Monday June 25, 2007

  Today was a challenging day.  It was challenging because I had an agenda for this week at work.  I wanted to work on scheduling and get one graded partly done.  Well I discovered a software issue last week and it does not look like it will be resolved until later.  So I had to drop back and punt.  It was frustrating and I had to yield it over to the Lord.  I also had to give my time there this week over to Him.  But praise the Lord it will give me a chance to do filing and other work so I will not be behind after my vacation.
  I spent this evening re-reading Psalm 107 that Dan preached on yesterday.  I also read other psalms out loud to praise the Lord.  I spent time crying out to him for my Grandmother (Allred) and my Aunt Mary Ann’s health.  I’m so grateful for yesterday’s message.  It was a blessing and it had greatly encouraged me to get my focus back on the Lord and to cry out for others.  The Lord is surely working on me in the area of over focusing on myself and my circumstances.  It is part of His whole being makeover.  It is challenging but good.  I was really bless to read Josh’s post today.  I can identify with what He is going through and feel similar.  It was a blessing to read and be encouraged by his post.  Today’s “My Utmost For His Highest” ministered to me as well.  The following are a few excerpts.

June 25
“Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them. . . . Sorrow removes a great deal of a person’s shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. . . . If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.”

And to borrow the scripture:

2 Cor. 1:3-5
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.”

Eph. 5:18b-21
“. . . but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.

John 7:37b
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.  He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

Isa. 44:3
“For I will pour out water on the thirsty land And streams on the dry ground; I will  pour out My Spirit on your offspring And My blessing on your descendants . . . .”