you your future... Happy Mothers' Day! Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how thankful I am for the concept of grace. I, alone, am nothing. But with your Holy Spirit living within me and working through me, great things will be done in your name. May you bless each person who reads this post. May they come to you and give you all their fears and failures. I pray that they come to know your grace and allow you to love and work through them...

Closing the Distance

2009-04-26T22:52:00.003-05:00

(Please read 2 Samuel Chapters 11-12 before reading the post) "...and they said, "He is dead." So David arose from the ground, washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house; and when he requested, they set food before him and he ate." 1 Samuel 12:19 (beginning in the last part of verse 19) - 20. I love studying the Bible and all the people God chose to let us read about. But, you know what? There is one person that I am extremely thankful that God didn't leave out... David! I love to study about David. To me, we can learn so much from him. When David was just a young boy, God let him defeat a giant and become a hero! Here is a man that God loved so much that he chose to be Israel's king. He even favored David so that He allowed Jesus to come from David's bloodline. Why? God loved David because David's passion was making his own heart reflect God's. In order to make your heart mirror someone else, you must know that person very well. David is one person that we can study in order to know exactly how to have a phenomenal relationship with God. That is one reason I am eager to learn about David. The closeness that was between David and God is what I want too. But, I also noticed another reason I am thankful for David's story being told in God's word. David shows us what to do when we mess up and how to 'get it back on the road' with God. Before God founded my ministry, I would find myself distant from God and had no clue how to 'get back' to Him. I kept wondering how I could keep this from happening with me and God again? God began to show me that preventing distance was all about maintaining closeness. Yep...Duh! Anyway, Filling the Gap is all about the relationship with God and learning that even though sin does distance us from our Father, the cross brings us back with Him again and again through forgiveness. Here's the kicker: God gets all this. We kind of.... don't. I always ask God to forgive me for allowing sin to come between Him and me but then I fail to believe He has forgiven me and continue wallowing in self pity(all the while keeping distance). Here's where David comes in as a great example. In 2 Samuel Chapter 11, David sets his eyes on another man's wife. To make the story shorter, David commits adultery with Bathsheba and then (to make matters worse) plots to make sure her husband dies on the front lines of battle. But then God sends Nathan to convict David of this sinful spiral he is in. Then, David closes the distance between him and God... he repents. David admits what he did was hurtful to God. David's sin had repercussion. David's child that he had with Bathsheba (apart from God's plan) was taken from him by death. Now, what happens next is the whole point of the post that God placed on my heart. David was honest with God about his emotions and pleaded with God not to take his child. But when the child died, when God did what God thought was best, David worshiped Him. Unbelievable. David worshiped God. Why? How? I believe it was because David knew God so well that He trusted God's plan for his life. It was that relationship that was in place before anything happened. This is the true meaning of Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." This verse does not say "some things" or "only the things we do that are good". God can even take our sin and work it out to be the very best for us! The question is do you trust Him? Maybe you feel distant with God right now in your Christian walk. We have proof and a road map on how to be close to God instantly. Tell God you want Him to forgive you, work on a new plan to keep from letting it happen again, and move on to worshiping Him. Why? Because God knows the very best for you and me. I want to have faith like David. I want to know that even when I fail the very God I love so much, I can trust Him with all my decisions. I hope you will too. The good news is that when we do trust God with everything, He proves Himself over and over again. David's proof of Romans 8:28? A spiritual legacy that gave us a Savior! Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how often I fail you. I am so glad that you are the God of forgiveness and that you run to me before I even realize you are there. Forgive me for placing distance between you and I by not accepting that forgiveness. Help me to be like David. Help me to know that you do what you say you will do...

Heartbeat

2009-04-19T18:55:00.003-05:00

"My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end." Psalm 119:112 I know it has been sometime since my last post. Many of you who know me, know that I ONLY write a post when God Himself prompts my heart to do so. These past two weeks, I kept waiting...wondering. Then, God gave me the post. It came about when my son, Canaan, said something so sweet and Innocent, yet inspired by the very God of Abraham, Moses, and Jacob. May God speak to your heart as He did to mine through the wisdom of a child.... "Mommy! I can feel my heart beating," Canaan said, with his little hand over his chest. " That's wonderful babe!" (I said, making a big deal over this as a proud momma does :-) But his next sentence caused me to be almost speechless. Turning to walk away, Canaan looked at me and said, "Mommy, it will just keep beating til' I get to Heaven." Wow. I began to think, "Am I really living day to day, with my heart 'beating' only for Him? Am I so attached to the world that I forget to see it as only my temporary destination? I searched for the definition of the word heartbeat. It means, 'one complete pulsation of the heart'. At that moment, it occurred to me that I must monitor my spiritual heartbeat. ''One complete pulsation"... I am not complete without my Lord as the driving force of my day and night. Once you have given your heart to God, He owns it. He possesses it. But the heartbeat of our spiritual life is all about the relationship with Him on a daily basis. We, as His children, must keep 'beating' until He returns or until He calls us to be with Him. I must confess that in my spiritual heart, the beat is sometimes so soft and slow it becomes dangerous. My spiritual heartbeat becomes irregular. Irregular, by one definition, means "lacking perfect symmetry." How descriptive of my relationship with God at times. I so very often lack that perfect symmetry when I am one with Him and He is leading all my decisions, all my emotions, all of my thoughts, resulting in all (not just some) of my words. Yes, it is no mystery that our world is a very difficult place to be. However, it is required by God's people to be His very heartbeat, reaching out to those who have no hope. You may say, "how can I reach out to others when I, myself, seem to have so much despair?" The answer comes through checking your own spiritual heartbeat before you can be His. It is about the relationship (the symmetry of your heartbeat with His). Proverbs 4:23 says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Wellspring means 'a source of continual supply'. Supply of what? Luke 6:45 tells us that whatever is stored up in the heart is whatever comes out of the heart. Today, will you join me in checking your spiritual heartbeat? Is is faint because of trials you are going through? Is is irregular because it is not one with our Lord in a close relationship? I pray that after reading this post, you will give your heart to Jesus if you don't know Him as Lord and Savior. If you have accepted Christ through salvation, I pray you check your spiritual heartbeat and run to Him, seeking a close relationship with Him. And then... may it be our passion to "beat" until He comes! Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how I long for you to come back for your children. This world is such a struggle. Pain, sadness, and death whirl around me. Make my heart beat strong for you. Help me to remember that your power lives in me through your Holy Spirit. May I stay close to you to continue to run the race until you come again...

The Egg Tooth

2009-04-05T17:37:00.002-05:00

OLD TESTAMENT: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this." Isaiah 9:6-7 NEW TESTAMENT: "From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day." Matthew 16:21 Easter is one week away. Every year, I find myself more and more excited about Easter. As a Christian, I love to celebrate the birth of Christ, because I know, without that special night in Bethlehem, we wouldn't have a Saviour. But the day that Savior arose? Wow! The day death was conquered! The day that made it possible for me to have an eternity and be forgiven! Chill Bumps, my friends, chill bumps. So, with that in mind.... The other day, I was making Canaan one of the many snacks that I make for him a day (you moms know what I mean :-). A commercial came on "his" station and it was one of those teaching/fact things. It said that birds are born with a sharp horn-like instrument on the edge of their beaks, called an egg tooth. This tool, which is given to them before birth (while they are in the egg), enables them to crack out of their egg and hatch. It provides them a way out of a situation that they don't need to be in any longer. I must tell you, that commercial stayed on my mind all day, all night, and all weekend. When it came time for my post today, I knew God wanted me to sit down and really apply the concept of the 'egg tooth' spiritually. You see, before the foundation of the earth, God knew that there would come a day that He would provide you and I a way to be forgiven for our sins. God cannot and will not, tolerate, look at, have any part of, sin. This plan He came up with? Our own "Egg Tooth"... Jesus. It is important for us to realize the strategy behind Easter. It is even more important for us to realize the reason behind the strategy---LOVE. John 3:16 tells us this. God didn't just look at the world and decide to do something. God knew beforehand. He always knows. Just as He knew the bird would need a way out of it's shell, He knew you and I would need someone to save us from our sins. We needed a way out of Hell. The scripture at the top of the post confirms this. Before we were born, before Jesus was born, God knew the way out. I wanted us to look at the fact that the plan of the crucifixion and resurrection was set in motion before Christ walked upon the Earth. Isaiah prophesied about the plan. Jesus told the disciples about the plan.What about you? Do you realize you have an 'egg tooth'? Have you realized that you have access to the greatest gift ever given? I hope you will accept the 'way out'. I hope you will ask Jesus to forgive you for your sins and to come into your heart and save you. Oh. I almost forgot. There is another avenue to the whole 'egg tooth'. For the Christian, we continue to have a way to break free from the trials of this life. I am not saying the trials will be taken away, but I am saying we are equipped with an 'egg tooth' for the trials that come. It is the one thing Jesus left us with when He ascended: The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives within the Christian and enables us to have God's attributes (fruits of the Spirit). For you see, without the Holy Spirit, I (Corrie) am nothing more than a sinner with nothing worthy to bring before my Lord. But with God's Holy Spirit dwelling with in me, I can be kind, peaceful, forgiving, merciful, loving, honorable, ... the list goes on. It is important that we know and remember the distinction. The Holy Spirit allows us to have an intimate relationship with God. It is the only way we can live in the land of the living. As the end of time draws near, perhaps you are going through a trial. Perhaps you are going through a trial that seems so dark and scary, you feel trapped and see no end to it whatsoever. I hope you will remember the 'egg tooth'. From salvation to the Holy Spirit, God never forgets to provide a way out. If He remembered it for the tiniest of animals, like the bird, He will also not forget you. May we remember our 'egg tooth' when we feel the following: " We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you." 2 Corinthians 4:8-12. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Father, I am so thankful for your wisdom, your power, your forgiveness, and most of all, your love. Before I was ever born, you provided me a 'way out' of my sin. I can never repay the debt I owe but because of your heart, I don't have to. Help me to remember that not only do you provide salvation, you provide strength for my trials. Help it to be enough for me...

Siloam

2009-04-05T17:31:00.003-05:00

'Thank you' to the ladies of Siloam Missionary Baptist Church in Russellville, Alabama, for inviting me to be a part of their annual women's luncheon. We came together this past Saturday for both physical and spiritual food. The theme was, "The many hats women wear", and God truly blessed each heart that attended. May we remember to be wise women who remember to give our 'hats' to God.... Love, Corrie

The Tear Bottle

2009-03-25T22:18:00.002-05:00

"You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?" Psalm 56:8

Tears. Ever wondered why we have them? Scientist tell us that our bodies secrete tears to keep the eye moist and to prevent it from drying out. Tears are also a reaction to pain of our physical body and are often a result of experiencing emotional pain as well. I even cry when I am happy sometimes! While many animals do secrete tears, many researchers say that only humans produce tears linked with emotion. Nevertheless, tears are important to us. In our society, we sometimes view crying as weak and vulnerable. We often hide our tears. We hide our emotions. We even try to hide them from God. I am not sure why God wanted me to pick tonight to write on the topic of 'tears'. While He put this post on my heart weeks ago, He waited until tonight for me to write it. Only you know why He waited. He waited for you. I hope you will find this post both comforting and motivating. I know I do... If you were to ask me one of my most favorite verses in the Bible, I would have a very difficult time because there are so many. But Psalm 56:8 is one that takes my breath away. It all began with a sermon my dad preached years ago entitled, "God's Tear Bottle." I can remember looking at that verse and reading it over and over. Here, David is praying to God when he has been seized by the Philistines. I am so thankful for Psalms because it gives us such good documentation of what all David went through. It shows him as a man that often failed God, but a man whose heart loved God and accepted God's forgiveness. Because of all of David's trials, he mentions his 'tears' several times throughout the book. In Psalm 6:6, David says, " I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears." Many theologians even believe David battled depression. His circumstances seemed hopeless time and time again. In Psalm 56:8, David is saying that he has cried so much, no bottle could hold all his tears. But, (here's the good part!), David goes to God and asks God to put his tears in GOD'S tear bottle! Notice, David says 'in YOUR bottle'! David knew that his God cared that he was crying. David knew his God was keeping up with every single tear he cried. David believed God wrote the reason for every tear down. You are reading this because God wants you to know He cares that you cry. If you have accepted Him as your Lord and Saviour, He catches your tears. Maybe you have been crying over the death of someone you loved with all your heart. Maybe you are crying because of the baby you want to have or the child that you want to come home. Do you cry because your past keeps coming up day after day? Do you cry because you are sick and you hurt so bad, no one can understand? Maybe you cry because of a broken marriage. Perhaps you cry because of a decision you have to make. Maybe you cry because you fear the money you need may not be there. I am writing to tell you that God has caught every tear, my sweet friend. He hasn't missed one. He has sat right there beside you listening to every single word you cried. Why? Because He loves you. Wow. How comforting. I feel in my heart many of us need to know that tonight...including myself. While that is wonderful, we also have to consider one more thing about tears. Here's the question: Do we ever cry over our relationship with God? I guess what I am saying is do we care that we fail Him or put more people ahead of Him? Do we cry for those who don't know Him? Jeremiah is called 'the weeping prophet' because it broke his heart when the people of Jerusalem rejected God. This convicted me. I want my heart to be broken over those who still need to hear the gospel. I want to shed tears for those Christians who don't know about the relationship God desires with us. Listen to Psalm 119:136, "Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for your law is not obeyed." I truly feel God wanted this post to minister to us in two ways. First, I know God wants us to be comforted. There are many tears being shed for many reasons day and night, and God wants us to know that He hears us. He will come to our aide. He is a great parent and no great parent likes to see their children hurt. Second, I think He wants to remind us that while He will comfort us, are we ever crying over Him? I hope you will join me in redirecting our tears. I hope you and I will be broken over our relationship with Him and for those who don't know about Him. I believe if we begin to reach others for Him, we will see our own problems become as small as a grain of sand. May we run to Him and allow Him to take away the deep secrets that make us cry... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Father, how you have captivated me tonight. You have shown me how much you love me yet challenged my love for you and those around me. I want to weep over my relationship with you. I ask and accept your forgiveness for the distance I have placed between us and for failing to tell those around me about you. Give me a passion for you every single day...

Green Valley Women's Conference

2009-03-25T21:52:00.003-05:00

What an awesome time I had last night with the wonderful women of Green Valley Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama! It was an honor for me to speak at their Heart to Heart conference. We laughed and cried as we allowed God to fill the room with His presence. God was truly welcomed as the guest of honor. May we, as women, never forget that we can have a personal relationship with the Holy, merciful, all-knowing, ever lasting, consuming fire...God!!!!!!!!!!!

His Name

2009-03-13T19:08:00.009-05:00

Before I begin this post, I want you all to know that I have been struggling to write this particular one. It has taken me several days to allow God to put it all together. Why the delay?Let me just say that spiritual warfare is very real. Satan tries to attack any attempt at making people aware of God's power. Though I know Satan's attacks all too well, I will continue with God's will, which is to write this post. Why? Because of the following... "Therefore, God exalted Him to the Highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:9-11) Here we go...

About a week ago, Canaan and I were stranded when my car died. It was dark and Canaan began to cry ( I was about to cry too!). I told him that God would send someone to help us. I grabbed my cell phone, only to find I had no cell phone service (figures, right?). As I got out and walked around the back of my car, I stopped and asked God to please send us help. As soon as I looked up from praying, a gentleman stopped to help us and asked if I needed to use his cell phone because he had signal. Later, much later, after watching the wrecker tow my car away, I realized the financial burden I was facing. Satan immediately began attacking my mind with the illusions of debt. Sunday morning came and I was sitting in our worship service when we began to sing "There's Just Something About that Name." If you don't know the song, the words are : {"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. There's just something about that name. Master, Savior, Jesus, Like the fragrance after the rain. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let all heaven and earth proclaim: Kings and kingdoms shall all pass away, but there's something about that name."} God's spirit filled that sanctuary as it filled my heart. I began to cry. I suddenly realized the power that was in the name of Jesus. I realized that the same person who I had called upon to help me that dark night when I was stranded along the road, would help me deal with the financial burden of fixing the car. I cried because I have failed so often to recognize the significance of the name, Jesus. I could feel God prompting my heart to look deeper into His word and find out exactly what that name means for those who are His children. While this post is longer than usual, I couldn't wait to share the findings with you...

Most all of us have been required by an English or Lit teacher to read Shakespeare's tragic love story...Romeo and Juliet. Though I did read the story, I also bought Cliffs Notes to help me understand it a little better :-) (hey, I was just in 9th grade!). Anyway, we all know the part where Juliet says, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet." (For those of you who, like my husband, thought Juliet was basically saying, "Blah, Blah, Blah..."), I will explain. Juliet is saying that the feud between their families could never diminish the love for her beloved Romeo. She felt that a name was just a name, it did not define you, and it would not change her feelings for Romeo. Sweet, huh? (I always thought that story would have had a happier ending if people had just communicated better) Anyway, perhaps in this story, a name really is nothing more than a title. However, we should know that there is one name greater than any other name; a name that does define the person who carries it; there is a name that has a depth of meaning; one name that brings power when it is spoken; one name that melts my heart when I hear it; the only name that makes Heaven my eternity; the name that everyone will bow down to one day. What is this name? The name is Jesus. But what does this name mean for the Christian? Perhaps we've prayed, "in Jesus' name" a hundred times when ending our prayer, but but do we really know what this means? When I was five years old, I found that salvation was possible because of this name. Matthew 1:21 says, "She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins." To me, Jesus means salvation. It means an eternity for you and I in Heaven with our Lord, if we accept Him. If you have never asked Christ to come into your heart, I pray that you will. After you have met Jesus through salvation, you have access to the most wonderful personal relationship you will ever know. It is because of this intimate relationship that there is also hope in the name of Jesus. We are all different and have very different circumstances that cause us to become tired and weary. Even God's children feel the trials pushing and pounding us down, down, farther and deeper. We realize our hearts are breaking into pieces. But then... the name. Jesus offers hope. Matthew 12:21 says, "In His name (Jesus), the nations will put their hope." Why do we have hope? Because Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection gives us the opportunity to have a relationship with God. This relationship changes everything. It gives me hope that God is constantly with me and I am never alone. It gives me hope that He is working everything together for my good no matter the circumstance. The name of Jesus also ensures protection of those who accept Him through salvation and desire this relationship. In John chapter 17, Jesus is praying. In verse 11, He says, "I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name-the name you gave me-so they may be as one as we were one." Wow. No locked door can ever provide me more protection than what was offered up for me by my Lord and Savior. We must understand that we will be tested. But if we trust in this name, God's protection will never allow Satan to destroy us. Sadly, while knowing we can have salvation, hope, and protection all because of the name of Jesus, we sometimes still walk away from our prayers with just as much worry or anxiety as we had when we began. I believe we do this because we do not truly understand that the name of Jesus is powerful. I feel in my heart that what you are about to read, Satan does not want us to know. In our day and time, we face so many trials. I have my own and you may also be going through a terrible trial. Sometimes, we feel sorry for ourselves during these trying times. We think, "No one knows what I am going through because they have never experienced what is happening to me or how I feel." My friend, know this: No matter what trial you are going through, you can't do it without a relationship with Christ. Because, you see, when trials are completely given to God (and I do mean completely), things begin to happen because of Jesus. Strangely, because of that name, the trial can be one of the best things that has ever happened to you. God's word says because of Jesus' name, sick people were healed (Acts 3:1-10). In the name of our Lord, a small boy, named David, proved that God was bigger than the (giant!) problem at hand (1 Sam. 17:45). I would like for you to think, for a moment, of the biggest trial that is going on in your life at this time. Now, read the following verse with your trial in mind: "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come" (Ephesians 1:18-21). Praise God for the hope through the name of Jesus! When we pray, let us remember that we are talking to someone! Not just anyone; the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords! This Lion of Judah who will intercede to the very throne of Jehovah for us and plead our case. The very one who can deal with the trial...when we cannot. No longer can we say, "That's easier said than done." It is already done! Power was given along time ago. It is my heart's desire to continue learning who Jesus is, each and every day through a relationship with Him. Then, I must take what I have read in His word and apply it in every aspect of my life. May we do this over and over again until it is as easy as breathing. I hope you will join me in remembering that when we call upon the name of Jesus and pour out our hearts, we do not have to walk around with a heavy burden anymore. It is time we paid attention to His name. After all, His name changes everything... especially me. Love, Corrie My prayer for today; Jesus, my Lord, my Savior. Forgive me for calling on your name for help, yet failing to allow your power in my life for change. I give my trials to you. May those who don't know you call to your name for salvation. And may we, as your children believe in your power and accept it, to stay close to you or return back to the closeness of you. You are so worthy of my praise yet, I am so unworthy of your attention. Help me to learn more and more of who you are each and every day. May I hide your word in my heart so that I will not only recall it, but apply it. Thank you for who you are...

Assurance Rather Than Endurance

2009-02-27T23:54:00.005-06:00

Let me begin by saying 'thank you' for all of your prayers for me last week. Shane and I had a safe trip to Boston to see my doctor. I also received a great report. Test results show my disease hasn't spread and is confined to the left side. Cutting down on my medication has been put into motion, as of today! This is wonderful news and could only be the work of my Lord. "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word, I put my hope." Psalm 130:5 Recently, God led me to write a post on, "How to Wait For God." I must tell you that I had planned on writing a post that was on a different topic. But the more I prayed, the more I began to see that God was leading me to write on 'waiting' again. However, we won't be looking at how to wait for God, but why we should wait for Him... Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to wait? I have. I wonder why God gave us this inner choice to either wait patiently or frantically. After my doctor's appointment today, I thought about how long I had waited to hear such good news. Then, it was like God began to play back, in slow motion, all the events that lead up to the good news. The time in between... the 'wait time'. I was sitting here in front of the computer looking over some of my prayer journals from 2007. I recorded the trials of my sickness. There are so many pages where I had told God how tired I was; how my body hurt; how I hated to see my hair come out; I didn't feel like working; I was afraid of the infusions; how scary it was to know the medicines were not working. The entries brought tears to my eyes because I remembered those nights. I remembered thinking, "Can I wait on Him?" God has shown me that waiting on Him is easier if I began to get my mind off of the endurance of waiting and focus on the assurance of waiting. In other words, the question is not, 'can I wait for Him?', but 'why should I wait for Him?' As humans, we don't like to wait. Statistics tell us that the average person spends about 45-62 minutes a day waiting. Just waiting. Waiting on water to boil; waiting on the snooze button to go off one more time (yes, I do that!); waiting on someone to answer their phone while it rings. Just waiting. I know certain things that I don't like to wait on, but when are there times that I don't mind waiting? For me, I don't mind waiting when I know the outcome will be worth the wait. This means my hope is secure in the outcome. I do not doubt that it will be everything I expect. Why aren't we this way spiritually? Perhaps it has to do with our hope in who or what we are waiting on. Let's look at Psalm 130:5 in three parts. First, the Psalmist says, "I wait for the Lord." The word Lord, in Hebrew, translates to the personal name for God (Jehovah /Yahweh), depending upon how it is capitalized (here, Lord means Jehovah). The Psalmist is saying that he is not waiting on just anyone; he is waiting on his God that he knew personally and had a relationship with. We can rest assured that the more intimately we know God, the more reason we have to wait on Him. The second part of the verse says, 'my soul waits.' To me, this reminds me that my eternity is secure and I am waiting to be with Him, whether in death or by the rapture. The last part says, "and in His word I put my hope." Here is yet another reason to wait for God's help... His spoken word. God's word should be reason number one and reason one million and one, that we say why we will wait on Him. How about you? Are you struggling with waiting on God? Do you have a trial that you pick up every single day and try to handle it your way by yourself, only to escape the wait from God? It is just not worth rushing. 2 Thessalonians 3:5 says, "May the Lord bring you into an even deeper understanding of the love of God and of the patience that comes from Christ." It is important to know that if God allows the trial, He provides the patience to go with it. The patience comes from a daily relationship with Him. I hope God has spoken to you (as He has to me) through this post. I hope that if you are struggling to wait on Him to come to your rescue, you will consider the following: "Yet this I call to mind and therefore have hope: Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for Him." Lamentations 3:21-24 Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how faithful you have been to me and my family. You have never given me reason to doubt you. I have failed you daily, but never for a moment, have you failed me. Help me to remember that waiting on you should be about who you are and not when you come. I love you and will draw close to you while I wait...

Why Keep a Troubled Heart?

2009-02-18T21:20:00.004-06:00

Before I begin my post, I wanted to thank the ladies of Jonesboro Baptist Church in Russellville, Alabama, for inviting me to share God's word with them on February 7. God's wonderful presence filled the room as we focused on how to examine the content of our heart and pour it out before our Father. On a different note, Shane and I will be leaving tomorrow for Boston to see my doctor. I would like to ask you to please pray for our safety as we fly and for Canaan's safety as he stays here with my parents (might want to pray for my parents too; they will be worn out by that little four-year-old, by the time I return!). And now for the post... "...For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him." Matthew 12:34-35 Have you ever said something hurtful to someone or about them, and later said, "I didn't mean what I said. I was just angry." I admit I have done this. Maybe you have too. The Bible is very clear on many things. Two examples of such clarity is the tongue and the heart. James chapter three gives us a good breakdown of how dangerous the tongue can be. We have become a society in which we must speak politically correct and never offend someone. We teach our children to say 'nice things' about others. While monitoring our mouths is important and even necessary, 'taming the tongue' begins with the out-pouring of the heart. Jesus said, in Matthew, what comes out of the mouth is only a reflection of what was is in the heart (I know. I don't like where this is going either!) Yes, He is saying that what we say (and how we act) is directly proportional to what is 'stored up' in our heart. How can you know what is stored up in your heart? You look at your conversations over a period of time. For example, when we have a heart that is full of anger, we tend to strike out at those who are closest to us; those who we think will never leave us (spouse/children/parents). When we have stored up hurt, we tend to build a very tall wall around our hearts, rejecting love from anyone, and then crying about why no one wants to be close to us. When we have stored up a heart full of anxiety and fear, our mouths pour out a constant babble of what terrible things might happen to us or our family. When we store up pride, we often say nothing to others, hoping they will figure out the meaning of the 'silent treatment' and apologize first. Storing up anger, hurt, fear, and pride all lead to a troubled heart, or that feeling of being unhappy but not really sure why. That feeling of not being spiritually content, even though you know lots of Bible verses. So, how do we get rid of a troubled heart? I found it interesting to know that Jesus gives two direct orders against having a troubled heart. In John 14:1 He says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." He doesn't say, "Try not to let your hearts be troubled." He says DO NOT!!! When I tell Canaan something and it begins with the words, "DO NOT..", he knows that what he is about to do is just not an option. We have a direct order from our Lord. I don't know about you, but I think it is worth finding out how to avoid a troubled heart. Let's go further. Jesus gives the order again in John 14:27 when He says, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." So the answer to getting rid of the troubled heart (and correcting our tongue and behavior at the same time) is accepting peace from God. Sounds simple. I mean, who wouldn't want to accept peace into their life, right? Sadly, some of you who are reading this post have never accepted the peace of God into your life through His son by salvation. Some of us have accepted salvation but refuse and fight God on a daily basis to keep this troubled heart. He gives us proof day after day that He loves us and can give us peace but we choose to keep the uneasy feelings. I hope you will join me in getting rid of a troubled heart. After peace through salvation, having daily peace is all about the application of His word. To find peace, apply what God's word says about your heart's stronghold. Then, take His word and put it into action in your house, your marriage, your work, your body, ... in your heart. Then, we will have stored up the good that the verse talks about and guess what? It will come out of our mouths too! Don't go to bed tonight until you have exchanged your troubled heart for a peaceful one... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I give you my troubled heart tonight. Forgive me for holding on to it longer than you wanted me to. I want to accept your word as true. I believe in you and I believe you. Let your word be my very breath. May the words of my mouth be acceptable to you because my heart is acceptable first...

Beloved

2009-02-12T21:26:00.004-06:00

"I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine..." Song of Solomon 6:3 As I mentioned last week, God is leading my posts for February to be written on 'the heart'. With Valentine's Day fast approaching, I know of no better week to write about the emotion that the heart is best known for...love. Don't know about you, but in my 32 years, I have never really "checked into" why we celebrate Valentine's Day anyway. I do remember, though, that while in school, it was very cool to get something delivered to you on this day of love. As we become older, the Love Day is held to an even higher standard for a husband/wife to express their love for each other. When I began researching the origin of Valentine's Day, I found lots of 'tales' claiming to be the real reason behind the occasion. But one story, caught my eye. The story said that there was a priest by the name of (you guessed it) Valentine, who disagreed with a Roman law that young men remain unmarried. This concept was said to be created to use as a tactic to build up the Roman army by implying that "married men didn't make good soldiers". Valentine secretly began marrying soldiers and their fiances and was jailed for his behavior. While in jail, the priest befriended the jailers daughter. The legend goes that on the night before his execution, he wrote a note to the jailers daughter, whom he referred to as his beloved. The priest signed the note, 'from your Valentine'. Before you thank me for giving you such a happy story, I want us to examine the word beloved. Beloved, by definition, means 'dearly loved' or 'dear to the heart'. It is precious to me to know that God intends for His relationship with us to be compared to a romance. All throughout the Bible there are stories and parables that compare the love of a husband and wife to us and God. In fact, I believe He refers to us as His beloved. The song of Solomon is a good example. This book tells us of a Shulammite maiden who catches Solomon's eye because she is so very beautiful. Solomon takes her to his palace and tries to win her love. He cannot. Why? The maiden is in love with a shepherd... a shepherd who is away but is coming for her someday (sound familiar?). She refers to him as her beloved. My question to you is do you know that you are very dear to God's heart? If you have accepted Him as your Lord and Savior, He calls you His beloved. Perhaps, even as a Christian, you are longing for a relationship. A relationship in which you always know you are loved more than you can imagine. How sad it is for God to know that all we have to do is say, "Yes", but we say," No". "I have no time for you today, God. I promise I will spend more time with you tomorrow." We are His beloved. If you are reading this and you say that you have never known real love. I have good news for you. 1 John 4:10 says, "This is what real love is: It is not our love for God; it is God's love for us in sending His Son to be the way to take away our sins." You see, God is our Valentine because we are His beloved. The verse says the real definition of love is not what or how we love God, it is accepting His love for us, His Son. He has sent us the most special Valentine's present of all... Jesus. He died so that you and I can not only have an eternity, but His death made it possible for you and I to have a relationship with God on a daily basis. I am so very thankful for that. I hope you will join me in forgetting about what we think we have to do for God, like we have some spiritual check list. But that we will spend time with Him, talk to Him, and listen for Him because we love Him and we accept that He loves us more than we can ever know. With this in mind, I believe our Valentine's Day, might just be the best one we've ever had... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Father, I love you. Thank you for loving me through Calvary. Forgive me when I place anything and everyone in front of you. I want to spend time with you because you loved me first. I want to talk to you and tell you my fears because your love sustains me through them all. I am so happy you love me. Help me to accept it daily...

Satisfying God's Heart

2009-02-01T23:48:00.004-06:00

"The Lord was grieved that He had made man on the Earth, and His heart was filled with pain." Genesis 6:6

When I think about February, I always think of Valentine's Day and everything associated with it; the candy (ya'll remember the chocolate one's that came in a heart-shaped box and you never knew what was inside the middle unless you poked your finger in the bottom first?---I didn't do that. Just wondered if you did:) ); the beautiful flowers, balloons, cards, and even stuffed animals. Everything given on that special day is to show someone just how much you love them. Or, if you will, an expression of what is inside your heart. Have you ever wondered about God's heart? Does He have a heart like us and can He feel emotions? How does He feel about you and I? Well my friends, you and I are about to find out. For the month of February, my posts will pertain to 'the heart'. We will open God's word and find out what makes a heart spiritually healthy and unhealthy. But first, let's begin with the first heart that ever existed...the heart of God. If you go back to Genesis, you will find that before there was anything, there was God. Sounds like a confusing statement but it just means what it says: God was always, infinitely here. We know that He began creating the universe and the animals. Next came Adam and Eve and then, well...sin. I guess when I look back at this story, I always seemed to focus on Adam and Eve's reaction to sin. They were ashamed, hid from God, passed the blame around. But I never really thought about how God must have felt. When I read this verse (Genesis 6:6), my heart felt like it was breaking into pieces. I did not like to read that later on, when sin had corrupted what God had made, it 'filled His heart with pain'. This verse shows us that our behavior can reach the very heart of God. So very often I hear people say, "No one cares about me," or "Nobody cares what I do." God cares. This verse offers us proof that God cares about who we are, what we do, and the choices we ultimately make. This is a very important concept to improving our relationship with God. In fact, understanding that our sin effects God's heart, is crucial in growing close to Him. Our society has become a very "accepting society". I often hear politicians and key leaders speak about how 'non judgemental' America is or how we 'accept everyone' and that we 'don't judge'. We have accepted, alright. We have accepted sin and behavior that breaks God's heart, according to Genesis. Most of you know that my ministry and my passion is devoted to finding out and sharing how to have a close, personal, intimate relationship with God. Maybe you desire this closeness to God. Maybe you long to converse with Him. I know it is possible. For this month, we will be looking at how to draw close to God's heart. I feel God impressing upon my heart for us to come to the simple realization that He feels. He wants us to know that what we do does effect Him and the relationship we so desire. Even as a Christian, we must daily identify the sin that is standing between us and God. Once forgiven, we should make a conscious effort to avoid that same sinful behavior. If you desire something different with God, it will require different behavior from you. Ephesians 4: 22-24 says, "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." I think, sometimes, we want our cake and eat it to. Meaning, we want to be close to God but we would also like to get away with not having to change any of our behavior. When I worked with people battling addiction, they called this concept insanity. To them, insanity meant doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Satisfying God's heart will not be done this way. What behaviors have made a rift between you and God? For me, I must stop asking forgiveness of not spending time with Him and change my schedule so that I can spend time with Him. What about you? Will you begin today to satisfy His heart? Do you desire to be closer to Him? I hope you will join me in satisfying His heart so that He can satisfy ours. I look forward to this month as God reveals more about the heart... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I am so thankful for your heart. You are a God that is alive and feels so much emotion for His children. I am so sorry for allowing sin to stand in the way of a closer relationship with you. Forgive me. I want to change my behavior so that you and I can be closer each and every day...

Prayer Fest

2009-02-01T23:00:00.003-06:00

Just a note to say what a wonderful time I had with the ladies that attended the Prayer Fest on January 24, at New Prospect Baptist Church in Haleyville, Alabama. The theme was "The Wedding of the Lamb" and was taken from Revelation 19:7. How exciting it was to talk about how we, the Bride of Christ, can begin making ourselves ready for the coming of our Bridegroom, Jesus! Love, Corrie

How to Wait for God

2009-01-22T14:27:00.003-06:00

"Then the Lord replied: Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time, it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay." Habakkuk 2:2-3 I must tell you that I am excited to hear how God will use this particular post to speak to you. I have had a really bad day and it seemed to have everything to do with writing this post. Every time I sat down to write or research this, something happened. First, I went to check on my laundry and a pen (that SHANE had left in his pocket...which will somehow end up as my fault?? :) had exploded in my dryer. Cleaning that out took time away from my writing. On my way back to continue, the heat repair man came, only to hand me a bill of $170.00! Next, I needed to take a break from researching the post to go and get a few groceries for Canaan. I then locked my keys, purse, and phone in my car. Needless to say, Canaan and I spent alot of time talking to my neighbor and playing outside until Shane came home. So, I have concluded that Satan really doesn't want me to share, 'What to do while we wait for God.' I don't think I have ever met anyone who liked to wait. I guess this anxiousness begins when we are children. When children know that there is a surprise coming, they become more and more impatient. God began to use this analogy to show me something very important. Habakkuk 2:2-3 talks about a revelation that will come from God at an appointed time. One of the definitions for revelation is, "a pleasant, often enlightening, surprise." This feeling of happiness is often how we feel when God comes through for us and answers our prayers. It makes us feel just like we have just received a surprise! But how do we feel when we are waiting on the surprise or 'revelation'? I often find myself feeling sad, depressed, anxious, and even scared when I am waiting. What does all of this mean? Do we, as humans, have the justifiable right to feel these negative emotions while we are waiting on the Almighty God to answer us? God's word tells us, "NO." There are countless scriptures that tell us that we do not have to worry for one moment that God will not be faithful to hearing His children. The Bible tells us that we can rest to know that whatever God does for us is always (not sometimes) for our good. So, how do we wait on God without being so anxious or sad? I wondered this very same thing. I began to look at someone in God's word that had an extraordinary relationship with God but had to do alot of waiting. This is none other than David. David waited for over 20 years to be king! Can you imagine? I think alot of us can imagine what it is like to plead with God daily to answer you. We often look at the 'before and after' David became King. God prompted me to look at how David waited. One thing David did while He waited on God, was to remember God's promise. Psalm 119:148 says, "My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises." Have you ever been so anxious about what was going to happen that you couldn't sleep? David tells us that the way he dealt with this was by meditating (focusing) on what God had promised. As humans, we tend to focus on the negative, (or what isn't being done) rather than what has been or is going to be done. When you read God's word, find out what He promises to do for your situation and then focus on that alone. "My comfort in suffering is this; Your promise preserves my life" (Psalm 119:50). I also noticed that David kept God close to Him to prevent anxiousness. Psalm 16:8 says, "I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right had, I will not be shaken." The right hand symbolizes the dominant hand; the hand of which we would reach out with if we needed help or to be rescued. David knew to stay as close to God as he could when He was waiting. We often drift farther away from God when we wait. Maybe we become angry with God because He is not answering as quickly as we'd like. Maybe we feel sorry for ourselves, to say that "God just isn't listening." We must stay in constant communication with God to keep Him at our right hand while we wait. Last, I found that David recalled, to his mind, past examples of when God had helped him. God had always come to help David and David knew this. Psalm 118:13 says, "I was pushed back and about to fall, but the Lord helped me." David had evidence of past examples of how powerful God was. Don't you and I have those examples too? Can't you recall at least one time in your life when God came to you and rescued you? I have no evidence to prove otherwise. He has never failed me, yet I worry that He might? My sweet friends, I know that some of you are waiting. You are waiting for answers. You are waiting for the end to come to your trials in your marriage, your family, and your work. You are looking for that 'revelation', that surprise! I must tell you that we are not just waiting on anyone. We are waiting on the King! Jehovah! The very one who beat death! Habakkuk says that the revelation will only come at the appointed time. You and I can know that God hears us when we confess sin that is between us and Him. He has an appointed time for the answer that He will give. I am learning from David that what I do while I wait is critical to the help I will receive. If you are tired of your trial and desire rest, take the focus off of your trial and focus on God. Psalm 61:1 says, "My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him." It was enough that God allowed His son to die for me, but He didn't stop there. He allows me to ask, seek, and knock daily, and can give me the very desires of my heart... simply because He loves me. May we wait on Him with excitement and confidence! Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I am amazed at your power and your love for me. You know every hair on my head, yet I doubt your focus on so many of my trials. Forgive me Lord, and help me to focus on your promises you have given me, to keep you at my right hand, to recall of your mercy in my past, and to praise you for saving my soul. I will wait on you Lord, because you waited on me...

The Cross in the Water

2009-01-12T15:39:00.002-06:00

Still water: " As the deer pants for the streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. (vs2) My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?" Psalm 42: 1-2 Slow rising water: "I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold. I have come into deep water, where the floods overflow me. Psalm 69:2 Water that hits hard:"For the waves of death swirled about me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. 2 Samuel 22:5 Throughout the week, I had been praying for God to show me what to write for a new post. I could feel in my heart that the Holy Spirit was drawing me toward a topic on 'water'. Between my Sunday School class and our worship service at my church yesterday, God pulled it all together for me. During the worship service, I was singing and looking up at our screens for the words to a particular praise song. Someone had placed a background on the screen that caught my eye. It was a picture of an ocean. There was no land in sight...just water...as far as the eye could see. But out in the water stood a cross. Nothing else. Just a cross. The cross in the water... I have always loved the beach. I like to go in the summer time and lay out on the sand. I like to swim in the ocean (only in water that I can see the bottom! Afraid those small minnow-looking fish will kill me I guess!). I love to look at pictures of the ocean. But I do know that the sea can be a very dangerous thing. Water can do great damage. As I read God's word, I noticed that so many of Godly men and women compared their trials to forms of water. In Psalm 42, the Priest compares his thirst, his need, for God to a deer panting for water. Sometimes, our life is as smooth as glass. Nothing is really happening that is bad, and nothing is really happening that is good. We are just there. I find this is a time that I become most distant from God. To maintain that relationship with Him, I must put forth a daily effort to spend time with my Lord. How many days go by without a word from us or a simple "I love you" to the One who gave up His life? We must know that even in the 'still water', the cross is there. God is still waiting for that conversation we promised to get to tomorrow. I also know that sometimes, our trials gradually pile up. It's like, we can almost feel the water, or trial, rising. This is the worry and the fear we feel about what is yet to come. It is the fear of the unknown. In Psalm 69:2, the Psalmist says he sinks deep in mud where he can't get a grip. He knows the waters are coming. How often do we look ahead and worry that we won't be able to survive because we are so very deep in the mire? Perhaps addiction, constant running from God, or a never-ending feeling of worry or fear keeps you 'deep in the mire'. God wants us to know that the cross is in the water here too. God is always within our reach. I often forget about the cross to grab onto. I am to busy worrying about the rising floods around me. Sometimes, trials don't just rise; they knock you down. 2 Samuel 22:5 talks about the worst trial of all...death. People we love die. It seems to hit like a strong wave that crashes over us. But if I have learned anything about the crashing waves, I have learned that the cross is more visible here than any other place. Perhaps you are going through some form of 'water'. Maybe you are experiencing water that is smooth as glass but you are thirsty, not content with just "existing". Maybe you are stuck in a trial that is getting worse every day and you watch in fear as the water seems to rise higher and higher. Perhaps you have been hit so hard by a 'wave' of trouble, that you were completely knocked down. I have to tell you that God remains the anchor in all forms of trials. Hebrews 6: 19-20 says, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf..." The cross is the one thing that will not move in any storm or wave. Psalm 107:29 says, "He makes the storm calm, so that its waves are still." So what is this cross in the water? It's giving God complete and total control your heart and then your trial. It's trusting Him that His way is the best way. It's giving up "your way" of doing things. In order to be rescued from any form of trial we have, we must look to God. This involves a relationship with Him. If you have asked Him into your life and received Him as your Saviour, He's waiting for you to begin this wonderful relationship that will change your life forever. We are living in times of hardship. We are fearful of what is to come. But, we don't have to be. I, too, have many trials in my life right now. But tonight, I will sleep peacefully. Why? Because I know there is a cross in the water... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how thankful I am for you. You stand there in front of me throughout each trial I walk through. I have no evidence that you will leave me. Help me to see you in my trial. Help me to reach toward your power that will anchor me. Your love is the steadfast love I need every day. Thank you for continuing to show me your patience and willingness to walk with me...

The Talking Donkey and the New Year

2009-01-01T15:51:00.004-06:00

"Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand; and he bowed all the way to the ground. (v32) An the angel of the Lord said to him, "Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary because your way was contrary to me. (v33) But, the donkey saw me and turned aside from me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, I would surely have killed you just now, and let her live." Numbers 22:31-33 I am writing you from the Great Smokey Mountains, as I celebrate the New Year's day with my family. God has been leading me all day today to write a post...a post dedicated to what He wants us to know for the future, especially 2009. I feel that if we, His children, want to stand firm without fear for what is yet to come, we must know the following... A year or so ago, I did some reading on the story of Balaam and his talking donkey in Numbers chapters 22-24 (I recommend that when you have your quiet time with God, read the entire story). I figured it would be interesting. I mean, who doesn't want to know what was up with a talking donkey? I remember I wrote about it in my journal. But today, God has called it back to my mind to write a post. I feel it is almost an urgency that we read this and take away from it what God needs for us to know. I will sum up the story the best I can. Balaam was a Gentile prophet whose prophesies were recorded over the entire Bible. Yet, even though Balaam started out knowing God and His ways, Balaam began to become a lover of the world. He began to love the world and its ways more than he loved God. He became known as the worldly prophet who betrayed Israel for fame and fortune. In a commentary by Larry Wood, Balaam is said to have wondered off course from God and becomes spiritually asleep. One day, Balaam gets on his donkey and begins to take a trip. God tells Balaam that if he takes this trip, he must do specifically as God directs him. During the trip, God reveals himself to Balaam as an angel guarding paths that Balaam attempts to go down. Balaam fails to see God. However, strangely enough, the donkey sees the angel and stops each time. Rather than see what is really before him, Balaam hits the donkey out of anger. This happens three times. Finally, God allows the donkey to speak to Balaam, asking him about his violent behavior. At last, Balaam sees the angel of the Lord. The Lord tells him that if it had not been for the donkey, Balaam would have died. So, what's the moral of the story? To me, it's two-fold. First, we often pray for God's will but can't follow Him because the desire of the world consumes our hearts. I feel this is what God needs us to know today so that we can depend on Him for what is, to me, the end times. We must die to the world daily. Because of our sinful nature, it is within us to desire the world. Even as His children, we say we want Him but our actions say differently. Then we wonder why our prayers are not heard and our hearts are empty. God's spoken word says that He checks the motives of the heart (Proverbs 16:1-2). As I was sitting here in this cabin looking out toward the mountains, I am humbled to see His majesty all around me. How silly we are to think that the right career will complete us; how absurd it is to think that more money will make us happy; how offensive it must be to Him to think that we must have the perfect mate or the perfect family to feel as if we are content. No, it is only in God alone will that empty void be filled. This is nothing new that I have figured out. God's word already tells us that. The book of Ecclesiastes is basically an interview, if you will, with King Solomon. When the richest man that has ever lived is asked what insight he can share, Solomon says this: "I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun (Ecc. 2:10-11)." Even Solomon knew that you are nothing without God in the center of your heart and dreams. Balaam fell because he became consumed with all he could have in the world. The second point of the story of Balaam is knowing that God speaks by using those around us. But in order to hear Him, we must constantly be aware of His movement. How is this done? By maintaining a daily intimate relationship with Him. How often has God spoken to me through other people but I was too arrogant or too defensive to hear Him. What about you? Are you struggling to hear God? I hope you will join me in preparing for His return by striving to focus on our Lord rather than what is in the world. We must know that what we see before us will all be lost. What we have with our Lord is eternal. What do you have? Begin today. It is the first day of the new year. It doesn't matter what you have done. God is waiting for you to just simply utter the name "Jesus". To simply speak His name stirs the very heart of God. He will come to where you are. He can forgive us of placing the world before Him if we ask. I hope you will join me in this new focus for 2009... Happy New Year, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I ask forgiveness of placing so much emphasis on things around me and not you. Help me to focus only on the relationship between you and I. Help me to hear, see, and follow you. Thank you for those you use to help me to find you...

The Writing on the Ground

2008-12-16T18:35:00.004-06:00

"But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger. When they kept on questioning Him, He straightened up and said to them, "If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, Sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin." John 8:6-11 The story in John chapter 8 shows so much about Jesus' personality and who He is. This is yet another wonderful moment in the Bible that I can just picture in my head. Walking to the temple, so very early in the morning, Jesus came to begin His day. The people spot Him and begin to crowd in and around Him. Seeing their desperation, He sits down and begins to teach. The Pharisees are watching. They just couldn't let it die. They saw one more opportunity to try and find fault with this man who called Himself the 'son of God'. They come toward Jesus, pushing their way through the crowd, pulling a woman behind them. Very loudly do they announce that she is nothing more than a lowly woman who uses her body to please men. According to 'spiritual law' during that time, Jesus could not 'excuse' her sin of adultery. But, according to Roman government, He could not take it upon Himself to condemn her either. Jesus, knowing this is a trap, bends down and begins to write on the ground. I have read this passage many times and only now have I ever wondered what He wrote. The Bible does not tell us. Many scholars and theologians say that He wrote the ten commandments because of the Pharisees reference to the Law of Moses. I believe He did write something to convict those who were accusing the woman. Why? Because we know that after He wrote on the ground and asked them to throw a stone if they were without sin, they all walked away. The writing had to be very powerful and convicting. Jeremiah 17:13 says, "...Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord." The Pharisees didn't get it. They didn't get that Jesus was about to die for them so that they could have a relationship with the almighty God. The veil would be ripped soon. But then, I noticed Jesus wrote on the ground a second time. After everyone left, Jesus raises up and tells the woman to go and basically be free from her old life. So the question is, what did He write on the ground the second time? Most of you who know me know that when I think or believe something that is really just my opinion and I have no actual proof, I call it Corrieology! Ha! So this is Corrieology on what I believe Jesus wrote the final time. I believe He wrote directly to the woman. In my heart, I believe He wrote her a wonderful love letter that said something like: " You don't have to be empty anymore. I love you and I forgive you. " What a wonderful thing it would be to have a love letter from God! But you know what? We have one! God's word is our love letter. Do you know this? Do you know that you are so very valuable to God? No matter what you have done in your lifetime, you don't have to be empty anymore. He wants to fill your emptiness with forgiveness and a relationship with Him. Maybe you have been drug in by the "Pharisees" of the world and looked down upon for your past. He wants to erase it and fill you up with a different life. Are you willing to pursue this?Maybe you are God's child but have walked away from Him and feel as though you have hurt God to much to turn back to Him. All you have to do it just turn back. He just wants a relationship on a daily basis. You see, to me, this story is not only about us refraining from morally judging others before looking at ourselves. It is also about Jesus' compassion for the relationship with those who fail Him. That is me. I fail Him on a daily basis. But, I want a relationship with Him. So, I will continue to strive to turn away from ways that I know hurt Him. I don't actually know what Jesus wrote that day. But I do know, at the end of the story, the only people left were Him and the woman. Jesus took the time to personally and privately tell her she was forgiven and to go and live a new life in Him. He wants that same meeting with you. To know how to live your life in Him, you and I must continue to read God's word... His love letter. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, thank you for loving me when I fail you and I don't even love myself. Thank you for leaving your word as a love letter to me so that I can know who you are. I pray for those who read this today. Let them know how special they are to you and that you want a relationship with them...

Finding Joy in the Trials

2008-12-05T21:14:00.005-06:00

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, that the testing of your faith develops perseverance." James 1:2-3 I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I must apologize that I am late on writing my post. Guess I was overwhelmed by turkey! Just kidding! I was thinking about how Thanksgiving has somehow taken on a different meaning to me this year. Of course, on Thanksgiving, I began to recap my year and all the blessings God has allowed in my life. Then, my mind recalled struggles I had faced in the 2008 year too. I thought of the many 'scares' I had had with my disease; quitting my job and walking away from a 10 year career; loosing my grandfather while at the same time, watching my remaining grandmother fight Alzheimer's for her every memory of our past as a family; wondering if I will have other children; hearing the doctor say, "you are a long way from remission"; hating that my husband has to go through the holidays without his mom...trials. Hard trials. But this year, I found myself being thankful for the trials almost as much as the blessings and here's why. I have begun to desire the truth and faithfulness of God's word. For so many years, I have read and even memorized verses in the Bible. But now in the end of our days, I have to do more than read. I have to be able to walk this Earth until my Lord splits open the sky and returns for me. If I am going to go through trials, I want to be able to do more than just "survive them". When the trial is over, I want to be able to 'come forth as gold' and be able to feel God's breath on the back of my neck from His closeness. For me to be able to see this happen, I need to believe God's word is effective and true. So, my philosophy is to apply it. I know, I know. It's not like it's my own invention! I mean, God tells us Himself to test Him and apply His word! But I have come to the conclusion that there is a way to apply His word and see a difference in our life. How do we do it?... being able to find joy in our trials. James 1:2 says to 'consider it pure joy' when you have a trial. We must first understand that when we face a trial, God is not telling us that the trial will produce a 'happy' feeling. Joy, in this sense, is being referred to as the outcome of having an intimate relationship with God. Because it is a fruit of the Spirit, it can not be achieved by ourselves but is given to us from Him. So this joy, James speaks about, comes from drawing as close to God as we can when we face a trial. Yet when we face a trial, God is often the last person consulted. Or, He is consulted and is abandoned when we do not get the response we wanted. This is why James relates perseverance with the trials. I have found that the joy comes when I continue to pursue a closeness with my Lord, despite the devil's tactics to pull me away. What about you? Are you currently facing a trial that causes you pain and despair day after day? We must know that God anticipated the problems we have in our homes, our jobs, our schools, our churches, and even our nation. He knew that His people would need both a reason to persevere and a way to do it. I hope you will join me in finding this 'joy' by drawing close to the one who can turn our despair into triumph... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I believe you. I can't imagine what I would do without your word to cling to. Help me to hold to you when I am on shaky ground. Use every trial to bring me closer to you and farther away from me. May I find joy in loving you...

Women's Conference at Calvary Baptist

2008-12-05T21:05:00.003-06:00

This past Tuesday, I had the privilege of sharing a word from God at the women's conference at Calvary Baptist Church in Russellville, Alabama. Because I grew up only a few miles from there, it was great to see so many of my friends and family. I can truly say I felt God's presence with us that evening. The Holy Spirit filled the room and poured out on those who were there. Wow! Thank you ladies for the invitation to come and be a part of such a special night! Love, Corrie

Out of the Mouth of Babes

2008-11-22T00:46:00.002-06:00

And they said unto Him, "Do you hear what these children are saying?" "Yes," He replied; "Have you never read, 'out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise'?" Matthew 21:16 A couple of months ago, I was cooking supper (spaghetti... to be exact) and my son, Canaan (age three at that time), ran into the kitchen holding his finger. I was frantically fighting with my spaghetti, trying to keep it on low heat so it wouldn't splatter all over the stove! In a sad and tearful voice, Canaan said, "Mommy, I hurt my finger and I need for you to pray for it." With dish towel on shoulder, I looked at his finger and didn't see blood. I knew that was a good sign (all you mommies know what I mean!). I kissed the hurt finger and promised to pray for it when we ate supper (the spaghetti was still splattering!). Canaan said, "No mommy. I need for you to pray now." So, I knelt down by that sweet baby in the middle of my kitchen floor and asked God to take the hurt away and to help Canaan's finger to be well. When I said Amen, Canaan looked up at me with a big smile and said, "Mommy! My finger is better!" He then ran off to resume playing. I began to cry for what my son had just shown me. Canaan had shown me the faith that God requires of me. When I prayed and asked God to 'take care' of his finger, Canaan believed it...instantly. There were no questions, no doubt, no wondering if God would really do it. How ashamed I felt to think of all the times I had asked for God to come to me and help, but walked away in disbelief. I know that throughout the Bible, there are countless examples of faithful men and women. There are numerous commands for us to hold firm in our faith. So why do we have such a difficult time believing that God will do what He says He will do? I believe alot has to do with the fact that when we become adults, we have a set mind that keeps God in some sort of box, rather than have an on-going relationship with Him. When we need Him, we let Him out of the box. When we are done, we stuff Him back in again. Children don't have that mindset yet. They are trusting and have no problem believing in something or someone they cannot see. Our job as the adult, is to communicate to them that they can have a relationship with God; that He has a personality and a love for them that is huge. I liked the fact that when Canaan was hurting, he thought about God first. Before a band aid or a cold washcloth, he wanted to tell God. In Matthew chapter 21, a big parade is going on (Palm Sunday) to welcome Jesus into town. The Pharisees are all there, watching, doubting. The end of the story takes place in the temple where Jesus had to 'set some things straight'. The verse above comes into play when children, noisy children, come running through the temple shouting, "Hosanna! Hosanna to the son of David! Hosanna in the highest!" The Pharisees perhaps gasp and basically ask Jesus if He heard how rude those children were being! Jesus reminds the men of Psalm 8:2, which points out how important the words of children are. I know that I am thankful for the words that come from my child. Canaan is learning everyday. He is so desperate to know why and how and when, but little does he know that he is the one who teaches me how to love God purely. The point of this story is two fold. First, trusting God is more simple that we (adults) make it out to be. We base our degree of faith on the seriousness of our circumstances. I am finding out that faith is faith simply because God is God. Whatever the circumstance, I can rest that God will work it for my good. I am striving to trust that and stop my adult brain from going any farther. Second, we must listen to our children and learn from them. I praise God for children. I understood that day of the 'hurt finger' why Jesus tells us that we must become like a child to understand what He fully came to do on this earth. I hope you will pay attention to your child or children. If you don't have children, still take the time to listen to those who are around you. Because when you listen to a child, you can often hear God's voice too... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, thank you for children. Thank you for showing me how my faith is sometimes overshadowed by my adult mind. Help me to love you with all that I am and to never question who you are. Thank you for giving me Canaan to help me learn to love you all over again day after day...

Faith in TomTom

2008-11-15T17:11:00.002-06:00

"Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:29 Those of you who know me well, know that I have no sense of direction and panic when I am driving somewhere I have never been before. I don't know how to follow directions that deal with north, south, east, and west. I would rather you tell me to turn left when I see a big green house or something (poor Shane!) Anyway, this weekend, I was asked to speak at a retreat in Leesburg, Al and I had no clue how to get there. Shane had a great idea and he suggested that I take his GPS along ( I call it TomTom because that's the brand it is and it sounds like TomTom could be the name of the guy in the box that talks). For those of you who are like me and unfamiliar with the GPS navigation system, you type in your destination and then TomTom tells you where to turn and what roads to follow. My best friend Angel and I set out for this place we had never been before with no map, no directions...just the voice of TomTom. Soon, much to our surprise, we arrived safely to our destination. Then, when we were ready to begin our journey home, both of us had complete faith that TomTom would get us back. God, ever so sweetly, convicted me of my lack of faith in Him and my new faith in this box. I so often doubt God, who has done so many things in my life and given me overwhelming evidence that He is present, but then completely trusted this crazy box with no question! I smiled when I thought about the verse in John 20:19 when Jesus says that those who would believe without seeing Him would be blessed. We are 'those'. I read my Bible sometimes and think how amazing it must have been for the people in Jesus' day to witness His miracles or walk and talk with Him. How the sick woman must have felt when she reached out and touched the actual hem of Jesus' garment! But as awesome as it must have been, there were still those that saw all of this and still didn't believe. I know that had to be difficult for Christ. He was showing them the way and yet, they still didn't get it. Don't we still do that? God reminded me today with that crazy TomTom that no matter how afraid I feel sometimes or even when I think He is distant, His Holy Spirit NEVER leaves me...not even for a moment. In John 16: 5-16, Jesus is trying to tell the disciples what will be in store for them after He left. He says something that I find very comforting: "But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you...I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when He, the spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth." Have you ever felt sad because you just couldn't feel God as close to you as perhaps you had felt Him the day before? I have. God is speaking to me tonight to say that having a relationship with Him is not based on "a feeling". It's based on faith. A commitment that exists between me and God. This is the faith that Jesus refers to that is all about believing God to be who He says He is ALL THE TIME. That was God's plan. When Jesus went back to Heaven, the Holy Spirit was sent to stay with those who asked Christ into their lives. I hope you will consider what kind of faith God requires of you and me. May we put our trust in Him with no questions or hesitation on a daily basis and look for His glorious return! Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how wonderful you are to give your life for me. May I be that woman of faith that presses on even when I don't know where you are. Help your promise and gift of the Holy Spirit in my life to be enough for me...

Women's Retreat with Angel Grove

2008-11-15T16:53:00.002-06:00

What a privilege it was for me to be invited to bring God's word to the precious ladies of Angel Grove Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Alabama! The retreat was held at Chestnut Bay Resort in Leesburg, Alabama and the theme was: A faithful friend (Proverbs 18:24). We had a wonderful time sharing, laughing, crying, and playing games that will forever be etched in my mind!! (Ladies, you know what I mean!!!) God also blessed me and my best friend Angel to attend the retreat together and catch up on lost time. God filled the meeting room with His presence and truly showed us how to become Godly friends.

The Blueprint

2008-11-07T13:37:00.003-06:00

"Hear O Israel: The Lord God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the rode, when you lie down at night and when you get up." Deuteronomy 6:4-7 This past week's election is said to be one of the most memorable elections in history. Statistics show that more people voted in this presidential election than ever before. I have listened as many Christians encouraged others to vote for Godly principles and how that we must "take a stand" for what we believe in. While this is true and I did take my stand by voting, it is important for believers not to sit back after an election is over. We must remember that our faith and hope is not determined by a man, a government, or laws. We have hope in our Lord. Our hope came at Calvary many years ago. His name is Jesus. We must accept that no matter the outcome, God still remains in control. The question becomes, "what do I do now?" What do we, as God's people, do until we leave this earth by death or by rapture? The answer is found in Deuteronomy 6:4-7. God's word gives us direction. He tells us to love Him with all our hearts, soul, and strength. I think we sometimes believe that if we attend church once a week, try to read our Bible every once in a while, and live a lifestyle that is acceptable in the eyes of the church, we are showing God love. This is false. God asks us to love Him completely with all that we are. This is a concept that I am experiencing now. I am deeply in love with Him and I have just scratched the surface! It comes about by emptying yourself before Him daily. We must get rid of all the junk or idols that are before Him in our day-to-day life. How much attention does God get from you and I? Not enough, at least from me. God also tells us to impress this on our children. Have you ever needed a blueprint or an instruction manual when it came to raising your children? I need one that deals with 4 year olds now!!!! But we have one! In those same verses in Deuteronomy, God tells us to talk about Him with our children when we sit at home, when we are on the rode, when we lay down at night, and when we get up. Seems simple enough...but do we really do it as often as He says. Perhaps we can't tell our children about God because we aren't as close to Him as we would like to be. There are so many things that distract us from telling our children about Him. I want Canaan to know that God wants a relationship, a friendship, with him. I want Canaan to know what God has done in my life and for him to see God's power. For me to see this come about, I must keep a close relationship with God on a daily basis. What about you? Do you feel fearful and afraid because of the world? God's word tells us in 2 Timothy 1:7, "For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." That's exciting! Who doesn't need a sound mind?! God's word says He doesn't give us fear. God does want us to fear Him because it offers us protection. Proverbs 14:26 says, "He who fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge." Again, God tells us and our children how to endure walking on the earth until he comes. I hope you will join me in taking refuge in our Lord and teaching our children just how wonderful He is. You and I must also remember that if we are afraid, we are choosing to be afraid. God gives us other options... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Father, how wonderful you are to provide a refuge for me and my family. Thank you for showing me that I never have to be fearful, no matter my circumstances or the circumstances of the world. Forgive me when I choose fear over your peace...

Masks

2008-10-30T21:26:00.003-05:00

(vs 22) "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; (vs 23) to be made new in the attitude of your minds: (vs 24) and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." Ephesians 4:22-24 When I think about masks, I immediately think of Halloween. Though I am not promoting it's intended and original reasons for celebration, Halloween is a time of disguise. It is a time when people wear masks or a costume of some sort to pretend to be someone or something else. Masks are usually used to conceal the identity of the wearer. The origin of masks date back to 20,000 BC. They then were brought into the arts and were used to bring about different characters in plays. But still, masks are used to protect the one wearing it. Tonight, I began to think of the "masks" we wear on a daily basis as Christians. Many of us have worn a mask for so long, we sometimes forget we have it on. I am referring to the show that we 'put on' for the world so that the world will not know who we really are or what we are truly dealing with inside. God's word tells us this is wrong. Paul is telling the church of Ephesus that when we begin a relationship with God, it will be through Him that we are able to put off our old self (our mask=our identity) and put on our new self (the identity of Christ=who we are in Him). I believe that we sometimes are under the impression that once we become a Christian, we will no longer have struggles. We tend to think that our circumstances, both past, present, and future, should be immediately different and wonderful. This is not true. Our heart becomes different because the Holy Spirit has been invited in it. We, however, must begin the footwork of beginning a relationship with God in order to do as the verse above suggested: seek a new attitude of our minds. This is what changes our perception of our circumstances. Notice I said "change the perception" of the circumstances; not the circumstances. While God is powerful and can change anything He pleases, I have found that that isn't my concern. He wants me to be content with Him and Him alone...whatever the circumstances. How do we "put off" the mask? We must learn to change the attitude of our mind. This means perception to me. Philippians 2:5 says, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus." The problem for me was (and still is) that I didn't know Jesus enough to know what His attitude was like. The solution is the relationship (you knew that was coming!). It's true though. The more we get to know Christ, the more we can take on His identity. This is what we are able to "put on". What about you? Do you wear a mask to hide that you battle a rocky marriage? Does your mask conceal an addiction? Do you pretend that you have a strong spiritual relationship only to feel distant from God? There are numerous masks for all of us. It really doesn't matter. God tells us that we don't have to pretend anymore. But we have to take the mask to Him and lay it down. I hope you will join me and lay down your stronghold or burden. If you don't, remember that you are choosing to continue to wear the mask... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, thank you so much for your death on the cross. It allows me to put off my mask to hide the imperfections of Corrie and take on your identity. How I wish I had removed it long ago. Thank you for providing me a way to live on this earth with hope and peace. I find it in you...

The Centurion

2008-10-21T19:07:00.003-05:00

While Jesus was in Capernaum... (vs 2)"There a centurion's servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. (vs 3) The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant... (vs 6) So Jesus went with them. He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: "Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. (vs 7) That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word and my servant will be healed. (vs 8) For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." (vs 9) When Jesus heard this, He was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following Him, He said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel." (vs 10) Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well." Luke 7:2-10 This is an incredible story that spoke volumes to me because it discusses a topic that is required by God's children...faith. Luke records many of Jesus' parables and life examples of people who had a lot of, or lack of, faith. This is important to me because I think that for myself, I must learn how to have incredible faith to continue to walk in this world until Jesus returns. I want to have faith that is so strong and unshakable, that it withstands whatever the circumstances are around me. The faith of Abraham that was credited to his righteousness. I felt that by reading about the Centurion, it gives us a good idea of where to begin... After a sermon, Jesus came into Capernaum and was told of a troubled centurion who had a sick slave who was going to die. A centurion was a soldier in Herod Antipas's army who commanded and led over 100 men. Theologians tell us that the centurion was a Gentile but had heard of the healing power of Jesus. Out of respect, the soldier sends Jewish elders on his behalf to relay this message to Jesus. Jesus decides to go and help the centurion's slave and begins to journey toward his house. Luke then tells of the centurion's humility because he tells that he is so very unworthy of Jesus even entering his home. Then, the point of the story unfolds. The centurion recognizes Jesus' authority. He tells Jesus that he to, is a man of authority and when he gives a command to his soldiers, it is done! Wow! And then my favorite part... Jesus was amazed. He was amazed that this guy, this Gentile, who had no obligation to believe in Jesus because of the law, the crowd that was following Him, or anything else, established his faith based on Jesus' authority alone. This centurion knew all about the power of command and he knew that Jesus' authority was all that was needed to produce healing. I feel that this is a concept that we (I) often forget when it comes to strengthening my faith. I believe that we tend to try and 'muster up' faith from other Christians or from certain verses that tell us that everything is going to be 'ok'. While God's word is written to bring us comfort in the midst of our trials, it is also, above all, written to remind us of God's authority over our circumstances. I guess what I am saying is that it is important to not only "read" the scriptures, but to pay attention to our mindset while reading the scriptures. I tend to read them from a very defeated standpoint. I don't know about you but when I think of the power of Christ, I get so excited. I think about His authority over satan. I think about His authority over the wind and the storms. And then, I think about His authority over my sickness, my enemies, and whatever fiery dart is thrown my way! This, my friends, should increase our faith! It is all about His authority. The centurion committed the life of his beloved friend into the hands of Jesus because he understood the simple spoken power Christ had over any obstacle that would present itself. It is my desire to amaze my Lord. I want to have confidence in the God I serve. In this story, the slave was healed. However, we must be willing to be content with the outcome of the One who is in authority. You and I must agree to give Him authority first. How offensive it must be to doubt Jesus' authority over my petty problems in my life when He overcame death. I pray that you will join me in learning from this story. May we, His children, recognize the awesome authority of our Lord and then began to draw our faith... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I stand in awe of your word. Thank you for letting me see this story of the centurion and what was missing in my relationship with you. You are my conqueror and my redeemer. Help me never to forget that in my walk with you...

The Land of the Living

2008-10-11T19:54:00.002-05:00

"For you, O Lord, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living." Psalm 116:8-9 This week is bitter sweet for me in regard to memories. On October 16, 2004, God blessed me with the most incredible gift...my son, Canaan. Shane and I had tried for a long time to have a baby. In conversation with God one day, He promised that He would give me a child. But even with that promise, it was a sad time in my life. But before God could give me the child He'd promised me, He had to help me learn to depend on Him and He had to show me that I needed to be delivered in many areas of my life. Why? Because I would need to teach that promised baby how to depend on Him for deliverance as well. What a happy day it was when I heard that baby cry! His name, Canaan, reminds me and all who see him that waiting is an important part of spiritual growth and God's promise. On October 4, 2006, my grandmother died. One week later, I was hospitalized and the doctors of UAB confirmed my diagnosis of Takayasu's Arteritis. I felt as if my life was slipping away that October. My grandmother...how could I go on with out her in my life? My disease... would I even live to see this 'promised child' grow to have children of his own? But soon, God began to reveal Himself to me in a mighty way. I realized something that I'd never realized before. I suddenly knew that this life, this 'land of the living', was only that. There was so much more in HIM! You see, with out a personal relationship with God, you can only exist in the land of the living. But with an intimate daily relationship with Him, you can be delivered! The Psalmist writes that in the verse above. What is the difference between 'just existing' and walking before the Lord (finding out God's will for your life, which is the very best! )? The difference is deliverance. God has ever so sweetly shown me that when I come to Him when I am weary from my sickness or tired from financial strain, He personally delivers me in some way. When I am saddened with grief when I loose those I love, He delivers my eyes from tears. He is the one who keeps my feet from stumbling...even over objects I may never see. What about you? Do you feel like you are only existing? Maybe you need to be delivered from sin through salvation. Maybe you are His child but don't feel a bond with Him like you want to or that your heart aches to have. Good news! He delivers. Deliverance can come in different forms, though. For example, God has left my disease in place for now, but continues to deliver me from fear and sadness that come to my mind. The key is believing that He can deliver. That has made the complete difference in my life. I believe that He will deliver me and however He does it, I must trust that it is the best for my life. Perhaps you find the trial you face to be the same, day after day after day. Perhaps you find it too difficult to "just believe" Him to deliver you. It is my prayer that we focus not on the trial at hand and not on the deliverance itself, but that you and I focus on how to know the ONE who delivers! Soon, we will become so in love with Him that we will be able to find actual joy in the trial (James 1:2). I hope you will run to Him tonight. I hope you and I will 'walk before the Lord' (and not just exist) in the land of the living... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Father, how happy I am to have you as my God, my deliverer. You have sometimes left trials in place, but delivered my mind and my emotions, bringing me freedom like I've never known! I pray for those who read this. May they truly see you for who you are and believe you to be their deliverer!

Hanging On His Word

2008-09-29T17:38:00.003-05:00

"Every day He was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill Him. (48) Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on His words." Luke 19: 47-48 I can picture the verses above in my mind. I can see the see the chief priests dressed in robes of the finest linen. The robes would have been vibrant in color, such as deep blue, violet, and scarlet. In between these colors were woven specks of gold. These colors represented the sanctuary. Upon the chief priests' head were plates of crowns of pure gold with the inscription, "Holy to Yahweh!" The well dressed men were important figures in the crowd... but not that day. The attention was on another man. The man that held their attention; the man who was simply dressed and no doubt looked tired and dusty from travel. This man called Jesus. I can see the crowd pressing into Jesus trying to be as close to him as they could. The men and women and children longed to hear what He was saying. The chief priests and the 'teachers of the law' perhaps stood from afar with their arms crossed and their temples empty. They plotted to kill Him. But as they came close to Jesus, the crowd pushed them away because they wanted to hear every word that Jesus said. Haven't we, as a nation, tried to 'kill' this man called Jesus? Hasn't he been removed from our schools? Hasn't He been excluded Him from many American homes? He has been told that He is not welcome in many marriages. We have even pushed Him away from His own house-the church. Many churches are facing spiritual death because they refuse to believe that His word is real and true. Why have we (as a nation) done this? I believe the answer is that we refuse to 'hang on His word.' We have become a self-help nation. We are running to find the latest self-help book or will tune into the daily talk show to seek advice to find healing for our broken hearts and broken homes. At times, I am guilty of calling a friend before I will tell my Lord that I am sad or anxious. We read a verses like Luke 19:47-48 in the Bible and think how 'hypocritical' it was for the Chief Priests to want to rid the world of Jesus because they simply did not believe He was who He said He was. I cry tonight because it's 2008 and we still are a nation who doesn't fully accept this man for who He is. I can't bear the thought that His very own people, me, doubt Him daily. Perhaps you are having difficulty in your life and your heart is breaking. Perhaps you long for peace, hope, and a promise that in the end, you will be loved. I write this post tonight to let you know that if you begin to believe in the word of God, He will make your burden light. My Bible is so very special to me. I know that what ever happens in my life, God will speak through His word. The question is, "Do I hang on every word?" Hang, used in this sentence, means 'to give complete attention'. How often do I fail to give God and His word my complete attention. Will God's people rise up to give Him our complete attention? Will we be radiant beams of light reflecting who He is to others? I pray we do... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I am so sorry that I have taken you for granted. Forgive me for not totally giving you complete control over every area of my life. Help me to look to your holy word and be so captivated by it that I can't begin or end my day without it. Help me to live it out loud...

Prayer Fest--Saragossa Baptist

2008-09-29T17:21:00.003-05:00

I would like to thank the ladies of Saragossa Baptist Church for inviting me to participate in the wonderful Prayer Fest this past Saturday! The theme was "The Marriage of the Lamb" which came from Revelation 19:7--"Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready." The whole day was devoted to celebrating the fact that we are indeed his awaiting bride and we must prepare ourselves. The day was wonderful and the Holy Spirit truly came and filled our hearts. Love, Corrie

Death

2008-09-21T22:32:00.003-05:00

"... for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart." Ecclesiastes 7:2 "He is not here; He has risen, just as He said. Come see the place where He lay." Matthew 28:6 1 Corinthians 16:54-55 "...Death has been swallowed up in victory. (v55) Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" I would like to thank you for your prayers, cards, calls, and emails. This week has been a trying time for me and my family due to the loss of my grandfather, Guy Williford. As I prayed about what to write for a new post, God began to open my eyes and helped me look at death with a whole new perspective. I couldn't wait to share it with you... I truly believe that there is one thing that we, universally, can relate to and that one thing is death. We have all experienced, or will experience, the loss of someone very dear to our hearts at some time in our life. For me, each time I experience a death of a loved one, I feel as though my heart is breaking into. One reason I believe death to be so painful is that, for our earthly bodies, it is final. 1 Thess. 4:16 tells us that death is for every man and that the living should take it to heart. We should pay attention to that and count our time with our loved ones as valuable. But I think that 'valuable time' is time spent telling them about our Lord and Savior. Caring for their soul is taking it to heart because that is true love...God's love. As I stood beside my grandfather's casket, I found myself wishing for a brief moment that this could all be a mistake. I suppose I had realized the earthly finality of death. But then, my mind began to move to Jesus. I suddenly realized why God chose death for Jesus to overcome! Jesus conquered death! He knew that everyone would experience the sadness of death and He knew the impact of rising again. 1 Corinthians 15:55 makes reference to the 'sting of death' being no more because of the great victory of Christ! Standing there, I began to praise God for allowing His son to die for me and then to raise Him up for me as well. I can't help but wonder if those who were at the cross looked upon the lifeless body of Christ and thought about the finality. But when they went to the tomb and found it empty! How they must have rejoiced when they figured out what had happened! Matt. 28:6 tells that Christ had risen...JUST AS HE SAID! That tells me that God does what He says He will do. If you and I are facing problems in our life and are afraid or concerned about how it will turn out, we can know that God will do what He says He will do! We must read His word to find out what that will be. Why can't we believe that God would surly help us when we are in need when He raised Jesus from the dead? I've got to tell you that none of my problems are bigger than that! I have come to believe that in order to survive in this place called "earth", I must trust God to do what He says He will do. This is faith. The power that Christ had to conquer death is the same power that is given to us when we invite Him into our lives. I must tell you that I seldom walk around with this in mind. How easy it is for me to think that I am defeated by my sickness or defeated by my circumstances. This past week has helped me to better understand the true meaning of James 1:2: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance." Through the death of my PaPaw Guy, I have learned that Jesus was victorious over physical death so that I can have victory over spiritual death! By trusting Him as my Lord and Savior, I am dead to sin and have a new life with Him! Do you know that victory? If you are His child, do you know that the power of the Holy Spirit flows within you? For whatever you are facing, I hope you will remember that His power was enough for Him to conquer death, so it will be enough for you and me. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I praise your Holy name for being victorious over death! Because of you, I will be with you in eternity. Because of you, I will be reunited with those I love. Help me to remember that your power over death out weighs any obstacle I have before me. I will bring my burdens to you and watch you be victorious over and over again!

Enoch

2008-09-09T19:03:00.002-05:00

Genesis 5:23-"And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. (24) Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." (NIV) "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that had pleased God." Hebrews 11:5 (KJV) I was reading in my Bible the other day and stumbled across the above scripture in Genesis. I thought the fact that a man actually walked with God was incredible and stayed on my mind. I now know that God allowed this to stay on my mind and peeked my curiosity. I wanted to share with you what God revealed to me about this man; this man, who seems to have so very little recorded about him... a man called Enoch. If you noticed, I used two different translations in the above verses to help explain the content for this post. Enoch was a descendant of Adam and yes, Cain. At first glance, it looks at though very little is said about Enoch. But if you look closely, you find two incredible things about him-1.) He walked with God and 2.) He did not die but was 'raptured up' by God. While escaping death is enough for me to say, "hummmmm", knowing Enoch walked with God prompted me to look deeper as to how he was able to walk with God and was this something I could do? When I think about walking with someone, side by side, I usually have a very good reason for doing so. The reason is usually to engage in a conversation. If I am walking behind someone, their voice is often muffled or distant and I find myself constantly asking them to repeat themselves. If someone is behind me, I find that I have to stop or slow down with my walk to talk to them. This to, interferes with my destination. I thought about the relationship between God and me. I am often running ahead of Him with thoughts or actions that I think He should already be doing! Or, I find myself dragging slowly behind as He calls me to step out on my faith, creating resistance to His plan for me. I have decided the best place to be is walking with Him, side by side. After all, isn't this the best scenario for two people who are communicating or who have a relationship? So, how do we do this? How do we 'walk with God' just as Enoch did? This brings me to the second above scripture, Hebrews 11:5. The King James version refers to Enoch as having this 'testimony' that pleased God. By definition, testimony refers to "an outward sign" or "evidence" of something. I believe Enoch lived out what he believe about the God he served. I believe he was able to do this because of the faith he had in God. The whole chapter of Hebrews 11 is dedicated to the great men and women of faith. Enoch is one of those mentioned. Immediately following the mention of Enoch, the Bible says, "And without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Hebrews 11:6). I don't believe this was just 'randomly' inserted. I believe God associates the type of faith that is pleasing to him with a man who possessed such faith--Enoch. We cannot get around believing God. We talk about how difficult it is, yet we have no reason to doubt. I have come to a powerful conclusion: I want to live a testimony that is pleasing to God so that I can walk with God. I don't want to try to lead God or drag behind. I want God to want to walk with me because I believe in everything He says He is and is to come. I want to be close to His shoulder if I need to cry and close to His hand in case I stumble... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how I fail you with my doubt and lack of faith. I have nothing that tells me you will not be faithful to me, but have your whole word that tells me just how faithful you are. Help me to live an outward testimony to who you are...

Is God Happy With Me, Mommy?

2008-08-24T19:33:00.002-05:00

"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer." Psalm 19:14 "Is God happy with me, Mommy?" asked Canaan (my 3 year old son), as we were driving down the road. The question shocked me and melted my heart at the same time. I wondered what was going on in that precious busy little mind of his that he would ask such a question 'out of the blue'. I asked Canaan, "Do you think God is happy with you?" He said, "Yes Mommy. I love God and He hears me when I say my blessing and my night-night prayers." Tears filled my eyes because God allowed me to see just how profound my son's question and answer really was. I wanted to share my thoughts with you... The Bible tells us with numerous examples how important children are to God. Often, Jesus uses the innocence of children and the simplicity of them to illustrate how easy accepting salvation really is. One might think Jesus' references to children are silly. But after listening to my son share his love for God, I agree with Jesus totally. You see, as adults, we have a tendency to complicate things (that's a shocker!ha!). Or at least, we are so skeptical and distrusting, we are sure there has to be a hidden "catch" to having a relationship with Christ. How could the Almighty God who created the universe actually love me and want to have a relationship with me? That is the beauty of it all! There is nothing hidden. It is all in God's word. He shares from Genesis to Revelation exactly how to begin and maintain a relationship with Him. So why can't we get closer? Why does having this relationship seem to come so hard to us at times? For me, there are so many reasons, I don't have enough time or space to list them all. But for now, I am learning that just like beginning a human relationship, I must care about what makes God happy. I now know that God has emotions. He laughs, He cries, He gets angry, jealous, and the list is virtually endless. As I am getting to know God by spending time with Him, I am learning what He likes and hates. God allowed me to notice that Canaan asked if God was happy with him. All to often I ask God if He is upset with me or if He is angry with me. Seldom do I ask God if He is happy with me. The truth is that I ask out of selfishness because I fear discipline. I want to care enough about God to want Him to be happy. When you truly love someone, you want them to be happy. You do things for them, you spend time with them, you tell them how much they mean to you, and you avoid hurting them at all cost. Why? Because you care about their happiness. How often do I put my happiness before my heavenly Father's. I want to take Psalm 19:14 and live it out loud every day. I want the words I say, my thoughts, and my motives behind those thoughts to make my Redeemer so happy, that He wells up with tears. I hope you will take time to build your relationship with Christ. I hope you desire to make him happy too. "From the lips of children and infants, you have ordained praise..." Psalm 8:2 Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, forgive me for forgetting about your happiness. You gave your son to die for me and I continue to fail you without caring that your heart is broken by me over and over again. I want to have a pure heart so that you will be pleased with your servant...

Thank God for Peter!

2008-08-14T20:07:00.004-05:00

Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him. "You of little faith," He said, "why did you doubt?" Matthew 14:31 I guess I have read the story about Jesus walking on the water 100 times from my childhood up until now. But tonight, God has revealed things to me about this passage that I have never noticed before. I am excited to share them with you... One dark and stormy night, the disciples decide to go fishing and Jesus goes to pray. The Bible says that during the fourth watch (about 3:00 a.m.), Jesus goes out to them and tells them not to be afraid. I'm sure all of the disciples were nervous about this figure walking out toward them! But Peter decides that even in his fear, he will call out to Jesus. I think that sometimes, because of pride or fear, I fail to call out to my Lord for help. Yes Peter was impulsive, but he was the only one who tried to get to Jesus. Jesus then tells Peter to come to Him. Peter does well while he's walking on the water and looking toward Jesus. But the moment...the very instant Peter takes his eyes of Christ, he begins to sink and panic. And then, the best part of the story happens: Jesus immediately reached out His hand to help Peter. After all the times I had read that story, I had never noticed the word 'immediately'. Jesus immediately came to Peter's rescue. Why? Because that's who He is. How ashamed I feel for the countless times I have worried that God-Jehovah-is going to forget me or not help me in time! But I realized something else. Peter had to be close to Jesus in order for Jesus to reach out his hand to help him. That to, is often our problem. We want immediate help or God's outstretched hand when we are so very far away from that hand to begin with. Out of the 12 disciples, the one that was always sticking his foot in his mouth, always acting impulsively and saying the right thing at the wrong time, the one who Jesus seemed to always be correcting, is none other than Peter. In the beginning, we find that Jesus changed the name of this famous apostle from Simeon to Peter. Ironically, Peter means "Rock". It seems hard for us to grasp why Jesus would give this great name which meant 'stability' or 'strength' to a man that proved to be the very opposite. But if we look deeper, we find a man who had a passionate love for Christ. Peter was the only one willing to get out of the boat and even try. Peter was always the spokesperson for the disciples and he asked alot of questions. But Peter got to know Jesus. I believe God lets us glimpse into the life of Peter because He wants us to see that we are going to make bad decisions, say the wrong things, and act before we think. But God also shows us a man that was transformed by a relationship with Christ who eventually fit the very name Jesus gave him--Rock. Jesus knew, even when no one else could see, that Peter loved Him. Jesus knew that He had left an impression on the heart of Peter and that Peter would be who He would 'build his church upon'. I thank God for letting me read about Peter's life and transformation. It makes me ask myself the question of 'can God build his church upon me?' Is the relationship that I have with Christ as passionate or as impressionable as Jesus and Peter's? I hope that it will be. As I said, I have learned many things from this passage. But the one thing I have learned that I will always remember is that I must stay close to God. For as long as I keep my eyes on Jesus, I will not be afraid to walk out onto the dangerous waters... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, praise you for allowing me to see how you want my relationship with you to be. Help me to never take my eyes off you when you call me to come to you. My trust grows for you every day. I also thank you for allowing me to see myself in Peter. Thank you for taking my failures and teaching me how to love you more...

Mount Zion

2008-08-06T23:29:00.004-05:00

"Those who trust in the Lord are steady like Mount Zion, unmoved by any circumstance." Psalm 125:1 I am so excited to share with you what God has impressed upon my heart tonight! Wait, let me back up a little. You'll need more info... For the past couple of days, I have been sick with a cold. A regular cold for a "normal person". But for me, the cold turned into a sinus infection. While being sick, I prayed and shared my heart with God, but because I didn't feel well, I spent alot of my time in bed. This left little time for me to be in God's word. In other words, I had been doing alot of talking to God, but left God no opportunity to talk. This gave satan opportunity to come at my mind because I wasn't guarded. Today, satan attacked. He came at me and began to present worries about our finances. Before I knew it, I began to cry and panic. I immediately began to feel God come to my rescue, as He so very lovingly does. But because He does love me, He also reminded me of how I had left myself unguarded. I began to wonder why I was upset. Had God not promised to take care of us financially? Yes. Was there anything too hard for Him? No. Then what in the world was I crying about? This is what I've concluded... Psalm 125:1 refers to the 'steadiness' of a place called Mount Zion. After researching this, I found that Mount Zion is the place on which the City of David was built. Mount Zion was an incredible place. It was considered to be a fortress. David chose it to build his kingdom on because of its solid firmness that would withstand attacks from enemies. I also found that Mount Zion is often referred to in the Bible as a symbol of spiritual steadiness. Faith in God that is so incredible, nothing can shatter it; not even for a moment. Wow! What does this mean for us as God's children? It means that just as Mount Zion cannot be removed, our trust in God should be equally as steadfast. As I thought about my time of tears and panic due to my circumstances, I asked myself, "Is my trust in God steadfast?" I began to cry again but this time, it was because I was so ashamed of how easily I had allowed my trust in God to be "moved". God had pointed out that I needed to fix this area of my walk with Him if I wanted to be closer to Him and experience His will for my life. After all, what kind of relationship with God do we really have without trust? In a commentary by Merrill Unger, he discusses the importance of placing emphasis on God as the object of our trust, rather than the firmness of the trust. This was helpful to me. It is important to keep our eyes on God and learn to know Him rather than to try to just increase our trust in general. Without time spent knowing Him, we have no reason to trust Him. I think we make excuses for ourselves not to trust God. We say things like, "I am only human!" or, "that's just the way I am sometimes." But God doesn't allow us any excuse not to trust Him. Yes, we are sinners and we will fail. But it can never be accepted or condoned. We must strive to learn from our sin and try not to make the very same mistake (sin) again. Psalm 125:1 says that those who trust in God will not be moved by any circumstance; Not just some circumstances, but any. I pray that whatever circumstance you are going through, you will join me in learning how to have a steadfast trust in God. I plan to make Him the object of my trust by getting to know Him better... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I beg your forgiveness for allowing myself to waiver in trusting you. You have been so faithful. Tonight, I will remember what you have done for me and how you have blessed me. Thank you for being steadfast in my life. I will learn to focus on you and make my trust like that of Mount Zion.

Cyrus

2008-07-19T19:33:00.004-05:00

Isaiah 45:9-"Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, 'what are you making?'Does your work say, 'he has no hands?'..." (V 11) "This is what the Lord says-the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give orders about the work of my hands? (V 12) It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it. My own hands stretched out the heavens..." I must tell you, before you read any further, that this is a very powerful word from God. God revealed this to me last night as I began to ask Him for a post to write. God spoke directly to my heart and convicted me of changes that needed to be made within my walk with Him. He has also asked me to share it with you... Chapter 45 in Isaiah is talking about an anointed man of God named Cyrus. Though God had big plans to use Cyrus and plans to bless him, Cyrus did not really know just who God was. God would soon show Cyrus parts of His personality and that He was the One True God and Victorious over all! But...God showed Cyrus this over time. He had to let Cyrus decide for himself and to learn to trust Him. God showed me that this passage of Cyrus was similar to the relationship, or lack there of, that was between God and I for over 20 years. I had accepted Christ into my life at a young age but only began to learn that God wanted a relationship with me when I entered my 20's. I would not know God would call me to begin a ministry until 2003 and would not let me even begin sharing it until 2008. Strange? No. Like Cyrus, I had to learn who God really was. God knew there would be trials. Trials that would force me to trust God rather than to question Him. God is very bold and blunt in verses 9-11. He basically says, 'who are you to question the One who made you?' God refers to a potsherd, which is a fragment of broken pottery. He also makes reference to clay giving input to its potter on how to form it! Sounds alot like me sometimes--arrogant! If we find ourselves often questioning God with alot of whys, it is important to ask our self how well we know The Potter. I am often asked how my spiritual life has changed in the past 5 years. I would have to say that the first 3 years were spent learning God's personality. The next two have been about applying what I have learned and believing God to take care of me, whether I can see around the next corner or not. It is crucial for us to get to the point of trusting God to go where He says to go, do what He says to to, or wait until He says move. We can pray for God to reveal things to us but I do believe we must be willing to trust Him if He doesn't reveal it before He gives the command. I am reminded of my son, Canaan. I can see at three years old, he trusts me completely. He rarely questions me when I tell him to go with me. He knows that no matter where I take him, I will let nothing or no one harm him. I want to get to the place where I have complete trust in My Maker. I want to be willing to go through anything as long as God promises to be there. I know He tells us He only wants the best for us but I must believe it. Perhaps one of my favorite parts is in the beginning of the chapter where God says He will take hold of Cyrus' right hand. We can rest assured that when we follow God's path for us, He will lead us literally by the hand. I have so much more to learn about God and I have so much more doubt to get rid of. But I am thankful that He gives much detail about who He is in this chapter of Isaiah. With a description such as Holy One, Lord, Maker, Lord Almighty, we have no reason to doubt Him...so why do we? Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, you are truly Jehovah! Thank you for taking precious time to show me who you are. Please don't stop. I want to know all I can about you. Forgive me for demanding more information from you before I step out on faith. For faith is all about stepping when I hear you, not for what I can see...

FBC Livingston Youth Retreat

2008-07-19T19:19:00.003-05:00

I had a wonderful time at the youth retreat with the young men and women from First Baptist Church, Livingston, Alabama! The retreat was at Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center and the focus was on finding clues to have an intimate personal relationship with God on a day to day basis. I had the privilege of working with Michael Snider and his family (Amanda and Lilly Beth) who led the youth in praise and worship music. God also allowed me to spend the weekend with my best friend Angel, who is the youth leader of FBC. With an Indiana Jones theme, God showed up and showed up big!!! It was amazing to see Him move and prompt changes in the hearts of all that were there. Love, Corrie

Gold

2008-07-06T15:27:00.002-05:00

"But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold." Job 23:10 When I am discouraged, I love to read this verse. It calms me because I feel God saying that there will be an end to my trial. And when, not if, it is over, I will emerge better than I was before the trial started! How? Only if I pass the test, of course. What is the test? I believe it is the testing of my faith and the question God asks me over and over again, "do you really believe I am who I say I am?" While preparing to write this post, I read interesting research by a precious metals broker named Don Stott. In an article, Stott shares that gold was a very important metal in Biblical times. It is the first metal mentioned in the Bible and is used more frequently than any other. Stott explains that David, Solomon, and other Godly men used gold to decorate temples, robes, utensils, and alters. Stott estimates that Solomon's temple could have very easily been valued at over 5o billion dollars! Why did God so often chose gold? Gold has a resistance to oxidation and resists tarnishing. Gold shimmers and as a finished product, can withstand fire. Perhaps this is God's word to us today. God's word is true but it tests my faith daily. If God says that He knows the way I am going, will protect me so that I won't be harmed, and promises that I will come forth shining and of great value, why do I doubt Him? I am reminded of a story that my friend Wendy shared with me. She shared how a man and woman were walking in the woods one day and came up on a small house. They saw fire coming from the chimney and decided to go in. There, stood an old man bent over a large pot over a fire. When the couple asked the man what he was doing, the man replied, "I am making gold." This intrigued the couple and they asked the man about the process. The man shared that he kept the fire very hot and when the impurities came to the top, he would skim them off. The woman asked, "How do you know when you have pure gold?" The man replied, "When I can see my face in it." This story always reminds me of what God is doing in my trials. He will keep the fire hot and my impurities will surface and I will be faced to change them. The way to come forth as gold is to allow Him to see Himself in me. This is taking on the identity of Christ. To be more like Him every day. Philippians 2:5 tells us that our attitude should be like that of Christ Jesus. I must say that is a challenge. I hope this was encouraging to you. To you who are waiting...To you who's fire is so hot that you feel as though you can't stand another day. You will come forth as gold if and only if you begin to allow Him to humble you and be as much like Him as you can. Gold is truly valuable! Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for allowing me to know that I will be protected when I am in the hottest of flames if I depend on you. Forgive me for wavering in my faith. For you have never given me a reason to doubt you...

Mountain View Youth Retreat

2008-07-06T13:11:00.003-05:00

How excited I am to share what God is doing! God gave me the privilege to lead the Bible study for the Mountain View Youth retreat at Double Head Resort in Florence, Al. The theme was: The Mystery of God's Treasure and came from Colossians 2:2-3. God's presence was among us and those precious young men and women allowed God to change their hearts and minds. God showed us that some treasures that we chase are only worldly and they never fill the 'gap' that is within us. The Holy Spirit revealed that the true treasure lies within Jesus Christ and is all about having a relationship with Him on a daily basis. It was amazing to watch God make Himself known to those young people. I was honored to be part of such an awesome event! Please keep all of them in your prayers. I think we forget about our youth of today. We forget that they are a rising generation that must be protected from satan's snare. God bless those who are willing to rise up and tell others how they too can know Him.... Love, Corrie

Itchy Arms and Hamsters

2008-06-19T21:06:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone! Please be in prayer for the Mountain View Youth Retreat next week. God will be using me to bring the devotions so please pray that I will be able to hear what He wants to share with these special young men and women. I will write a post as soon as I get back and tell you all the wonderful things God did! How do I know? Because I expect Him to do big things. And He never disappoints... "The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love. He will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17 "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4 This past week, I was talking to my best friend Angel on the phone. She said, "let me tell you just how much God loves me." Angel began to share that her week had been somewhat hectic at home. Her son's hamster had gotten loose from his cage and had been missing for a couple of days ( I know...that creeps me out too! This is why my son has a goldfish.). She also said that her husband, Larry, had gotten poison oak all over his arms and was miserably itching. Angel said that she woke up during the night and began to pray for her husband to be able to sleep peacefully(without itching) and for God to please find the hamster! Several hours later, God awoke Angel to find her husband snoring and the hamster sitting on top of her dresser! I laughed and cried at the same time when she told me that she thanked God for caring about "itchy arms and hamsters!" This illustration is one of many that proves God's word to be true. I must say that Psalms 37:4 has been my favorite verse for a large part of my life. Delight, in this sense, is used as a verb; it is an action. Delight means 'to please'. I love the fact that if I please the Lord, He will give me what my heart truly desires. But I have found that the Lord also delights in us as well. Why is this so special? Because I think it is so sweet that the Lord, Jehovah God, Yahweh, wants to please me. He loves me that much. He cares if I desire the smallest of things or the largest, most complicated things. I believe His word to be true. It is important for us to improve our relationship with Him by knowing Him to be this personal. Do you know this about Him? Do you believe that He cares about you so much that He is paying attention to every detail? He is recording what you desire ever so deeply or even desperately in your heart. But you must tell Him. Please tell Him what you really desire. Often this is taking Him our raw emotions that we don't tell anyone else. I hope you will join me in telling God your hearts desires. And remember...He really does care about itchy arms and hamsters!! Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how humbling it is to know that the mighty God of Heaven and Earth takes the time to care for my every need. I fail you so often. It has to be your mercy that allows you to love me deeper each and every day...

Under God's Hand

2008-06-12T16:01:00.006-05:00

Let me begin by saying thank you to all of you who prayed for the women's conference this past weekend at Dwight Baptist Church in Gadsden, Al. To Know Him is to Love Him was the theme and God's presence was truly amazing! How beautiful it was to watch my new precious friends seek to draw closer to the Lord! Thanks to those ladies, as well, for making me feel so welcome...

"Humble yourselves , therefore, under God's mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time." 1 Peter 5:6

In my Christian walk, I must say that I have experienced the power of God's hand on many levels and on many occasions. His hand has opened up and poured out blessings so plentiful on me and my family that it leaves me speechless. The countless times His hand has sheltered me from disaster and protected my life from harm are so very memorable. I would say that my favorite times are when His hand comforts me when I am sad and wipes away every tear I cry. But it has been lately that I have realized when I am under His hand, that precious hand, He also presses me to give Him my all. His hand presses me to purge the impurities from my heart so that I can become in His likeness. I have found that being under God's hand is a choice. It is a choice that is made by faith. The choice is choosing to trust that being 'under His hand' will allow me to be 'lifted up'. And when God lifts your heart, it is the greatest feeling of all time! I am striving to stay under God's hand. You see, you can't stand under His hand; you have to kneel. This is the picture of being humble. Being humble is being utterly and totally submissive to God and His will. It is a matter of trust. Some times, we choose to stand around God's hand because under it, the pressing of the heart can be very intense. We, as humans, don't like to be told when we are wrong or when we have to change something. And when you submit to His Lordship, expect change. When I am 'under His mighty hand', the Holy Spirit convicts me of sin in my life or in my heart that has to be forgiven in order for me to be 'lifted up'. I have also noticed that when God brings me to the end of my trial (or lifted up), it is perfect timing. Perhaps you are struggling with a trial and see no end in sight. Maybe you are feeling little to no direction in your life. Perhaps you desire to have God's best for your life but don't know how to go about seeking it. I can tell you that you can begin by humbling yourself to be under His hand. Trust Him and be totally submissive to His power. And in due time, His time, you will be lifted above your trial and blessed more than your mind can conceive!

Love,

Corrie

My prayer for today: Lord, help me to trust you and be totally submissive to your will for my life. To do this, I know I will need to be under your hand. Mold me and make me to be like you...

Taking Our Emotions to God

2008-06-04T15:48:00.005-05:00

Hey everyone! I am excited to finally be able to write to you again. I have had alot of pain in the joints of my hands this past week and it was too difficult to type. Please continue to pray for my health.God continues to remain faithful to me and my family. Today, God has placed the following verse on my heart and I wanted to share it with you: "The Lord says: These people come near me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." Isaiah 29:13 My goal in my life now is to find out how to be as close to God as I possibly can. I want to find this out for myself and to be able tell other people also. I believe that one of the main ways to accomplish that closeness is to use our Bible. I feel like that is one reason we have God's word. We can actually look at people in the Bible and know what 'to do' or what 'not to do' based on their lives. Years ago, when God called me to begin Filling the Gap ministry, He led me to "investigate" the lives of two people who had phenomenal (that is the best word to describe) relationships with God: David and Abraham. As I began to study David, I noticed many things. I saw how he failed God with an affair, plotting of murder, etc. But the Bible describes David as a 'man after God's on heart'. I wondered, "what does this mean and how can we actually use this to draw closer to God?" I believe that David's quest in life was to make His heart mirror God's. I also believe that over time, he did just that. How? He was honest with God about what was IN his heart and David did this by taking God his emotions. I believe that God is telling us in Isaiah that we pray to him and maybe we say the right words but 'our hearts' (our emotions) say something totally different. I have thought at times, "God knows my heart, so why tell Him how I feel?" It is true that God is all-knowing. But the important part is for me to know what is wrong in my heart. By wrong, I mean incomplete; not content. Psalm 78: 70-72 discusses how and why God chose David to be a leader of people. Verse 72 says, "And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them." By definition, integrity means: a state of being complete; honest. God desires us to possess a heart that is complete. He wants to be wanted and needed in our lives. He wants to be depended on. That's why He gives us free-will. We lie about our emotions to so many people. Why do we lie to God? The one person who can actually do something about the way we feel. I believe the real reason is that we are not completely aware of our emotions that are hidden so deeply. Perhaps they are became hidden because of events in our past or even present circumstances. Nevertheless, God asks us to bring Him our emotions so that He can give us peace of mind and freedom from emotional strongholds. For me, this was a treasure to find. It gives me something else to work on to bring me closer to the God I love. Love, Corrie My prayer today: Lord, how thankful I am for David. Thank you for teaching me that you want me to tell you everything I feel. You want to be included in every aspect of my life. Help me to remember to tell you my emotions and seek your face in dealing with them...

What Does God Require?

2008-05-23T11:42:00.007-05:00

"...And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8 How wonderful it is to serve a God who listens so intently to our requests and answers us! He continues to amaze me every day by giving me the best for my life. God's best is always greater than anything I could have asked for or even imagined. That is because I ask and believe God to be faithful to me. But I can't help but wonder...what does God require of me? I must tell you that over the past few days, God has led me to know exactly what He requires of His children in order to have this wonderful relationship that we so desire. Throughout the Bible, God tells us many characteristics He desires us to possess, certain behaviors to implement, and even ways to cope with our thoughts and emotions. But "require" is quite a strong word. By definition, it means to 'demand as necessary'. That means that God demands this of me. And for that, it was worth looking into. When reading Micah 6:8, "to walk humbly with your God", caught my eye. I began to research the word 'humbly' and found it to mean: offered in a spirit of submission. I then knew for me to be obedient, I had to really understand submission. Submission means to 'yield oneself to authority or to 'consent to abide by the opinion of another.' God began to reveal to me that walking humbly with Him meant that I had to be submissive to His Lordship. I had to yield myself to His opinions, His way, His will. This sounds easy enough. But I thought about all the times I had begged to be close to Him but wanted to do things my way. Today, I have learned that He requires me to trust Him...to have faith in Him. It's not an option. I am REQUIRED to believe Him. How often do we doubt Him then think that we should be patted on the back for having faith? I Corinthians 4:2 says, ..."now it is required of those who have been given a trust to prove faithful." God has entrusted me with a relationship with Him. Full access to the God of Abraham, the Almighty, Consuming Fire...God! He has also entrusted me and you, as His children, to tell others how they too can know Him. A long time ago, just catching glimpses of God was enough for me. But now, I want to walk with Him. I want to feel Him near me. So, I will remember what is required of me and that is to be submissive to His will for my life. I don't always understand it. But He has never, ever given me reason to doubt Him. Will you be submissive to His will for your life? Can you turn over controlling areas of your life that are consumed with fear? I hope you can. I plan to try. Why? Because there is nothing greater than walking side by side with God. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, I commit today to surrender to being submissive in all areas of my life to you. Forgive me for holding back parts of my life that I thought didn't matter and only I wanted to handle. I will be mindful to be humble. Help me to see others through your eyes. Help me to listen to you. Be clear and show me your will for my life...

"What Kind of Man Is This?

2008-05-14T15:09:00.007-05:00

"The men were amazed and asked, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey Him!" Matthew 8:27 In the last few years, so many things have happened in my life. Both blessings and trials have left me forever changed. But the one thing that has changed my life, has been getting to know God. I had no idea that this God, who I gave my heart to at five years old, wanted a relationship with me; a friendship. I open my Bible now and I feel like I am reading a personal love letter... straight from Him to me. And it all began several years ago with one question in my mind...Who is He? I realized that the person I wanted to spend eternity with, was someone who I didn't even know. I have recognized that other Christians feel this way. This is the very reason for God founding Filling the Gap Ministries. In Matthew Chapter 8, Jesus has just calmed a terrible storm while on the boat with His disciples. I can't imaging their eyes when Jesus simply told the winds and the waves to basically just 'hold up!" (Corrieology for 'be still'!) As God spoke to me through this passage, He pointed out something I had never realized before. The DISCIPLES are the ones who make the statement, "what kind of man is this?" Not people who are strangers and just meeting Jesus for the first time, but the ones who had agreed to follow Him on a daily basis. To me, this is very symbolic of us as Christians. Many of us don't know the one who we accepted salvation from. What about the relationship? If you are a Christian but you don't feel close to God or you don't feel as though you know Him the way He intends or the way you see that other people know Him, please decide to change this. I can guarantee that this relationship will change your life forever. How can you find comfort for grief if you don't know the Comforter? How can you find answers to a broken relationship when you don't know that restoration is one of His specialties? How can He tell you what to do about a job or financial problems when He isn't asked? I feel as though God laid it on my heart to write this today for someone who wants to close distance between them and God. I am finding out that a REAL relationship and REALLY walking with God takes much more than just being 'in the boat'. What kind of man is this?...that is the question. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how I praise you for wanting a relationship with me. I can't even believe at times that you would even want to talk to me when I forget about you or ignore you. Yet, you remain the most constant in my life. How wonderful it is to know you have a personality and you want to be my friend...

Mothers' Day

2008-05-09T09:30:00.003-05:00

"As for you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands the intention of every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever." 1 Chronicles 28: 9 Sunday is Mothers' Day. While I am very thankful for my mother and honor her on this day, I find myself giving alot of thought as to the mother I am or want to become for my son, Canaan. I feel as though our society causes mothers to sometimes feel that giving birth is the end of our "job" and we are just needed to "find stuff" around the house or bandage up 'boo-boos' or to solve problems quickly. I have met woman who look and feel tired or used and who don't understand their value as a woman or as a mother. I must encourage all of you who read this to know that God considers women and mothers very valuable. In 1 Chronicles, David is getting ready to basically hand over his kingdom to his son, Solomon. As I read David's advice to his son, I was humbled that this great leader's only advice was to KNOW God. David tells Solomon to 'know the God of your father'. This means that David was bold about his faith in God and he gives his son the very key to his success...knowing God and having a relationship with Him. I believe that this is the greatest gift we can ever give to our children. We strive so hard to give our children a "good life". But what does that mean? Will our children remember how we told them that the key to being happy and fulfilled is to know the God who made them? I know alot of moms who work and alot of moms who work at home. Either way, our job is the same: to show our children (young and old) how to know God. David was a man who made mistakes. Many mistakes. He was human. But he is described in the Bible as a man after God's own heart. This, to me, means that he knew God's heart and wanted his heart to mirror God's. That is what I want. And most of all, I want the opportunity to lead my son to Christ one day. Do you? The way I will be the greatest mother is to have a close relationship with God and make it so appealing that my son will want the very same thing... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, thank you for blessing me as a woman and as a mother. Help me to seek you in raising my child. Even when he is old, I pray that he will remember me as a mother who put God first in her life and tried to teach him your ways. I pray for those mothers who are struggling today. Help them to move close to you. Shield them, comfort them, love them...

Seeking

2008-05-02T19:23:00.002-05:00

"I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears." Psalm 34:4 I can't believe it is already May. In the post that I wrote the day or so after I resigned my job back in March, I shared how God had led me to quit my job even though, on paper, Shane and I would be at least $300.00 short per month with our finances. April was our first month to go through on one income. I remember telling God how afraid I was to walk away from a job that provided for us. He told me that the job never provided anything--He provided it all. And He would continue to do so. The question was did I really believe He would? God told me to trust Him and I walked away from a 10 year career to begin this new ministry. I couldn't wait to tell you that during the month of April, all our needs were met. He did exactly what He said He would do! I wanted to share that with you to give God the glory for His faithfulness. I also wanted to share how you can also experience that same faithfulness from Him as well... I believe Psalm 34: 4 holds the key to knowing the faithful side of our father. It tells us how David sought God to deliver him from his fears. Seeking God is the first step. How often do we jump on the telephone to our best friend or family member to tell them our fears and our frustrations? I can't imagine what it is like for God to hear that conversation and know that we could have come to Him first. I am trying to do just that. I believe God wants us to seek Him. To come to Him and tell Him the emotions that we feel. If it's anger, sadness, or even fear, He still wants know. He wants us to be "poured out" before Him. We have to be empty before we can ever be filled. I am learning that when I am honest with my God, He begins to deliver me from my fears. I am beginning to know Him. Really know Him. And the more I know Him, the easier it is for me to believe Him. This is the most wonderful thing I have learned in my Christian in walk. Have you come to a place in your life where you believe God instead of just believing IN God? The Bible tells us that even Satan believes IN God. I hope that you will be encouraged to go to your Saviour and tell Him , honestly tell Him, your thoughts. This is seeking Him. And the more you seek Him, you will believe Him to deliver you from everything you don't need in your life. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, thank you for not ever turning your back on me when I have ran to you. Each time, you gently console me when I am afraid and you pick up my cares and concerns so that I don't have to carry them anymore. Thank you for loving me enough to deliver me from my fears...

Being Content With God's "Back"

2008-04-23T19:14:00.004-05:00

The Lord said to Moses: "Here is the place near Me. You are to stand on the rock, and when My glory passes by, I will put you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take My hand away, and you will see My back, but My face will not be seen." Exodus 33: 21-23 Don't we all want to hear from God? I mean, everywhere I go, it excites me to see those who are beginning or renewing a relationship with God and are so passionately trying to "hear from Him". I have shared with you before that even though I have been a Christian for over 26 years, I have only learned to "hear" God in the past 5 years. I realized that He had been speaking for the whole 26 but because I didn't know Him intimately, I had no clue what His voice sounded like. How do you hear from God? That is the popular question. For me, God's speaks on many levels. I have recently found that being content with God's voice is crucial to hearing Him again. What good is it for Him to speak to us when we ignore what He says? When I read this passage of scripture with Moses, I can hardly breath. To think what it must have been like to hear God give specific instruction in order to see His glory pass by! But tonight, I realized that God still does this today! But we often do not "hear" Him, nor do we see His glory, because we are not willing to be content with seeing His 'back'. God tells Moses to stand on a particular place in a rock (the crevice) and He will cover Moses with His hand as His glory passes by. Then God says He will move His hand, allowing Moses to see His back. How often have I felt that God has left me or is distant from me only to find that He has carefully hidden me in the crevice of a rock to protect me. I never realized I was seeing "His back". I was so focused and demanding to have it my way. How thankful I am to have seen His back because it meant that He was shielding me. He was standing in front of me. I have begun to focus on being content with details...the details in God's voice. When we pray for direction, God answers and tells us exactly where to stand to see His glory. But if we are not content in just hearing Him or seeing Him in whatever way He chooses, then we miss Him...and the glory. I hope that you will join me in being content with God's voice and with whatever and where ever He leads you and I. And I have found that the crevice of a rock can be a very good view. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, thank you for loving me. Thank you for wanting to have a relationship with me. Forgive me for ignoring your commands sometimes because I was not content with seeing your "back". You hang on my every word and catch every tear that falls from my face. Help me to be still and trust you when you have me safe in the crevice of the rock...

The Two Baskets of Figs

2008-04-16T17:02:00.002-05:00

“I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.” Jeremiah 24:7 I was very amazed how God spoke to me through this passage in Jeremiah and wanted to share it with you. During the exile from Babylon, The Lord spoke to Jeremiah and showed him two baskets of figs. One basket was filled with good, early ripened figs (which were considered to be a delicacy). The other basket was filled with bad figs, which were rotten and of no use. God then uses the figs to symbolize what is to come for Israel and His love for them. God promises to watch over them, to bring them back, and to build them up and not tear them down. And then God says this: “I will give them a heart to know me.” That is my favorite part. Over the past few years, God has shown me that we all were created with a hole in our lives that was deliberately designed by Him. This hole can never be filled with anything or anyone but God himself. I have seen people search and search only to find who was there at the beginning-God. The only thing that will fill this gap in our lives is the relationship with God. He wants the relationship so bad with us that He gives us a head start…a heart to know Him. He knows that if we begin to know Him, we will eventually know and love Him wholeheartedly. I am learning to love Him with my whole heart. To Jeremiah, the basket of good figs represents those who God loved and wanted to be near. To me, it represents the same thing today. God’s promise in Jeremiah is so moving and shows the depth He is willing to go just to have a relationship with His children… those who have accepted Him as Lord and Savior of their lives and actually open the door to that relationship. My ministry is solely dedicated to helping others know God the way He wants to be known. We must ask God to help us to love Him with our whole hearts. To give everything to Him…our time, devotion, love, honor, worship, tithes. I want to be in the basket of figs that God considers valuable. I have spent years knowing about God and of God, and I have returned because I now know God and am learning what loving Him whole heartily is really about. It is about faith in my Lord that takes my breath away; it is about sacrificing my health if it brings Him glory; it is forgiving and being humble even when it hurts. I have so much more to learn. If you have invited Christ into your life but are struggling to know who God really is, begin by asking Him to help you love Him whole heartily…and believe me…He will. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, help me to love you with my whole heart. I desire to be close to you…to feel your very breath. You are so holy and I am so unworthy. Yet, you continue to want me…even when I fail. Thank you for loving me.

Update

2008-04-12T12:01:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone! Just a note to request your prayers. I have had a bad case of the stomach virus over the past few days. I am better but still feel very weak. Because of the virus, I was unable to take my medicine for the past 3 days or so. Please pray that this will not cause a relapse of my disease. I am going to try to take my shots Sunday. Thank you all so much for your comments and emails on the posts for the blog. You encourage me to keep listening to God to continue writing. I hope you know that I don’t just “sling the posts” up on the blog, but spend much time in prayer to find out what God wants to say to those who read it. Also, my ministry website (designed by Adam Hyche–who is awesome and who I love very much!!!) now has my blog and website combined. We will eventually be using this only. So please take a look at it and sign in. The address is www.fillingthegapministries.com (or .net). Thank you for all your encouragement and prayers for this ministry… Love, Corrie

The Women of Bethel

2008-04-07T16:55:00.003-05:00

“So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” 1 Corinthians 4:1-2

What an honor and privilege it was to speak at Spa Day at Bethel Baptist Church! The Women of Bethel put much time and effort in creating a day of relaxation and pampering for the ladies of that community and beyond. But I must say that I was humbled to see such servant hood among them. As I drove home from the conference, I cried when I thought about what had taken place that day. I thought back to seeing women sitting or standing for hours just to serve others. I noticed that every manicure, haircut, facial, or massage, allowed the Women of Bethel to minister by listening, laughing, and just conversing with women who needed to be lifted up. I ,too, was one of those women who were ministered to. Tears filled my eyes when a lady knelt beside me just to rub lotion on my arms and put something under my feet to relax. I saw Jesus in those women. I saw the ultimate call God has for us as His children…to serve. This perhaps is the most difficult characteristic we are asked to do in order to mirror Christ. Spa Day showed me that becoming a servant is not solely about doing for others, but it begins in the heart so that you can do for others. That Spa Day would have been time wasted had those women not prepared their hearts first. I want God to give me the heart of a servant. I want to be humble and loving to those who are not loved or who lash out to hurt me. I want to see them the way God does. I believe that the reason this is difficult at times is because we want recognition of our service or to be apologized to by those who hurt us. None of this is owed to us. To take on the identity of Christ, we must go where we do not want to go, be silent when we want to scream, and love those who make us cry. This is His heart. This is why He came. The scripture says that ‘those who have been given a trust must prove faithful’. I value someone’s trust very much and when I read this scripture, I realized how very little I valued the trust God has placed in me to prove faithful. I fall so short. But today, I have set my eyes upon Him to help me to be the very servant He designed me to be. Again, I am so thankful for the opportunity to speak at Spa Day and for bringing servant hood to my heart’s attention. I will never forget that day because I saw my Lord in the Women of Bethel.

Love, Corrie

My prayer for today: Lord, I ask that you forgive me for taking what you have entrusted me to do for granted. Help me to have the heart of a servant. Help me to continue what you came to do on earth. Use me to minister to those who need you. Remove my pride and burden my heart for those who are crying inside and feel empty. Love them through me.

Expecting or Wondering

2008-04-02T10:32:00.004-05:00

"For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the evidence of the Scriptures we might have hope." Romans 15:4 "...And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Romans 5:5 To me, the book of Romans is such an encouraging book for the Christian. Paul is ever so fearlessly trying to tell us how rewarding it will be if we will place our hope and faith in Christ. I think my favorite chapter in Romans is chapter 5. Here, hope is the focus. By definition, hope means, 'a desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment.' I believe that many people, including myself, rarely look at God as a God of fulfillment and expectation. I think we look at him as a God of perhaps and maybe. I can remember being alone in my bedroom the night after I came home from the hospital in 2006. I had just been told I had this terrible disease and I noticed that not one of my doctors seemed really confident as to how they would treat me. I had so many questions and there were so few answers. I remember telling God that I hoped he would take care of me...I hoped he would let me live to carry out this ministry...I hoped I would live to see Canaan grow up...I hope...I hope. God spoke to me that night through Romans chapter 5. God showed me that my hope needed to be in what had already taken place at Calvary. I realized that instead of believing and expecting God to fulfill his promises to me, I was really wondering if he would or not. That is not hope. That is doubt. We say that we have prayed and ask God for something to be taken care of for us, yet we act like we have just rolled dice and there is a chance he will not come through. There is only one reason for this lack of expectation...not knowing who God really is. I believe that if we really took time to get to know God, we would find our anxiety and fears would diminish. We would find a peace that we didn't know existed. We would not be as quick tempered and ill at our spouses or children when a bill came that we didn't see coming. Do we really expect God to come through? Do we really expect God to do the things he says he will do? I feel that I am at a place in my life that if I don't believe God, I will not live. I have to expect that what the Scriptures say are true. I have begun to read more and try to find out who God says that He is. I hear alot of people talking about the Bible, even quoting scripture. But do we really believe what we read? Do we have this hope? God's word tells us that we will not be disappointed in hoping. That's enough for me . I want to have that hope. I want to anticipate and be excited to see God do these things He says He will do in my life. I don't want to just wonder. The only way I can have this hope is to know Him better. Are you at a point in your life where you feel disappointed? Well, good news...you don't have to be. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how much time I have wasted worrying and wondering. I want to have true hope in you. I will expect and be excited about the prayers and requests I have made. I will turn my fear and anxiety into excitement as I wait on you.

Walking Through the Fire

2008-03-26T09:59:00.002-05:00

"...I have summoned you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze." Isaiah 43:1-2 I sat down to think about this post this morning and prayed that God would show me what to write. He began to burden my heart for those who have a heavy feeling of despair. Because my ministry is dedicated to showing how we can know God and build a relationship with Him, I feel it is necessary for us to know that He wants to remove our feelings of despair and hopelessness. As I read the verse above, I noticed the word "walk" and its relation to "fire" in the sentence. God tells us that when we walk through the fire, He will prevent the flames from burning us. Oh how many times can I remember feeling the heat of fiery trials in my life. But as I reflect, on my own trials, I have come to realize that we can only escape burning if we keep "walking". Walking to me, in this case, refers to my faith in God. We say that we believe God, yet when we have a problem that appears hopeless and creates an overwhelming feeling of despair, we begin to wonder if God will really do what He says He will do. No matter how we 'term' it, that is the real question, isn't it? I have no evidence that God will fail me. I have tremendous amounts of evidence that He will, in fact, sustain me. It hurts me to say this, but when I have a feeling of despair or hopelessness, I am really saying that everything God says is a lie. And as I mentioned last week, I believe that those are the very thoughts that drive the nails in His hands once again. Since I have been diagnosed with this disease, I look at God in a new way. Where before, when I asked Him to do something, I hoped that He would. Now when I ask Him, I am sure that He will. Why? Because He is all that I have to trust. When my health began to fail me, I saw that nothing or no one in this world could help me but God alone. The fire is to hot for me to stop walking. In the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the king asks, "Weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?" and then he said, "Look! I see four men WALKING around in the fire, unbound, unharmed,..." The king didn't say that there were four men standing...he said walking. So for us, we must look at our faith. We must keep walking in order for God to have the opportunity to be true to His word. Today, if you are feeling hopeless or in despair about a situation in your life that has been going on a long time or is so bad that it feels as though it will surely kill you, you do have choices. You can go to God and find out how to "keep walking" and believe Him to be faithful or you can believe that what He says in His word is a lie. Sounds harsh, but we either believe Him or we don't. There is no middle ground of faith. I choose to believe Him. For today, I must keep walking...even when I can feel the heat of the fire. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how ashamed I am for doubting you. I have no proof that you have ever failed me nor will you fail me now. I love you and ask you to be true to your word. You promise that you will keep the flames from touching me. I ask that you remember me and if you don't let me escape the fire...I ask that you join me in it.

Easter Sunday Recap

2008-03-23T20:15:00.016-05:00

We were so excited when Corrie, Shane, and Canaan finally got here Saturday. It is a tradition for them to come back to Corrie's hometown for Easter weekend and to go to church at the church she grew up in and where her dad has pastored for 30 years now (I know...isn't that amazing!?!). We always look forward to celebrating Jesus' resurrection together on Sunday morning and then gathering in the fellowship hall after church for our annual Easter Sunday meal. Corrie's aunt Nancy, uncle Lionel, cousin Taylor and his very soon to-be bride, Brittany came with Ma-maw Algie and uncle Lionel's family. It is always such a sweet time. We all don't get to see each other near enough so we look forward to these little family gatherings we have. Oh, and the food definitely doesn't disappoint, the following are a few of our faves that we look forward to every Easter: Sammy's smoked chicken, Corrie's famous potato salad, Judy's chocolate pie, and anything Aunt Nancy and uncle Lionel bring.

I thought to bring my camera so I could put some pics on here of Corrie and our family. If your like me, you love to see pictures, and I'm glad I could deliver...

This is Canaan in the sanctuary at our church. He only stopped long enough to say cheese for me and in that split second I got a decent picture...yeah, I'm good.

Here is Corrie and Shane.

Here is the fam in our "Easter best". From left to right are Corrie, Shane, Canaan, Judy, Sammy, me and Kyle.

This is the cross we set up outside our church every Easter. It is a tradition for everyone to bring flowers to put on it. I never can resist taking a picture of it...

...nor can I resist taking a picture of my favorite nephew in front of it. He's soooo cute!!!

After we finished eating and visiting with everyone at the church, we all went back to Ma-maw Judy and Pa-paw Sam's house for a good ole' fashioned Easter egg hunt. Here are a few pics of Canaan in action...

"Where's another egg Pa-paw?"

Canaan getting ready to eat one of his Easter eggs...

Perfect...now I know I'm good. Open wide Canaan!!!

I saved the best for last...Canaan with his beloved Ma-Maw Judy.

I'll have you know that after I took this picture he promptly told me and Mommy to go back inside. You see, Canaan and his Ma-Maw have a very special relationship together. They have to have their own time together apart from the rest of us, just him and his Ma-maw Judy only...and we were cutting in on that "me and ma-maw only" time. It's just so precious.

And it got me to thinking. This is actually the perfect picture of what Christ really wants with each one of us...and what we really need and want, if we only knew, with Him. I know He is always with us if we are His, but He really wants some special time set aside specifically to spend with His very own Beloved, just like Canaan needs with His Ma-maw. Yes, I am His Beloved. You are His Beloved. I love that He has the capacity to love me as if I were His only child and can give me the kind of attention like I'm the only person in the world. He does the same with each of us, its just another thing that makes Him God. Yes He wants His "Me and Katie only" time with me everyday, and I'm learning that I REALLY need my "Me and Jesus only" time everyday as well.

I love how Canaan unapologetically told me and his mommy to go inside because we were cutting in on his only time with just him and ma-maw. That one got me, and hit me hard. It sent all kinds of questions racing through my head. Questions like 'Am I as quick to tell someone who tries to cut in on my "me and Jesus only" time to hold on like Canaan did?' 'Do I really cherish that time with Him, my Beloved?' 'Is He my Beloved?' 'Do I know that I am His Beloved?' 'Do I really know Him?' 'Do I even have a clue?' I can tell you that it is no coincidence that I noticed that about Canaan and how it relates to my relationship with my Lord. This is the very thing He has been working with me on -me realizing how much He loves me. Which is hard to grasp. The harder I chase after Him and the more I spend time with Him, the more often I ask myself that last question. 'Do I really get who it is that wants me?' I don't think so, and probably won't fully until that Perfect Day.

Well, I know this wasn't your typical Easter message...but wait, He just informed me that it is. If He had not died for our sins and arose on that first Easter Sunday, we wouldn't have the chance to have our very own relationship with Him. Oh, Praise you Jesus for reminding me! Today, we celebrated Him as the Lamb slain for His Beloved, but soon we will celebrate Him as the Lion of Judah. Oh I can't wait for that party!

OK, I am realizing now that this is really long, but I was compelled to post this because it fits right in with Corrie's ministry. Thanks for finishing reading it...that is if you made it this far! I'm sorry that you had to endure through all my ramblings, I'm sure Corrie will get something good back on here soon. Are her devotionals great or what!?!

"...And I pray that you...may have power...to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ..." (Eph. 3:17-18)

The Full Extent of His Love

2008-03-19T22:27:00.002-05:00

"...Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love." John 13:1 I have tried to write this blog 3 times today. But only now do I feel that this is what God would have me to write. Sunday is Easter and, for me, this is one of the most exciting days of the year! I love celebrating the birth of Christ at Christmas, but it seems that with every passing year, Easter takes on a deeper meaning to me. I was brought up to know that we celebrated Easter because it was the day Jesus arose from the grave. The Easter Bunny was just a perk! For all I knew, the Easter Bunny was so happy about Jesus overcoming death that he went around leaving candy for everybody!!! Anyway, when I think back to what might have been going on in the mind of Christ during all the preparation for His crucifixion, it overwhelms me. Was He thinking about how much death would hurt? Was He thinking about how it would hurt the ones He loved to watch him die? Was He thinking about being mocked or spat upon? The one thing that makes me well up with tears is that sometime that day as He hung there on that cross, I went through His mind. Jesus was so in love with Corrie Taylor Clay that He completed the task. That type of love is a love I can barely even begin to comprehend. My sister-in-law (Katie) and I were talking this past weekend about the fact that perhaps one of the most difficult things for us as Christians is for us to understand and accept how much God loves US. That is hard for me. Becoming a Christan secures our eternity and opens the door to a relationship with God. But knowing Him is a whole new world. The passage in John tells us that Jesus realizes that His time of death is getting closer. And then I read something I had never noticed before....He would show them the 'extent of His love'. He then washed their feet. He symbolically showed them this act of humbleness and service because He would soon give the ultimate sacrifice by laying down His life for them, you, and me. There are so many verses in the Bible that define and describe God's love. I have just begun to understand that He loves me. The part I don't understand is why my faith wavers at times in a man who proved that He loves me more than anyone can or ever could. How He must feel the spikes in His hands all over again when I doubt Him. All I know is that I have begun a quest to know this love and to share it with everyone. Ephesians 3: 18 tells us how powerful it is to know how deep, how wide, how long, and how high is the love of Christ. I wonder if you know how much He loves you? How can you know? You can know by beginning a relationship with Him. Let Him begin to show you the extent of His love... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how thankful I am for the day you gave your life for me. You died a horrible and painful death for me. You have asked me for so very little yet you gave the ultimate sacrifice for those who hurt you. I want to know you and the full extent of this phenomenal love.

The Hem or His Hand?

2008-03-11T22:49:00.003-05:00

"...they placed the sick in the market places. They begged Him to let them touch even the hem of His garment, and all who touch Him were healed." Mark 6:56 Tonight, as I began to pray for God to lead me to write a fresh word from Him to you, He burdened my heart. I know that there are people tonight that need to be restored. Not with just health issues, financial problems, bad jobs, or even troubled marriages. But a feeling that God is distant. Perhaps it has become a matter of faith, or a lack of. How often this has appeared in my life. As I read this verse from my prayer journal dated August 29, 2007, I remembered all the things that were going on in my life at that time. I had many things on my mind. I had prayed about them. I had asked for God's to take away those problems that were weighing me down. I read this verse and I thought about my disease and how I longed to be there that day at that market place. How remarkable it would be to touch the very hem of Jesus' garment. To feel the power of God's only son run through my body and make me whole and complete. But tonight, God revealed something to me that I had never thought of: Isaiah 41:13 says, "I am the Lord your God. I am holding your hand, so don't be afraid. I am here to help you." Why would I want the hem of His garment when I could hold His hand? The Lord reminded me that from the very day I asked Him to come into my life and save me, I could hold His hand at any time I wanted to. The day He saved me, the power of His son DID run through my whole body! And He would come to my aide and help me with those problems. I believe we think today that if we can't handle our problems, than we are looked upon as weak. I think we have weak faith because we don't understand how to strengthen our faith. I am learning that every trial that I face is a pivotal moment. That moment when I am presented with a trial, I have a choice to increase or decrease my faith. I noticed that even with the sick people in the market place who wanted to see Jesus...He was in front of them but they had to reach out to Him to touch Him. God never moves. He is always there. But it is up to us to reach out to hold His hand. I know that for right now, I am holding on to His hand as tight as I can. I no longer fear Him leaving me...I fear me leaving Him. I hope that if you are facing a time in your life where you feel overwhelmed and confused about anything and everything, please cling to what you DO know instead of what you DON'T know. Rather than feeling weak in your faith, have it restored by God by reaching out to Him. If you've met Him, remember you have access to His hand...not just His hem. Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, how comforting it is to know you literally hold my hand. Even when I cannot see, you are there. Thank you for never leaving me even though I have left you a hundred times. I love you and I will cling to you. Now and forever.

A Deeper Understanding

2008-03-09T17:26:00.004-05:00

The angel of the Lord said to Daniel: "Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard and I have come in response to them." Daniel 10:12 Well...it's official. This past Thursday was my last day of work as a substance abuse therapist. It was a bitter-sweet day for me. For the past 10 years, I have worked in the mental health field. I have been a therapist for over 6 years. I am so thankful for the opportunities that God gave me. I asked Him years ago to give me an understanding of who He really was. And when I think about what I learned from the people I met, I well up with tears. When I first began my career, I had no knowledge about drugs or the people who were addicted to them. No knowledge and no compassion. They simply did not fit my 'criteria' for needing help. After all, they should just "stop using drugs" right? Little did I know how God would humble me and place me right in the middle of the lives of addicts. My feelings of the first day of my job as a substance abuse therapist were vastly different than the feelings of my last day. As I left my work on my first day working with addiction all those years ago, I cried. I cried because I told God I didn't want to do this. I felt inadequate and wanted to do something else. But as I watched my clients leave the parking lot on my last day of work this past Thursday, I cried because of the love God allowed me to feel for these people. For you see, He answered the question I had asked so many years ago of who He really was. And when I looked into the faces of my clients, I was looking into His face as well. I think we forget those who are struggling and broken. I think we forget that they need God and are just as eager, if not more, to meet Him. And to meet Him is to meet Him through those that know Him. This is what my ministry is all about. I walked away from a career of 10 years simply because God told me too. This is no reflection of greatness on my part by no means. This is what I'm supposed to do anyway...if I believe the King I say that I love. But even though I am not sure exactly what is going to take place in my life now, I do take comfort in the verse above. I trust the fact that since the very first day that I set my mind to following His will and knowing who God really is, my words were heard by Him. Please pray for me as I plant my feet firmly in His will for my life. I hope you will allow Him to be as real to you as He has been to me... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, help me to remember my purpose on this earth. Help me to love those who don't know you. Help me to walk in your ways and humble myself to give everything back to you. Help me to give my first fruits and not my leftovers. For you gave your entire life for me....

Is He Enough?

2008-03-02T20:24:00.004-06:00

"...I say to myself, The Lord is my portion; Therefore, I will wait for Him." Lamentations 3:24 I really enjoyed sharing with you what God had laid on my heart about this scripture on the last blog. I wanted to share the last part with you separately because it has a very deep and special meaning to me. As you know, I was diagnosed with Takayasu's Arteritis in October 2006. After this diagnosis, my life was changed drastically and immediately. I went from having no answers of why I was so sick, to an overwhelming amount of knowledge about this "rare disease" in virtually one day. I can remember coming home from the hospital and was alone in my bedroom. My mind began to process all the information I had heard over the last several days..."blocked arteries,"..."arteriogram"..."life span"..."blood thinner"..."stints"..."rare"..."pulseless disease." As my mind was spinning, I remember crying out to God and telling Him that I was afraid of what was going to happen. I said, "God, am I going to die? What is going to happen to me...to my husband and my baby?" I told God that I was seeking His will but I didn't understand what He was doing. I sat down and began to read my Bible, hoping to hear from Him. That night, every verse I read pertained to portion and waiting. I never realized there were so many verses about portion! And then I heard Him ask me in a still small voice, "Am I enough for you?" Of course I immediately said "YES Lord!" But then I remembered what I had asked Him earlier and how much fear I had of death. It was at that moment I realized that I wasn't content with only Him. I, myself, was even ahead of God. I began to cry because I saw myself the way He must have seen me. I knew that dying would mean being with Him immediately but yet my fear of death and the inability to see what He was doing with my life consumed me.God was trying so desperately to answer my questions. He was saying that He was my portion. Since that night, I have realized that He can only be my portion if He totally and completely fills me. That means I must get rid of whatever or whomever holds priority before Him. This includes myself. I share this with you to allow God to be everything to you. I am sad that it took looking so closely to death to move me to shift my priorities. This impacted my ministry a great deal. Allowing God to fill me up also fills in all the gaps that other people and things cannot. This is an every day effort. But when I make the effort, He always makes it worth my while. Putting Him first even helps me to be a better mother and wife. The last part of that verse deals with waiting on Him. How difficult that is for me! But I have found that when I say that I will allow God to fill me completely, it then becomes an act of faith to wait on Him to bring about the best plan for my life. I challenge you to allow God to fully take over your life. Even as Christians, we allow fear, worry, depression, etc. to consume us to the point that God has no room to "be our portion". A friend of mine always gave an example of a cup. If you have a cup of water and you ask someone to pour you some orange juice. What is the first thing that person will have to do with the cup of water? They have to pour it out to make room for the orange juice. It certainly wouldn't be good mixed! But that is what we do as Christians sometimes. We ask God to be our portion (and still hang on to all the worries, fears). There is no room in our 'cup' to have Him without the outpouring of ourselves. May you allow Him to be your portion... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, help me to lay my burdens down at your feet and not pick them back up. I want you to be my portion. Fill my cup with all that you are . Help me to wait for you by keeping my eyes on you. For I know that your plans for me are the absolute best for my life!

His compassions...they fail not

2008-02-27T18:56:00.003-06:00

"Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness, I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him." Lamentations 3: 21-24 What a beautiful passage of comfort that God gives to His children! There are so many things to rejoice about in this verse! First, God spoke to my heart and called my attention to the importance of recall. It is necessary, when we have trials, to recall ('call to mind') how powerful God is and what He has done in our past and throughout history. This is our reason for hope. To many times, when something is scary, we forget how He "came through" the last time we needed Him or the time before that. I believe teaching and training our brain and heart to recall that our God is awesome and faithful, is a way to increase our faith. This verse also tells us that we don't HAVE to be consumed by our trials. I have realized that when I am so worried about a problem, it takes 1st place in my thoughts. God views this as being consumed because HE is not first in my thoughts. I love the fact that this verse says that 'His compassions are new every morning'. This, to me, means that His love for me is so personal that it is different yet deeper every day because of the different trials I go through--everyday. The last part of this verse deals with God being enough for us (I plan to write a blog on this part by itself next). All is all, we can be encouraged and rest today. Why? Because we can "call to mind" how faithful our Lord has been to us. I don't have any reason to doubt God or think that He will fail me. He never has. But why He continues to love ME after all the times I have failed Him...this is the compassion that never fails! Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, thank you for being faithful to me and my family when I have doubted you. Thank you for paying such close attention to every detail of my life and guiding my steps to bring about what was and is best for me. Your compassion is always on time and is always plentiful...

Wrestling

2008-02-23T00:00:00.006-06:00

"How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? Psalm 13:2 The Lord laid this verse on my heart tonight. So many of God's children are going through very difficult situations, struggles, and decisions. How frustrating it is to lay down at night and know that you need to sleep but your mind doesn't seem to stop. Our thoughts can consume us. Why, instead of laying our thoughts down at the feet of our Saviour, do we wrestle with them? I have often wondered why I continue to be emotionally, mentally, and physically tired when God offers me "rest". It is that I 'choose' to wrestle. God has never let me down or failed me in any way. I have come to realize that this resistance to lay my thoughts down with Him is due to pride and not knowing Him as well as I should. Since I have been diagnosed with my disease, I have had to work daily on giving God my thoughts. If I ever stop to think about all the blockages or "high risks", my thoughts spin out of control and it places distance between me and my Father. How do we stop wrestling? We go to God and tell Him just how overwhelmed we are. Then, we remind Him of His word. We get to know Him. When you 'get to know' someone, you begin to trust them. How can we trust God if we don't know Him? When I wrestle with my thoughts, I will recall Ephesians 3:20..."Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us..." Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Father, I lift up all those that I love who are wrestling with so many thoughts that they are weary. God, they need for you to do those 'immeasureable things' that your word says that you will do. Help me to focus on you when my mind runs wild with doubt. Help me to remember that you love me and that you desire what is best for me. I know that if I wait on you, you will give the clarity that I need...

Hands

2008-02-18T16:22:00.005-06:00

"The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands, the foolish one tears hers down." Proverbs 14:1 We, as women, have so many duties! Some of us are wives, mothers, work full-time jobs in an office setting or work full-time jobs as a homemaker. We have so many responsibilities. I believe that Proverbs 14:1 is worth our attention. I believe that as a believer, my first loyalty is to my God. No other responsibilty is able to be carried out effectively if this loyalty and servanthood is not present. I feel like in our society today, we as women, fail to think of our "house" as a responsiblility. It feels like a chore. When I say responsibility, I am not referring to cooking and cleaning or even writing out 'the bills'. I am referring to our responsibility to Christ in our home. Only since recently looking into this, have I truly begun to understand God's expectations for me as a wife and mother. I have realized the importance of 'my hands' in my home. Do my hands indicate anger or resentment when I am "puffed up" toward my husband or are they loving hands of forgiveness? Are my hands in too much of a hurry to do housework, instead of taking the time to read a book to my toddler? And most of all, will my husband and my child remember my hands holding God's word or another book of no importance? Just as the Proverb says, I believe our hands can build a solid foundation or tear it down into ruins. May God help and direct our hands... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, thank you for revealing the importance of my hands in my household. I know I have failed you and "tore it down" in the past. I want my hands to be your hands. Please touch my home and make it a place for you to dwell in and a safe haven for me, my husband, and my son. Thank you for the opportunity of being a wife and a mother. I will not take it for granted...

The Saddest Verse in the Bible

2008-02-16T10:26:00.004-06:00

I received an email a while ago that was entitled, "the saddest verse in the Bible". This was the verse: "Does a maid forget her jewelry or a bride her wedding ornaments? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number." Jeremiah 2:32 I must say that after reading that verse for the very first time, it broke my heart and brought me to tears. To hear my God say that HIS people, the very ones who say that we pledge our heart and soul to His leadership, have forgotten Him so many days that He can't count. It implies that He should be as unforgettable to us as a bride's memory of her dress. Things that we could never forget. On the flip side, though, the 'saddest verse' also made me smile. It brought me such joy to know that He noitced! He loves me so much that he notices when I am not with Him and continues to seek me to be by His side. If we could only realize just how personal our wonderful God wants to be. I hope this verse moved your heart as much as it did mine... Love, Corrie My prayer for today: Father, forgive me for forgetting to spend time with you; to talk with you and praise you; to take my cares and worries and give to you. Remind me, Lord, of all you have brought me through and blessed me with so that I will never waver from what is rooted in my heart. Thank you for wanting to have me ever so close to you...

His course

2008-02-12T22:05:00.002-06:00

"In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps." Proverbs 16:9 After many years of making so many mistakes, I have finally realized how much better God's will for my life is than my will alone. It is difficult to understand at times why God chooses the twists and turns in our life. But I have stopped trying to understand them and started to trust Him and Him alone. What does it matter where I go or what happens if I know He loves me more than anyone? I have come to desire God's will for my life. It is so perfect for me because He knows how to make me so very happy. His will often reminds me of a cross stitch piece. If you've ever looked on the underside of a cross stitch piece, you see numerous strings and knots and it looks terrible! But on the finished side, all those strings and knots move together in an unexplainable way to form a beautiful picture of some kind. This is how God is in my life. I seem to always be looking at the underside when He is looking at the finished product. This comes down to faith. I hope you will learn with me how to depend on God to "determine your course". All we have to do is remain willing and able. In Him, Corrie My prayer for today: Lord, Thank you for reaffirming my faith each time I read your word. I become so frustrated with my life at times. But I read your word and you let me know that if I step toward you, you will always make my steps go the way you have ever so carefully designed them to go. I want to always be in your will...

A Deeper Understanding

2008-02-11T10:12:00.000-06:00

I wanted to share something with you today that is both very powerful, yet sweet and beautiful. 2 Thessalonians 3:5 says, "May the Lord bring you into an even deeper understanding of the love of God and of the patience that comes from Christ." As you know, my passion is centured around knowing God in a phenominal way. Many of us, from time to time, wonder why we don't know Him lthe way we'd like to. I believe that it is important to ask God to give us a better and deeper understanding for who He is. I believe that we must start with a desire to know Him and He comes to us. It is also important to understand that "bring you into" indicates a process that is refined on a daily basis. I am so thankful that I can ask this of my Father and He will make it happen. I hope this is helpful for you to begin to know the God who loves you... Corrie My prayer today: Father, I want to understand you more. I want to know all that I can to draw close to you. To be near you. Teach me how to love you and be content with being loved by you alone. You are enough for me....

Thanks for the prayers

2008-02-05T18:52:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone. I just wanted to take a minute and catch you up on my whereabouts for the last week or so. My sister in law, Katie, does a wonderful job of manning the blog when I can't, but so many of you have emailed and called to ask about my health. I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to be loved by so many people who lift me up in prayer daily. I was put in the hopital almost immediately after I got back from the conference (I told ya'll it was good!!!). I came home to recover from a bad sinus and ear infection. But due to my auto immune disease, infection comes quickly and stayes for a while. In this time, my ear drum has bursted and I am still fighting infection. Please continue to pray that I will heal. I believe that my God is my Rapha--my healer. Healing is on it's way. I hope you will call on Him too... Love you all, Corrie

Conference Pics:)

2008-01-31T16:17:00.000-06:00

I thought I would hop on here and share a few pics of Corrie at the women's conference this past weekend. Thank you to all the ladies at Cuba Baptist Church for being so sweet to us during our time there, we all agreed that we felt God's Spirit in your midst.

This is Corrie, anxiously waiting to share God's word.

This is Corrie with the other speakers. They are (from left to right) Cathy Riley, Pat Nelson, and Page Hughes. These ladies are truly phenomenal people and God was just all over them.

This is Corrie with her bff and prayer warrior, Angel Jowers.

This was just the beginning. We are still standing in awe of our God and what He has accomplished just this past weekend. It is obvious that this was the official kick-off of "Corrie as God's spokeswoman". So, I guess we better get prepared for plenty more glorious weekends like this one. I'm sure they will include, but won't be limited to, long rides (car or plane?!?), fast food (and the inevitable tummy ache associated with it), frequent stops at gas stations (for a fresh Mtn. Dew and a much needed bath room break), and plenty more stays at the "Comfort Inn & Suites". Oh, I am so looking forward to the many more road trips to come!

Now for a few "shout-outs":

A very special thanks to Shane for supporting and encouraging Corrie especially for this weekend.

Another very special thanks to Corrie's mom, Judy (aka maw-maw to a certain someone) for keeping Canaan this weekend.

And a special thanks to Canaan for being good for maw-maw and trying to get better from his cold.

Before I go, please continue praying for Corrie. This past week she has been in the hospital with a few complications regarding her disease. She is currently at home now, recovering from all the tests and blood work they did on her. Please continue to remember and lift her up when you pray.

Thanks for stopping by, please leave us a comment and let us know who you are. If you are having problems leaving comments I'll try to walk you through it. Just click where it shows "comments" at the end of the post. Type whatever you want to say, and then you can either click on "Blogger name" (this only works if you have a blogger account) and put in your username and password, or "Nickname" (which is good if you don't have a blogger account but want to leave your name) and type your name, or you may click "anonymous" (which is good if you don't want to leave your name to your comment). When you are finished, click "Publish Comment". I hope this helps and I look forward to reading your comments. Love yall!

To know Him is to love Him

2008-01-27T19:21:00.000-06:00

The conference! The conference! The conference! I am so excited to write to you about the Di's Hope Annual Conference that was held yesterday in Cuba, Al. I was so humbled to be asked to share about my ministry and a few words that God had laid on my heart for that particular group of precious ladies. I cannot tell you how powerful it was to feel God move throughout the hearts of those that were there. For those of you that were unable to attend, my message centred around Ephesian 3: 17-19. Paul is speaking to the Ephesians and telling them about how exciting it is to KNOW Christ. I felt God lead me to share 3 steps that one can take to know God on a personal level gained from Paul's writings. How often, as Christan's, do we walk away from a powerful Sunday worship service, a revival, or a conference, and feel "pumped up" for God? But as time goes by, that excitement turns to distance between our Father. This used to be very frustrating for me in my Christan walk. How could I keep this distance from appearing? That's when God invited me to carry this ministry of closing that gap or distance with a message of knowing Him...really knowing Him. Paul says God must first (1.)dwell within us. This is salvation. One must invite Christ into their lives before ever getting to know Him. (2.) Paul then discusses we must be rooted and established in love. The root of a plant is so very important. It is the heart of the plant and determines the plant's direction. So many of us are not "rooted" within God. One meaning of establish is "to accept as true". We doubt God so often. Even when he answers our prayers. But we can't 'accept it to be true' because we don't know Him and therefore can't trust Him. Why can't we just believe verses like 1 Peter 5:7 when he asks us to cast all our anxiety on Him? Why? Because we don't know Him the way he intends. (3.) Paul then says we must KNOW Him. This is a process in itself that I will write about soon on the future posts because it is just too much to cram on here for tonight!! I hope you enjoy worshiping our Lord on this blog as much as I do. I plan to do alot more of it. Thanks to all of you who prayed for me this week in preparation for the conference. I am so very blessed to have you as prayer warriors... Love, Corrie

To God be the glory!

2008-01-23T19:54:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone! First of all, let me begin by thanking all of you who have encouraged me and prayed for me during one of the most important weeks of my life. Many of you already know that yesterday, January 22, 2008, I officially gave my resignation at my current job as a therapist. For a long time, God has allowed me to know that one day I would be totally committed to my calling in His ministry. In 2003, God spoke to my heart and created a ministry for me to lead called Filling the Gap Ministry. The purpose of this ministry is to teach people how to begin, maintain, or renew a personal relationship with Him on a phenomenal level. Though he has used me for many years to minister to those with mental illness and addiction, I am now moving to an ever greater calling that He has been preparing me for for the last five years. He then spoke to my heart on Monday and told me to resign at my job on Tuesday. When Shane and I looked at our finances, my lack of income showed that we would be loosing $ 300.00 per month. I began to seek God more that day asking Him, did HE KNOW we would be $300.00 short each month if I did this!!!??? hahha!! (like he didn't know!!) The impression grew stronger to resign. I struggled so much that rainy Monday. I knew what to do... I had heard His voice... But could I really walk away with no financial net and from the only career I'd ever known? So many of you began to pray for me at this time. With tears streaming down, I surrendered to God everything. Our finances, the ministry, my clients who I'd leave behind..everything. I am not telling this story for any praise of my own. I simply wanted you all to know this story so that WHEN I TELL you HOW God provides for us each month, we will all be amazed at the God we serve! I am whole-heartedly committed to telling others how to know Him. I have realized that if God shows us just exactly how everything will work out, then this is not faith because there is no crisis of belief. I encourage you who are listening for His voice to wait and be still. When He speaks, I hope you will follow Him because you love Him and trust that He will take care of you. I am so excited to see what God is fixing to do in my life and in the people's lives that want to see Him move. Please pray for me this weekend as I speak in Cuba, Al. Please lift up the hearts of those who will hear Him. I currently have a cold and I ask that you pray God sustain my voice. I hope this message has comforted any of you who are struggling with your question of faith. Just know that when you step out....it feels great!!!! Love you all, Corrie

Meet the Clay's

2008-01-22T19:08:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone! You are about to be officially introduced to the Clay clan. Drumroll please...

This is my beautiful sister-in-law and friend, Corrie Clay, founder of Filling the Gap Ministries.

This is Corrie and her husband, Shane.

This is Corrie's adorable 3 year-old son, Canaan.

Of course I can't forget Corrie's fave picture of her and Canaan. This was taken during his first trip to the beach.

Well, now you have officially met Corrie and her family. I'm sure there will be many more pictures to come now that I have learned how to get them on here (haha!).

BTW, I haven't officially introduced myself to you. My name is Katie Taylor and I am married to Corrie's brother, Kyle. This is a picture of us at Christmas:

I would just like to say thank you for allowing Corrie to share her life and this awesome ministry God has given her with you through this blog. You don't know how much you have already blessed and encouraged her through your comments. We pray this blog will be a blessing to you as well.

We love you,
Katie (yes its me, even though it says posted by Corrie. hey, I'm learning slowly...but maybe not so surely:)