How do you Respond?

You’re sitting with some friends and one of them tells you that his neck really hurts; do you:

Tell him how much your leg has been bothering you?

Sympathize and ask how he hurt his neck?

Tell him that you’ll pray for him?

Get up and give him a neck rub and quietly pray?

How often do we make the conversation about us?

How often do we offer a hollow “I’ll pray for you” when we’re right there with the ability to be the answered prayer?

Ask

Ask God to answer a problem or concern and very often the solution will be found in you. Only now as result of including Him, there’s power, confidence and resolve.

Well Loved

I pray that Jesus’ love for you is so very evident today, that he surrounds you with folks that care for you deeply and appreciate how much you care back. I pray that you have the opportunity and the courage to be real with those that can handle it and that peace and fulfillment occupy your heart and mind.

Try This

Love, serve, feel, give, care, share, touch, say yes, smile, listen, trust, be dependable, go out of your way, think, pray, love, serve…

Try this at home, you could become proficient.

I hope we’ve been able to put some of the doubt about hearing from God behind us. If this is new to you, here’s an idea on how to start. Set some time aside and find a quiet place to be alone with God. Thank Him for loving you and ask Him to join you right here, right now. Call on Jesus. Open your heart to whatever He may want and put aside any agenda you might have. Ask Him to remind you of a scripture. Find that specific verse and then memorize it. Pray for God to show you who to share this verse with. In the next few days you’ll see God present you with an opportunity.

 

I’ve suggested this exercise here before and have heard some great stories that came of it. If we will meet Him and be faithful in the little things we’ll see Him do the amazing. The results of this exercise will be having heard from God, knowing that He heard you and building trust and intimacy. As we’ve said before, there’s nothing better.

Come Back

Do you ever have those times when God seems a little distant? You know something is not like it could be so you start to worry about it and put a plan into action. You determine to read more and pray more and before you know it you’ve taken the relationship completely into your own hands, religion has taken over and you aren’t any closer than when you started. I wonder if God might want to say, “slow down, rest, come back over here I haven’t gone anywhere. Don’t try so hard, Let’s just be together today”?

Patiently Listening

For the last few weeks I’ve been pondering and praying about the best way to move some planters from the yard onto the deck. I’ve researched on the www and asked around but didn’t feel like I had the right idea so I kept praying and waiting. Then yesterday as I was praying, it suddenly occurred to me as natural as can be.

This kind of thing raises questions with people. Do you think God gave you the idea? Does God really concern Himself with such little things? I think that together God and I came up with the plan and that absolutely He cares about the smallest of details in our lives. We just have to wait, listen and recognize.

Left Behind

Even on our best days: we wake up with a greeting to the Lord, make time for Him, study for a bit and then check off our list and go about our day. We might pray over meals and say our goodnight but how much did we leave Him out of? Imagine what the day might look like if we invited Him along throughout.

Asks

In the verse we talked about yesterday, there’s a small word that often gets overlooked; the word “asks”. This little word indicates that when people are ready to listen, they will ask a question. Hopefully they’ll ask because they see something in us that’s different. This is God at work. We don’t need to take matters into our hands if we’ll pray and respond to His opportunities.