Category: Sister Judy (Page 39 of 276)

Hope you had a great weekend.  We were glad for the Viking win last night but didn’t stay up for the whole game. Today I am going to Aldi’s and Exercise class and then Ann and Leif are coming for dinner so we can celebrate Leif’s birthday.

Of course, we should always be open to praying with other believers, and it is good to have communal prayer, helping us realize we are not alone but part of the family of God. We pray Sunday mornings as we say the Lord’s prayer together, and also join in praying for those on the prayer list etc. There is much power in those prayers when we pray together. Of course we are to pray alone as well, and I often pray the Jesus Prayer, “Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me a sinner.” It was also the prayer of the blind beggar in Luke 18:13. Some like to pray the rosary and others like Lectio Divina where scripture is read 4 or 5 times, first to get the gist of it, then to meditate on it and see what seems to jump out, then to pray in response and then to just sit in silence and reflect on it. Some also move on to act in some way on the passage. Another way that Albert Haase, a Franciscan priest mentions, is how he reads the scripture several times and then asks what the passage speaks to his history, and to his head, to his heart and finally to his hands to take some action.

Imaginative prayer is also done by those who read the gospel and put themselves in the story of a certain character and scene. What would it feel like to be the prodigal or the elder brother and it may trigger feelings from the past to share with a spiritual director. Or you may like to pray what I remember by the acronym ACTS. Start with Adoration and a prayer and then proceed to Confess our sins of commission and omission before going on to Thanksgiving as we remember God’s gifts to us and conclude with Supplication. That is a time to ask for prayer needs and intercede for others. There are many more ways to pray but it is up to us to find our own unique ways that open us up to a closer relationship with the Lord.

Hope you are enjoying the weekend and don’t forget to turn your clock back an hour tonight! 

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.

We need to discover God in the present moment, not having a fixation on the past or thinking only of the future. Let us experience the NOW and know that God is present in it where we are at. We are also to be full of gratitude, realizing everything we have is a gift from Him. That should help us to live with open hands to help and serve others who God brings into our lives, knowing they have unique gifts for us in return also.

Let us be humble to know our brokenness but also aware of God’s grace He offers daily. He knocks at our heart’s door and desires to transform our lives, so we see things in the colors of grace and are open to the wonder of His presence.

Hope you had a good weekend! We enjoyed a meal after church yesterday served by the youth who are raising money to go to FLY. Today I plan to do to Aldi’s and Exercise class and a Halloween party here. The community room is already decorated, and Al and I are going as Kansas State fans. Not scary but he will wear his jersey with pajama pants! 

One such spiritual discipline that I was reminded of is called the Examen and it is a very old tradition (over 500 years old) but I have not thought of doing it for some time. A Jesuit priest, Ignatius, was the one who proposed it and suggests we do it twice a day for about 15-20 minutes. There are 5 steps to it but if we sense God’s grace on a certain one, we can linger there for the entire time, as we make it our own.

Step one begins with gratitude, and we think over our past hours and how God may have blessed us, and we spend time thanking him. Perhaps we got an uplifting email of hope, we thank the Lord. Step 2 is to ask the Holy Spirit to heal us of our blindness, deafness, and hard-heartedness as we review our life since we last prayed. Step 3 is to listen to those times God was present and challenging and urging us to respond in a particular way that would manifest His love. Was He present in our daily routine? Step 4 is all about forgiveness and expressing sorrow for regrets we may have in how we responded and then listen for His response of compassion and forgiveness. Step 5 is to renew and reaffirm our intention to be prayerful and attentive to the Lord’s invitations in our ordinary moments.

This is only one spiritual discipline and there are so many but the real question is, am I awake to the Lord’s presence and will I recognize the many ways He will come to me today?

Hope you are having an enjoyable refreshing weekend. It is the season of parties and one more coming up here on Monday evening, a Halloween party.  Today I plan to clean!

When our pastor was recently sick and unable to preach, one of the elders at the last moment, shared for the sermon time. He mentioned the 7 different churches in Revelation and said perhaps our church was most like the church in Laodicea. That church wasn’t poor but they had become lukewarm and were given the message to repent and open the door to their hearts for the Lord knocks. Perhaps this is a word for each of us, for we can sail along in our Christian lives and slack off in our daily devotions, get lukewarm in our prayer lives and take for granted the Lord’s presence and power. We can become shallow and superficial and neglect what is most important.

How we live our lives each day has a direct response to our time with the Lord. When we spend time in the Lord’s presence, we are sent out into our day to share Him with others in the various ways He puts before us. He may come to us disguised in the life of our co-worker who needs a word of encouragement. It could be He comes to us in meeting a physical need of an impoverished family, or maybe helping at a soup kitchen or shelter. Let us be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and when we feel the knock at our heart’s door that we quickly open to Him.

Happy weekend to you! Today is party day here and we will be going to pick up the cake and then celebrate the October birthdays. Later I am going to church for a Women’s night out with supper and special speaker. 

I would like to share another story from the book, Food from Ravens, as told by Margaret Wall. She was a missionary serving as a parish worker in Nairobi, Kenya, and blessed when she visited patients on the wards of a large hospital. There was freedom to speak openly of God, even among the non-Christians, but one day she was totally rejected by a woman, BiBi from a northern tribe in Turkana, Kenya. When Bibi saw Margaret coming towards her bed, she had a look of terror and recoiled. Margaret had no idea why she was afraid of her, but the nurses told of how this patient had come alone on the plane in great pain from her body being torn by unqualified helpers who forced labor on her in and abnormal pregnancy. Bibi needed someone who spoke Turkana and Margaret prayed for such a person, calling many people and trying to find that someone. One day she heard a voice in her spirit telling her, “Go down to the Christian bookstore for help.”  She obediently went and asked at the bookstore if anyone spoke Turkana. The clerk asked at the nearby office and finally in a loud voice asked if anyone shopping in the store knew of someone who could speak Turkana. You guessed it, the person behind Margaret said, “I do!” It was Jon who was a Turkana evangelist with a missionary pastor, in line at the bookstore. He had come a long way to the bookstore and was the answer to a prayer that had not yet been prayed.
Jon went to the hospital to Bibbi’s ward, and everyone watched as he communicated with Bibi in her language. Her countenance changed and her fears were melted away as Jon shared Jesus with her and later made cassette tapes in Turkana telling the gospel stories. Everyone wanted to know why she had been so afraid of the missionaries and Jon found out she thought they were going to kill her. Bibi found the Lord and freedom from her fears and Margaret was in awe of how the Lord answered her prayers.