Category: Whispers (Page 130 of 171)

Dear Ones,

Hope you had a wonderful weekend. Today it’s cold and we got lots of snow so the view out our bedroom window has changed. We had a lovely Christmas Tea on Saturday and fun to see old friends. The program was excellent! This morning I studied and had exercise class and at 5 we have  Soup Supper party here at the apartments.

Devotions from Judy’s heart

Our days were written in God’s book and he knows the number of them and has a plan for us. But do we sometimes wish we could trade lives with someone else who we feel is successful, beautiful, exciting and has it all together? But is that really wise?!

While at exercise class, doing leg stretches with our hands pressing against the wall, the gal next to me confessed she had felt envious of a mutual friend who seemingly had such a beautiful life. But her feelings of envy were short lived as so many tragic things happened to this beautiful gal, as her life was turned upside down with griefs.

We have only one life and we need to remember that the Lord has a plan for each of us. As it says in Prov. 20:24 (God’s Word), “The Lord is the one who directs a person’s steps. How then can anyone understand his own way.” The Message translation says, “The very steps we take come from God; otherwise, how would we know where we’re going?” If it is the Lord who directs our lives,  it is not for us to envy or compare our life and what we are going through with anyone else.

I went to a Christmas Tea on Saturday and the theme was Joy and how the Lord is our exceeding joy. (Psalm 43:4) Joy is not having the right circumstances or it is not finding it in another person, but in the Lord who made us. At each table, we all had time to share moments of joy in our lives; and all that was shared seemed to result from times of hardship when we discovered how the Lord is enough. We closed with a song you may know from Fires by Jordan St. Cyr, and the refrain goes, “You’ve walked me through fires/ Pulled me from flames/ If you’re in this with me/ I won’t be afraid/ When the smoke billows higher, oh and higher/And if feels like I can barely breathe/ I’ll walk through these fires/ Cause you’re walking with me.”

The Lord has given us everything we need to face whatever comes on the road we walk in this life for He is always there for us and with us.

Challenge for today: Thank the Lord for a specific hard time in your life when you experienced the Lord walking with you through it.

Blessings on your week and prayers and love, Judy

Dear Ones,

Hope you are enjoying the weekend! You are getting this early as Lynn and I are going to Hackensack this morning for the ladies’ Christmas Tea at the Lighthouse…. a highlight in preparation for Christmas! We hear snow is coming tonight and hope it isn’t a lot as we are serving at church in the morning! 

Devotions from Judy’s heart

Yesterday I wrote of the inner journey and what it is to hit the wall. Everything seems to be going well outwardly as we have been busy serving the Lord, and yet we come to the place we are inwardly dry. We don’t feel that joy bubbling up and we begin to rely on ourselves and take matters in our own hands. We may try to remedy this by seeking to read the Bible and praying more, and doubling our efforts by spending increased time in spiritual disciplines etc… and yet we still feel unsettled and dry.

It could be that it is a wake-up  call from the Lord, inviting us to go into the next stage of the journey, where He brings us into a new place of intimacy. All that we have been doing in helping others etc. is good but our first calling is our own relationship with the Lord. Drs. Bill and Kristi Gaultiere authors of Journey of the Soul, write of how it is a time we have to stop doing for the Lord and start just being with Him. When we feel stuck and tired and lacking in peace, it is time to not do more but to rest in His love without the sense we have to accomplish something.

St John of the cross, practiced “holy idleness” and said to pastors that it was more profitable to spend half their time with the Lord in prayer and the other half in their work. The challenge is to us also to cut our work load of doing, and spend time with the Lord.

A group of pastors who were overworked went on a retreat and spent 24 hours in silence where they were not to try to make things happen or write sermon notes etc. but just be with the Lord. They could relax in His presence, go for a walk, sit by a lake, and open themselves up to God’s loving presence.

Maybe some of us experienced that in a small way if we were quarantined because of Covid and had to stay quietly apart from others. It can be an opportune time to help our souls to be realigned and cultivate new ways to relate to the Lord and to prepare us for the next stage of the journey where we work in harmony with the Lord and in His strength.

It says in Heb. 4;9-11(Message), “The promise of ‘arrival’ and ‘rest’ is still there for God’s people. God himself is at rest. At the end of the journey, we’ll surely rest with God. So, let’s keep at it and eventually arrive at the place of rest, not drop out through some sort of disobedience.”

Challenge for today: Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, open yourself to the next stage the Lord has waiting for you.

Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

Dear Ones,

Happy weekend to you! Today I woke to fresh snow covering the ground and trees and looks a little more like Christmas is on its way.  I took a friend to the Dollar Store this morning and did some studying and food prep. Should be a beautiful walk this afternoon. 

Devotions from Judy’s heart

We are all on a journey of our souls and sometimes we may feel like we are stagnant and yet we want to cultivate a fresh intimacy with the Lord. It could be that we are recognized and applauded, and everything is outwardly going well, but yet our souls feel dry and parched. 

Bill and Kristi Gaultiere wrote Journey of the Soul, and I have been reading their practical guide to emotional and spiritual growth. Bill is a pastor and psychologist and Kristi is a marriage and family therapist, and they share very candidly from their own life experiences. They write about how we can all get in trouble when we rely on ourselves rather than the Spirit, which we may all know from experience. They give a map of stages in our life’s journey that are circular, rather than linear, since we often revisit the places we have been before.

We start out with receiving the Lord and our confidence is in Him. We then go on to grow in grace along with other Christians and practice spiritual disciplines. After that it seems we use our gifts and have responsibilities in ministry to serve God. But then we often fail to rely on the Holy Spirit, and it follows that we become spiritually dry and hit the Wall. That often wakes us and leads us to take the inner journey as we share our emotional distress with a safe person, and in prayer come to a new place of intimacy with the Lord. We can then go on to Spirit-led ministry where we serve God by working in harmony with Him rather than doing things in our own strength. That leads us to the next stage of transformation when we practice the Presence in all we do. Our life becomes one of joy and of love as we come to love in deep ways, even to love our enemies. 

We all have ups and downs in our journey of faith and we need to rely on the presence and power of the Spirit and not ourselves. Professor and author Dallas Willard once said, “Do your best, but don’t trust your best—trust God.”

As we go through the stages of emotional and spiritual growth, let us not trust our own abilities but rely on the power of the Spirit and place our confidence in the Lord. We are all at different places in our journey, but let us remember it is walk of grace and keep moving. “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” Gal. 5:25 (ESV)

Challenge for today: Care for your soul and rest in grace.

Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

Blessings on  your day and prayers and love, Judy

Dear Ones,

Hope you are having a good day. It is a wet one here with rain but no snow. I studied this morning and went to exercise class. This afternoon is crafts and then Bible Study tonight at church. 

Devotions from Judy’s heart

How many times have we prayed the Lord’s prayer through and got to the end before realizing we haven’t comprehended a word of what we have said. We have not connected with the Lord. Prayer should not be mundane and said without meaning and yet it can happen when we are hurried or worried or rushing on to the next thing.

Jesus’ disciples had a wonderful example of how to pray as they must have watched Him many times. They heard His prayers when He calmed the wind or raised Lazarus from the dead, or perhaps when He called His Father, Abba or Pa Pa, in the Garden of Gethsemane. It says in Mark 14:36, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” As I read from Journey of the Soul, Bill or Kristi Gaultiere wrote a paraphrased wording of the Lord’s prayer that I want to share with you. You may want to pray it sometime instead of the usual one to help give you fresh meaning.

 

“Our Father in the heavens, always near and ready to help,

May your name be precious to us and bring us delight always.

May your Kingdom of the Heavens come to rule over us.

So your good, pleasing, and perfect will is accomplished in us.

Please provide for us the food and care that we need today.

Please forgive our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.

Please hold us by the hand so that we don’t fall down in trials

And are kept safe from all evil.

In everything help us to live in your kingdom, by your power, and for your glory

Amen.”

Challenge for today: Pray this prayer with meaning before going to bed tonight and open your heart to hear the Lord’s response.

Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

Dear Ones,

Hope you wake up with a peaceful heart and anticipation of a new day. What is the hardest thing for you to hold on to with faith at this time? 

Devotions from Judy’s heart

We must never give up! As God’s children we will win if we fight and don’t give up. As we look around us in the world today there is so much evil and destruction; the enemy wants to do us in and is using all his tactics to destroy us. But the bottom line is his time is short and almost over; if we hang in there and lean into the Lord, we win!

I read what Heidi Baker wrote about how God’s Got This, and we are to hold on by faith. She and her husband have a ministry in Mozambique and have seen evil so rampant. Christians have lost homes, family and friends, and been tortured because of their faith; whole villages have been wiped out. But she says to us that love wins, and when we share His love, loss and grief are not the end of the story. We overcome as we lean into the Lord and commune with Him and make our life one of prayer and worship. Every day we can live in His presence as we go about our work and give thanks for His sustaining power.

Most of us are not going through anything like those in Mozambique but we also must continually realize that we are not in control. Then we can place our life in God’s secure hands and practice what Paul said to the people who are being persecuted in Thessalonica.  He tells them in I Thess. 5:16-18 (God’s Word), “Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Whatever happens, give thanks, because it is God’s will in Christ Jesus that you do this.” We are not thanking God for the terrible things happening to us or our loved ones but we are giving thanks to the Lord in the situation. Even when we feel pain and loss, we remember that He is enough, He is sufficient.  As we go through suffering, our lives can be transformed as we learn things we never would have known otherwise. So let us not give up hope and throw in the towel, but rise up stronger as we go forth in the strength of the Lord.

Challenge for today: Refuse to give up when going through rough times, and listen to the Lord as you draw closer to Him.

Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy

 

Blessings on your week and prayers and love, Judy

Dear Ones,

Hope you are enjoying the weekend and recovering from lots of feasting at Thanksgiving! We are packing up and will be going to Mora today as Al will be preaching there tomorrow morning. We look forward to seeing old friends too. This morning I have been working more on Christmas cards and only have the ones for friends at church left to do. 

Devotions from Judy’s heart

God is good. He is good all the time, even when we may misjudge Him and wonder why certain things are happening. We are familiar with Romans 8:28 (NASB) and may quote it to others, “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love, God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” But in the midst of trials, we may have to repeat the words often, “God you are good!” I don’t understand why you are allowing this to happen to me, but I still know you are good.” Some things in our lives are very hard, but never more than we can bear when we know the One who loves us and walks with us through those difficult times.

When we were little children, we didn’t always understand why our parents didn’t allow us to do certain things that we had our heart set on. We may have begged and begged but the answer still was no. At the time we might have felt they were the meanest parents in the neighborhood, but later in years we realized how they were protecting us from doing what we were not ready for. What was once viewed as withholding, is now viewed as loving. We won’t always comprehend God’s motives or make sense of what is going on, but we can remember that God is good and He wants His ultimate best for us. The Message translation says God knows us far better than we know ourselves and puts it this way, “That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean what is happening right now is good, but that God will weave it into something good in the future; and this is a promise for those who know Him.

When we went through a hard time in one of our churches, I wondered what good could become of it; yet it wasn’t long until I realized how needed it was for us to experience if we were to open a retreat house for wounded pastors and wives. I don’t think I could have identified with their woundedness if we had not gone through it ourselves.

But for all of us who believe, no matter what we go through in this life, it is not worth comparing to what awaits us some day. Yes, like the song goes, “God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, He’s so good to me.”

Challenge for today: The next time you are experiencing a difficult circumstance, thank the Lord for the good He is working out of it!

Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy

Dear Ones,

A blessed Thanksgiving Day to you all! We have so much to be grateful for and last night at church we were asked to share many of those things publicly. Two men also shared their stories of how they came to personally know the Lord and it was very moving. 
Today we are going to Ann’s at the lake and looking forward to time with them and enjoying a feast together. Mark and Kurt’s families have a house full of relatives from the other side as well. 
Devotions from Judy’s heart

Thanksgiving Day is here and perhaps many feel it is a struggle to be thankful and give praise since circumstances are less than ideal. Some have lost jobs, others are sick, some are just plain weary with all the demands on their lives. But like Debbie McDaniel writes we have a choice to be thankful and it is a powerful way to live. Even when our circumstances may not change, our hearts will be changed. I want to give you her words today on the blessings of being thankful.

•         It reminds us we’re not in control, but that we serve a Mighty God who is. It keeps us in a place of humility and dependency on Him, as we recognize how much we need Him.

•         It helps us to recognize we have so much to be thankful for, even all the little things, which often we may forget to thank Him for. It takes our attention off our problems and helps us instead to reflect on the goodness of His many blessings.

•         It reminds us that God is the Giver of all good gifts. We were never intended to be fully self-sufficient in this life. A grateful heart reminds us that ultimately God is our Provider, that all blessings and gifts are graciously given to us by His hand.

•         A heart of gratitude leaves no room for complaining. For it is impossible to be truly thankful and filled with negativity and ungratefulness at the same time.

•         It makes the enemy flee. The forces of darkness can’t stand to be around hearts that give thanks and honor to God. Our praise and thanksgiving will make them flee.

•         It opens the door for continued blessings. It invites His presence. God loves to give good gifts to His children. He delights in our thankfulness and pours out His Spirit and favor over those who give honor and gratitude to Him.”

May we choose to focus on the Lord and let our hearts overflow with thankfulness and praise!

Challenge for today: Try on this day not to give words of complaint but only praise and gratitude.

Blessings to you on this Thanksgiving Day. Love, Judy