Canaan's Rest

Canaan’s Rest represents a quiet place “set apart” for the purpose of hearing God's voice, growing in intimacy with the Lord, and being renewed in soul and spirit.

Category: Sister Judy (Page 35 of 270)

October 5, 2024

October 5, 2024 / / 0 Comments
Dear Ones,
I am sending this out early for Saturday since we are leaving early in the morning for Indianola, Iowa to see a dear friend and stay overnight. Then on Sunday we will be going to Ames, IO to watch our granddaughter, Lily, play soccer along with her parents. We have wanted to get to see her play this fall and this was the closest game for us since she goes to Kansas State. We have enjoyed time with Mark here and celebrated his birthday at Poncho Lefties! Appreciate prayers for travels.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
  Friendship is a beautiful gift from God and one we treasure. When two people have a special bond of trust, love, honesty, and loyalty, it also inspires greater friendship between us and God. True friendship in fact, comes from God and the flowing of His life through us. He is love and friendship is participating in that flow of His love.
Today it seems like there is a lack of friendship, especially in our youth, for so many are lonely and only relate through their phones. But true friendship is a commitment and takes time to sustain. We are all different from one another and yet we can share who we really are with one another. It takes commitment for it is not always easy to be there for our friend, and let’s face it, we all have to fight our own selfishness. In friendship we learn more how to give, to share, to let the other person be true to who God made them to be.                                True friends enjoy each other and have a deep trust level. If others say negative things about them, we know in our hearts, that it is not who they really are. Even if they have a lapse in judgment, they will ask forgiveness and want to make things right. They are comfortable to be around as they are full of grace.
 Since I have lived in many places in my lifetime, friendships are especially important. The Lord has always been faithful to give me special friends in each church we have been in, as I prayed for those who could be a soul friend. It wasn’t always who I thought they would be when we first arrived at a church, but in time He would reveal to me, and sometimes to the other person first.  It was especially important that we could pray together, share concerns, and speak what we thought the Lord was saying.
 God shares His life with us and He wants us to also share our lives with others. St Augustine said that “Friendship is the beauty of each soul,” I encourage you to take time out for friendship and pay the cost for it to blossom into all that God would have for you.

Challenge for today:  Pray for a soul mate and be open to whom God would send.
Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

October 4, 2024

October 4, 2024 / / 0 Comments
Dear Ones,
Happy Weekend! We have our son Mark here and going to take him out today to celebrate his birthday which is Sunday. We had hoped to be in N.C for his birthday but had to postpone; we are going to head to Iowa tomorrow morning to visit a dear friend and to see our granddaughter play soccer on Sunday.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
Do we have busy days but often feel like we are not accomplishing much? Maybe you are like me, and before I get out of bed, I let the things I want to get done during the day run through my mind. But then I have to add, “Lord, what are your plans for my day? May I be willing to do what is on your agenda, not mine!” Sometimes I do accomplish what I set out to do, but not always, as the Lord puts in other things that I had not even thought of. But if I choose to go my own way, it seems like everything gets fouled up.
On Wednesday both Al and I felt uncomfortable about our plan to go to N.C. as many of the roads are closed and gas is not always plentiful as a result of Hurricane Helene. We prayed about it and I e-mailed our daughter-in-law to tell her we were canceling our trip there even though we wanted to come. What was so neat is that she called about a minute later as she had just gotten off the phone with Mark and they also had the same impression that we should not go at this time. We are all disappointed, but I was also excited to know that we all heard the Lord and He made it clear.
It is good when we can hold our schedules loosely in our hands and be open to God’s plans. Sometimes I am absolutely amazed at all He fits everything into my day with perfect timing. We are on this earth such a short time, in light of eternity, and He lets us choose each day if we want to do our will or His. When we live His way, we have purpose and life has meaning. But going our own way we seem to pay the price, not necessarily immediately but ultimately. We can’t just go by our feelings, or we may never do the necessary things in our day, for they may not appeal to us. When we wake up, we don’t need to ask ourselves if we feel like making the bed or making breakfast for the family, we can just do it and then go on to other things.

But even when we will to go God’s way, we need His help to do it. Left on our own we may not follow through or we may quit before we accomplish what He has instructed us to do. As we choose to do His will, He gives us grace and desire to follow it. In Proverbs 16:9, it says, “A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps and makes them sure.” Let us go God’s way and embrace His plans and find joy in His will.

Challenge for today: Choose to do God’s will and be quick to let go of your agenda for His.
Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

October 3, 2024

October 3, 2024 / / 0 Comments
Dear Ones,
Hope you have an opportunity to serve today! This morning Al will be going off to men’s group and I have an appointment when he gets back and later Bible Study. Mark spent the night at the cabin with Kurt who arrived yesterday. Kurt stopped by with his new Ford Raptor 37 and took us for a ride! Emoji
Devotions from Judy’s heart
One night the Lord opened my eyes in a bigger way to the importance for our own spiritual health to serve others. I recently shared that a friend and I were to do one purposeful and prayerful love action a day for 2 weeks to express our love for the Lord. I read from Romans 15:2-3 where Paul says, “Each of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, ’How can I help?’ Jesus didn’t avoid people’s troubles but waded right in and helped out.” We have Jesus’ example for us to follow and we learn from Him to set aside self-pleasing and to build up others, strengthen them for their good.

Each day for me it was something different I felt the Lord would have me do, but I would like to share one instance in particular. I was asked by Jane to serve coffee for our Octoberfest Party, and many had signed up for it. I had told Al ahead of time that we needed to sit by another couple as I probably wouldn’t have much time to be with him since I was serving. (At the Birthday parties my helpers and I don’t usually get to sit down so Al eats with others.) When I got there that night to put the coffee on, help was needed to get the food ready and then to serve it to each one at the tables and about 5 of us helped. It didn’t take long and since Jane had told me to wait to serve coffee until dessert, I was able to enjoy supper with Al and another couple. After the live entertainment and fun, Al and I and many others stayed to help clean up and what I noticed was the joy, especially of Jane who planned the whole dinner and entertainment and got people to help. She is not able to be on her feet long and uses a cane and yet she bought all the decorations and ingredients for the food and assigned people to bake and do things. In the end, many people were used to serve, decorate, bake, help in various ways and we all had a most enjoyable time.

Serving is God’s way of helping our own hearts, as we all tend to selfishness. We need to set aside what we think will make us happy and choose to do what the Lord directs us to do that will leave us feeling fulfilled. It may be as simple as sending someone a card, making a meal for a sick friend, or bringing a word of encouragement to someone who is down.

Challenge for today: Set aside thoughts of self-pleasing and dare to ask the Lord how you can serve someone else today.
Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

October 2, 2024

October 2, 2024 / / 0 Comments
Dear Ones,
Hope you will have a wonderful day! Kurt will be stopping by on his way to the lake today. I am going to do food prep and go to my exercise class and Crafts and later Mark is coming here from the Lake and will spend a couple more days with us.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
As we seek to follow the Lord, there are practices that can help us become more like Him and I would like to share some spiritual disciplines that John Mark Comer mentions in his book, Practicing the Way. These disciplines are “acts of loving obedience by which we offer our brokenness and bondage to God for healing and liberation.” (quote by Dr. Robert Mulholland).     1. Sabbath Rest. After working 6 days, doesn’t rest sound heavenly? If Jesus rested after creating the world, surely, He means to us to keep the Sabbath rest. Most of us are over-busy and need a day set aside to stop and rest and open our hearts to worship and delight in Him.
2. Solitude is also an important discipline and opens the way for us to commune with the Lord. Both Al and I are contemplative and spend time in quiet solitude each day. We all need those times to commune with the Lord.
3.Prayer is so important as we talk to God about everything that touches our life and also spend time listening and just enjoy being in His presence.
4. Fasting seems more difficult for as we yield our bodies to the Lord, we are breaking the power of our flesh and opening up to the power of the Spirit, as He increases our capacity to hear Him.
5. Scripture is an important way to be renewed in our minds and to think and feel like the Lord does. We can study and read slowly and prayerfully, out loud or alone, or listen to sermons etc.
6.Community is important for we learn so much in relationships to others who know Him. One church in Mora, MN has a fellowship over a meal each Sunday after the service for all to come.
 7. Generosity is our response to the outflow of God’s love and self-giving to us. As we give to others, we become participants in that divine outflow and experience great joy.
  8. Service to others gives us the opportunity to follow Jesus’ example in giving. It seems our own hearts get mended and freed of entitlement as we help and practice servanthood.
9. Witness is an important spiritual discipline for when Jesus left to go to heaven, his last words to us was to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them His commands. (Matt. 28:19-20) Our privilege is to tell others, and we will find our own hearts warmed and enlarged as we do.
Challenge for today: Choose one of the spiritual disciplines to put into practice today.
Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

October 1, 2024

October 1, 2024 / / 0 Comments
Dear Ones,
Hope you make space in your day for the Lord. We had a fun party last night and the entertainment was a couple excellent accordion players, and a sing along to many familiar songs. This morning is women’s Bible study and this afternoon we are invited to friends for fellowship and prayer.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
In our spiritual walk, it is good to be spontaneous but also to have some spiritual disciplines to help us move in the right direction. It is kind of a balance of freedom/disciplines so we don’t veer off to one side or the other and can go at a good pace, not slowing down so much we atrophy or speeding up that we burn out. We can enjoy spontaneity but also need structure. When Al first approached me some years ago to teach with him about spiritual disciplines, I wasn’t sure I liked that word and would have rather called them something else. But I had to come to understand that disciplines are only a means to an end to become like Jesus.

I like what Dallas Willard says about them. “The disciplines are activities of mind and body purposefully undertaken, to bring our personality and total being into effective cooperation with the divine order. They enable us more and more to live in a power that is, strictly speaking, beyond us, deriving from the spiritual realm itself, as we ‘yield ourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God’”.

Our part is to slow down and make space for the Lord to do His work of transformation in our hearts. We can’t transform ourselves for even if we do all the spiritual disciplines, we may become self-righteous and controlling and forget we are to live by grace. The disciplines are simply an aid to help us in growing to be like Jesus. He empowers us by His Spirit and disciplines help us to access that power.

Tomorrow I will name some of the disciplines, many that Jesus modeled in his own life like prayer, fasting Sabbath, solitude, rest, scripture etc. But like John Mark Comer writes that “anything can become a spiritual discipline if we offer it to God as a channel of Grace… God works and we work. God has a part and we have a part.”

Challenge for today: Open yourself to practice a spiritual discipline that is new to you and allow the Holy Spirit to work in a deep way!
Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

September 30, 2024

September 30, 2024 / / 0 Comments
Dear Ones,
Hope you had a wonderful weekend! There were Viking shirts on in church yesterday and our pastor had a Packer tie and cap. It was an exciting game and a close win for the Vikings. Mark came for S.S. and church and for dinner before going back to the lake. Today I plan to go to Aldi’s and my exercise class and later serve at an Octoberfest party here.
Devotions by Judy’s heart
As we get closer in the election time the tension is rising in our country. It’s important that we seek God’s help and that we pray for one another and let His power flow through our lives as our voice is heard. I would like to share the Fourth prayer of Whitney Hopler with you as she writes it on Prayer for Justice and Fairness:

“Dear God, we pray for justice and fairness in all aspects of the election process. Let every vote be counted accurately and every voice be heard. Protect the integrity of our democratic system and make sure that the election is conducted with honesty and transparency.

Micah 6:8 urges us to: ‘act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.’ Help us to live out these principles in the election season. May we strive for justice not only in our elections but in all of our society. We pray for those in positions of power and responsibility to act with fairness and impartiality May they be guided by your righteousness

As Proverbs 14:34 points out: ‘Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people.’ Let any attempts to undermine the democratic process be thwarted, so your justice will prevail through a fair process. God, please give us the strength to stand up against evil, to advocate for what is just and fair, and to work toward a society that reflects your kingdom values Thank you, our righteous God. Amen.”
Challenge for today: Pray this prayer morning and evening.
Blessings on your week and prayers and love, Judy

September 27, 2024

September 28, 2024 / / 0 Comments
Dear Ones,
Hope you are having a wonderful weekend. We had a fun birthday party here yesterday! Mark’s plane in N.C. was delayed 3 times yesterday so he didn’t make it here last night but will be coming this morning and later going to the Lake.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
We are all called to bear fruit once we come to know the Lord, for we are fellow workers in His kingdom to reach others to become part of the family of God. Often it means revealing ourselves to others as in opening the door of our hearts and becoming vulnerable. We need God’s help to love others and to smash the idols we have in our lives. Self seems to always want to rear its head and say, “What about me, me, me!” But the Lord wants to help us and free us of selfish pursuits and help us grow in love and faith.
What the Lord asks for is not easy and in ourselves it is impossible; but He wants us to lay down our lives for Him and for others, and to love even our enemies. He wants us to do His will above our will out of love and obedience to Him. Our prayer daily is, “Thy will be done!” Not my will!  That means we have to become good listeners to hear His voice deep in our hearts. I think many people expect that if they pray that and obey, they will be miserable because they aren’t getting their own way. But the truth is just the opposite, for when we do His will from our hearts, we will experience deep joy. The song comes to mind by John Sammis in 1887
“If we walk with the Lord in the light of His word, what a glory He shed on our way! While we do His good will, He abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey. Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
The verses that follow speak of how He will bear our burdens and share our sorrows and take away our doubts and fears; but and it is a big but, he says we have to lay everything on the altar! When we do this, we will experience joy and sweet fellowship in His presence.
Let us be willing to lay the idol of self on the altar and obey His will and then wait and see what joy will overflow our hearts.
Challenge for today: Ask the Lord to smash any idol in your life that you may be free to do His will and bear fruit for His kingdom.
Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

September 26, 2024

September 26, 2024 / / 0 Comments
Dear Ones,
Hope you have a creative day. Al will be heading to the men’s group and when he comes home, I have an appointment and later morning to the dermatologist to take care of the skin cancer on my leg. Then this afternoon we have Bible Study here.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
How often do we clean our homes when we hear that company is coming and we want it to look welcoming and nice? But how much more important is our spiritual home (temple) in which the Lord dwells when we come to know Him! In I Cor 3:16-17 Paul says, “You realize, don’t you, that you are the temple of God and God Himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God’s temple, you can be sure of that. God’s temple is sacred–and you, remember, are the temple.” Further on in chapter 6 Paul says our bodies were made for God and they are sacred so we can’t live how we please. God owns all of us, so we are to let people see God in and through our bodies.

Let us think more about what it means to be God’s temple where He dwells, for when we become a Christian the Holy Spirit lives in us and fills us. So how do we take care of our temple? Do we abuse it by living any way we please, filling ourselves with junk food, living such a fast- paced life that we have very little time to sleep and not time for exercise etc.? If we are God’s temple, His masterpiece, we are worth more care than that. We need to see ourselves as God sees us and be willing to change and care for our bodies.

I want to challenge us today, myself included, to take better care of our bodies and minds which may mean making some changes. If we don’t eat healthily, change our diets, get some daily exercise walking or lifting weights etc. and enough sleep. Develop our minds with scripture and stimulating books and give our phones a rest! We can enjoy some creative outlets like gardening and painting or something entirely new and adventuresome. It’s not selfish to just sit with a cup of coffee on the deck and enjoy the moment with the Lord.
Let us all take good care of our temples for He dwells within and enjoy our lives with the Lord.

Challenge for today: Make space today for something new in caring for your temple.
Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

September 25, 2024

September 25, 2024 / / 0 Comments
Dear Ones,
Hope you will have a peace-filled day. I plan to make an apple recipe and go to Exercise class and Craft Cuties and later to Bible Study. Having such gorgeous weather!
Devotions from Judy’s heart
Fear is something perhaps we all struggle with in life, and it is something we have to learn to cope with it. Priest Ronald Rolheiser writes that we have ways to deal with sadness as in shedding tears, and deal with anger by shouting or doing something physical, but fear is different for there is no release valve for it. We have to wait and endure, and in the meantime, we can name our fear and pray that it would not dominate in our lives. When we acknowledge we have good fear, that is a sign of maturity and love; but we may also have to acknowledge we have bad fear, that is not good and blocks maturity.
   Rolheiser describes the healthy fear as a reverence and a loving awe, a love that doesn’t want to disappoint. We are to have that kind of fear for God, not that we are afraid of Him, but we can trust and reverence Him. It might be called holy fear that is inspired by love, and King David is a good example of that. In relation to others, we don’t want to disappoint them or betray them either.
Bad fear are those things that frighten us that do not come from God. We probably all have a list of those fears in the back of our mind and the enemy knows what things to put before us to rob us of our peace. He may bring up bad memories to cause more fear, but we are not to give heed to them but look to the Lord who is always open and waiting for us to come home to Him.
When fearful things come to my mind. I like to picture them as like a package I have wrapped and am handing to the Lord and asking Him to take it. The scripture comes to mind, “Come to me, all who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. (Matt. 11:28) To me the load of fear is very heavy, and I know the difference in my spirit when I give over to Him my fears. As the song goes that I love to sing when I am fearful, “Be not afraid I go before you always. Come follow Me and I will give you rest.” May we reverently fear the Lord but fling those bad fears into the Lord’s hands.
Challenge for today: When you have fearful situations, ask the Lord to go before you and clear the way.
Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

September 24, 2024

September 24, 2024 / / 0 Comments
Dear Ones,
Hope your day is full of expressions of His love. Ann is coming today, and I plan to make stroganoff and Almond bread.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
How are we being formed by Jesus in our everyday life. Would others know that we belong to Him and are in the process of becoming more like Him, or are we so much into the world that they aren’t able to discern the difference? I am reading John Mark, Comer’s book on Practicing the Way and I like how he frames apprenticeship to Jesus as He teaches us to do what He does. Very simple training: 1. I do; you watch. 2. I do you help.  3. You do; I help.   4. You do: I watch.

Isn’t that how Jesus taught His disciples after He asked them to follow Him. At first, all they observed all He did and not long after they were helping Him and passing out fish and bread to 5,000 listeners etc. Then they began doing His work but they discovered they needed His help, especially when casting out demons etc. In time, after spending 3 years with Jesus, they were ready to carry out His work when Jesus left this earth and He watches.

I hope all of us want to be an apprentice to Jesus and to do what Jesus would do. Comer said “our end goal is to grow and mature into the kind of person who can say and do all the things Jesus said and did. When faced with situations when we might be used of God, we can ask ourselves, how would Jesus handle it?  He gives us the power of the Spirt to do His works, and it is not dependent on our abilities. As Jesus said of His disciples in John 17:2, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will also do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father.”

A friend and I meet every other week to share and pray together and we have a different question to ponder and write about until the next meeting. This time we are to ask ourselves how we express His love? We are to put His love into action purposefully in some way each day. Will let you know later what happens.

Challenge for today: Ask Jesus to empower you to do His works, His way and give all the glory to Him.
Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

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