Dear Ones,
Hope you are enjoying the weekend and don’t forget to turn your clock back an hour tonight! Emoji
Today I plan to clean the apartment and do food prep and some studying.
Would you say you are honest with the Lord and transparent when you pray?
Devotions from Judys heart
Do our prayers mirror what is in our hearts or do we pray from where we think we should be and fail to be honest and transparent with the Lord. Of course, that is rather foolish since He knows everything so why not just be transparent and tell it like it is, even when we are angry or confused and down. When we give all our struggles and emotions to Him, we will find that we begin to see things from a new light. Jesus Himself expressed his emotions in the Garden of Gethsemane, wept when he saw the sorrow of Mary and Martha over their brother’s death, was angry over the money changers in the temple etc. His prayers came from the heart and expressed many kinds of emotions.

It’s not healthy to stuff our emotions and deny them but we need to welcome them and deal with them and share with the Lord. Only thereby can we let them go can and say goodbye to them. We just come as we are to the Lord and tell Him how we feel. Maybe as we read a Psalm it is David or another expressing to God what we are feeling in our heart now and we can make his prayer our prayer. So often David is in a tight spot and fleeing for his life and he calls out to God to be his shield, his refuge, his safe place. Psalm 103, “O Lord many are my foes! Many are rising against me…. But you, O Lord are a shield about me, my glory and the lifter of my head.”  It is helpful to memorize some of the Psalms and they can become our words to the Lord of what is in our heart. Maybe we have experienced a wonderful blessing from the Lord and we are filled with such thankfulness that we turn to Psalm 103 and “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.”

Let us pray from where we are at the time, not gloss over things, but speak to the Lord what is in our hearts. Sometimes it doesn’t seem very pretty, but it is real and when we give the Lord those things He will sort them out and bring us to a new place.

Challenge for today: Don’t hide from the Lord but ask Him to help you be transparent with not only Him but also with others.
Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy