DON'T OVERTHINK PRAYER

Oftentimes I think we make prayer much more complicated than it really is.

Prayer as I understand it is simply talking to our father God, falling in sync with the Holy Spirit and relinquishing control of our lives to His Sovereignty. Faith in Him in prayer is the assurance that He can turn natural into supernatural and make a way when there seems to be no way. The release of things that are out of our control is an expression of worship to Him because He is waiting for us to depend on Him. And being in constant fellowship with Him is His desire.

If something happens during my day that is confusing and stressful, I don’t want to have to wait until the next morning at my 7:00 a.m. prayer time to take it to Him. I want to be able to call upon Him at that moment... get the Holy Spirit working on my behalf immediately!

Or if I’m impressed to pray for someone, I want to be able to enter into the spirit of intercession at that time. There could be an immediate need and the urgency doesn’t allow waiting until a scheduled time to pray about it.

Yes, it is vital to have a time set aside daily to present requests, express love and praise to Him, and study His Word, but there is amazing peace that comes when I LIVE in His Presence. My relationship is not limited to the worship service on Sunday, or my quiet time in scheduled prayer - it is a 24/7 covenant relationship. There is so much strength knowing that He can handle all my problems and I don’t have to fight by myself. Any time I am overwhelmed and only able to call the name of Jesus as tears flow and anxiety strips my words, I can feel Him near, thankful that He knows my heart!

“Streams in the Desert” daily devotional book has been an inspiring book for this season in my life! The teachers “of old” really have great wisdom to share. I keep going back to the one for October 31 about prayer because it expresses my heart on the subject.

“It is not necessary to be always speaking to God or always hearing from God to have communion with Him. There is an articulate fellowship more sweet than words. The little child can sit all day long beside its busy mother and, although few words are spoken on either side, and both are busy, the one at his absorbing play, the other at her engrossing work, yet both are in perfect fellowship. He knows that she is there and she knows that he is all right. So the saint and the Savior can go on for hours in the silent fellowship of love, and he be busy about the most common things, and yet conscious that every little thing he does is touched with the complexion of His presence and the sense of His approval and blessing.And then, when pressed with burdens and trouble too complicated to put into words and too mysterious to tell or understand, how sweet it is to fall back into His blessed arms and just sob out the sorrow that we cannot speak!”

Romans 8:26-27 (NIV)

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God."

THE VALUE OF FRIENDS

THE VALUE OF FRIENDS

This weekend I have overwhelming gratitude for my friends. Several times I have literally stopped what I was doing and offered thanks to the Father for giving me people to walk beside me on my journey! No matter what degree of suffering, I can always count on friends to come alongside me!  And that is PRICELESS!

Michael and I have been going through a tough “season” this summer. He rarely ever gets sick, has had only one minor outpatient (knee) surgery in his life, and has never spent one night in a hospital.  So having a back injury that he cannot just “bounce back” from has left him debilitated and confused. It is going on 4 months now since he fell and we have been to many doctors and had many tests run. We are possibly now honing in on something that can be fixed surgically and hoping with that and a few weeks of therapy, he can be back in the greenhouse and in the military park giving tours as he loves to do.

I have been right by his side as nurse and cheerleader, and have been picking up the slack with the pool upkeep, and watering flowers in the Mississippi heat, along with my housework and duties.  At the risk of sounding whiny, I have gotten tired a time or two (my fibromyalgia only lets me go so far without a time-out). The stress of not knowing Michael’s prognosis (in fact, we haven’t really gotten a definite diagnosis of what is causing him so much pain) causes us both to be so exhausted physically and mentally at the end of the day. 

But then friends step in...

In the past few weeks, we have both gotten so many calls, texts and messages from caring friends and I’m just overwhelmed by all the love we have both received.  I have one friend who showed up at the diagnostic clinic at “just the right time.”  Last week, Michael was having a little panic attack in the MRI machine (this was MRI #4 in a week’s time), and had to take a rest period.  As we sat in the waiting room taking deep breaths and wanting this all to be over already, an angel in white (she was wearing a cute summer white outfit) walked in the door. Our precious friend was “in the area” and thought she would drop by. She will never know how much we needed the strength of her hugs and encouragement that day.

Another friend brought us food this weekend – home-cooked and delicious food. Yes, I can cook; I love to cook. But she has sensed my exhaustion in the past few days and knew I could use a break… So thoughtful! She also brought us the book “Streams in the Desert,” and even the first page I read today was encouraging – about the rains that fall on us bring us beauty in the flowers and rainbows that appear after the rains have passed. 

My sisters, my friends, have been with me every day for support, a shoulder to cry on, and "shopping therapy." They are my constant prayer partners. Don’t know what I would do without my fantastic sisters.

Another echo of God’s love was shown by a dear friend bringing me a writing about girlfriends and how we need true-blue girlfriends to bless our lives. Those that share your joys AND your sorrows.  That listen and give Godly advice.  And pray with you. 

As we all go through our own stuff – illnesses, deaths of loved ones, crises and struggles, may we always be aware of the people around us that God has placed in our lives to show us His love. It is so easy to get bogged down in the sorrow and pain of our night season that we don’t see the bright stars shining around us.

Fred Rogers said that his mother told him, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."

I’m just so thankful today…

Rebecca (Becki) Logue

Author, Writer, Blogger

SEASONS FOR A REASON

EAT IT AND HUSH

rebeccalogue.com

OVERNIGHT

OVERNIGHT

Evidenced in my “Seasons for a Reason” book, I find many life lessons in my flower gardens and in nature.  As I stood looking down at the bare ground that had been covered by a blanket of colorful flowers just one day before, I knew  there was something to learn from this devastation. “That’ll preach,” Michael and I say to each other often when we see a story in something.  The “deer incident” discussed below pretty much mirrored the summer I was having emotionally.  Husband Michael has been down for over three months with a back injury and our lifestyle has been so altered (temporarily) by one turn of events.     

Every evening darkness descends, and for the most part, our world is still and quiet. After a few hours, the light returns and pushes the darkness to the horizon to wait until time for nightfall again. Over and over, the cycle continues and each new day brings new challenges and blessings.  Darkness/Light. Night/Day. Labor/Rest. Chaos/Calm. 

Imagine my astonishment this summer morning when I walked out to my gardens to observe the blooms and beauty, only to discover that the deer had eaten ALL my flowers.  ALL is a little exaggeration, but they had devoured 90% of the ones outside the fence and 100% of the ones in my two newest beds.  All the hard work (sweat!), the purchasing of plants, the digging, the planting, the watering, the caring.  And now in ONE night – GONE! Irreplaceable in this season. Tears were shed, but to no avail – tears won’t grow any blooms back.  Deer had eaten the plants all the way to the dirt, and uprooted some.  And… this was a week after I caught the rodent who had been eating my patio flowers. For about two weeks running, I had gone out to the patio each morning to find another plant with blooms eaten totally off. 

  

Your life can change forever within one day’s time; literally overnight.  One phone call. One diagnosis from the doctor. One knock on the door. One conversation.  The light of morning can bring a whole new stage on which you are to play out the remainder of your days.

Satan roams the earth like an animal at night, trying to steal and destroy enough to make us doubt our faith. He can seemingly destroy a beautiful life in one night.  One day. One season. He doesn’t care what we have planted, watered, love and cared for.

BUT…  what Satan means for destruction, God will turn around for good.  God always offers hope into what seems to be a hopeless situation.  He gives us all the tools we need to rebuild, regroup, and even be refreshed during the new season.

I do not have the strength in the Mississippi summer heat to replant my flower beds this year, but come Spring I will be out digging, re-planting, watering and caring for more plants. Flowers and flowering shrubs bring me much happiness, so I will continue to fight the animals for my gardens. I will research what plants will survive and I will plant those.  I will seek wisdom of other gardeners and be more careful what and where I plant. 

I believe God will give me the same wisdom with my life – I will continue to study His Word daily and seek His face, His plan, His favor.  I will plant only holy things in my heart so that the fruit of His Spirit will be manifested in my interactions with others and my service to His Kingdom. I will surround myself with friends and encouragers to help strengthen my faith.

I know that after heartaches and struggles have come against me and left me worn and weary, in a matter of time my Heavenly Father will restore beauty to my spiritual garden, and He promises to pour blessings back into my life that will more than compensate for the trials I have faced. 

Our lives may change and be totally different; but God is always good!

Psalm 34:19, “A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all.”

Psalm 91:1-6  – “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.  I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Surely, he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. (Pestilence: fatal epidemic disease. Pandemic. Plague). He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. (Rampart:  fortification, as around a city.  Stone wall.  Defensive wall.  Castles had a rampart and a moat.) You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.”

Psalm 91:14-16 – “ ‘Because he loves me,” says the Lord, ‘I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.  He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.’ “

Jesus said in John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart.  I have overcome the world.”

Rebecca (Becki) Logue

Author, "Seasons for a Reason"

and "Eat It and Hush!"

www.rebeccalogue.com

TAKE YOUR SOLUTIONS TO THE LORD

TAKE YOUR PROBLEMS SOLUTIONS TO THE LORD!

What?  I thought it was “take your PROBLEMS to the Lord.”  (“Cast your cares on Him,” you know!) Well, yes, we can cast our cares on Him and He can bear them all, but what if we take our SOLUTIONS to Him?

My friends who worked with me in Contracting Division of USACE, Vicksburg District, will remember a Division Chief who would tell the supervisors under him, “Don’t bring me a problem without a solution.”  I was his administrative assistant and when I first heard him say this, I thought it was a little twisted.  He was the boss; he was supposed to have the answers; he should be advising his section leaders what to do. But he ultimately taught them to be thinkers and solvers rather than just waiting on someone else to command them.  They, in turn, were able to assist their own employees with more wisdom. Yes, he had to approve their actions, and yes, he would offer advice and stand with them, but it empowered them so much more to have developed a plan to present to the boss for approval. The supervisors had been to many of the same seminars he had and they had access to the reference manuals just as he did, so he taught them to dig into available resources and get answers for themselves.

Our Father has mercy and grace more than we can comprehend and is so patient with us as we pour out our hearts to him on a daily basis.  But, let’s look at our prayers from a different angle.  What if we bring Him a solution and have the faith that He will answer according to His will and His definition of “good?” I’ve heard it many times, “Don’t tell God how big your problems are; tell your problems how big God is!” We can sometimes make ourselves even more depressed about our situation as we cry out to God to “fix it.”  On the other hand, if we enter His courts with praise and declare His promises over our situation, we can build ourselves up in faith.

Prayer is communication with God as He allows us to participate in the supernatural.  It is not just giving Him a list of requests, seeking answers that will make our lives better.  He has given us a model prayer, Jesus Christ as our mediator, the Holy Spirit to guide us, and His Word to give us all the solutions. 

Every answer that we need for living a peaceful, joyful, fulfilled life is contained in the Bible - His very words that have been brought to us by anointed writers. As we study His Word on a daily basis, we have a storehouse of resources to pull from in prayer. With faith, hope, and confidence, we can actually take a solution/answer to our loving God based on His Word and He is faithful to fulfill His Word (will not return void).  And as always, we pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done…”

Becki Logue

Author, Seasons for A Reason

Jude 1:20, "But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life."  

Isaiah 55:11, "So shall My word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."

ONE SMALL PRAYER

DO NOT DISREGARD THE POWER OF ONE SMALL PRAYER

I blinked my eyes a few times to focus on the stark white surroundings and the bright light above my head indicating that I was in a hospital. Questions started flowing… How did I get here?  What happened?  As I struggled to get my mind cleared, pushing through the fog of the drugs I’d been given, I would have little flashes of memory.  I remembered getting dressed for work.  I remembered turning onto a side street… a loud crash…the breaking of glass… muffled voices of EMT workers…the sound of a siren. I remembered waking for a moment, realizing I was in an ambulance and feeling my head throbbing and so swollen from the concussion. Now as I lay here in this ICU bed trying to put the pieces together, it just didn’t make sense.  I dozed back off waiting for the alarm clock to go off so I could get up and get dressed for work.  Surely I had been dreaming.  But the pain reminded me I was not dreaming.  With every slight movement there was excruciating pain in my hips (broken pelvis in 2 places), my knees, my arms, my head – wow I must have really hit something hard. 

As I started to rouse a little off and on, the nurses would send a family member into the room and they would fill me in on little details of the accident that landed me here in the Intensive Care Unit.  I had over-corrected when my car veered off the road on the right side and I ended up upside down in the ditch on the left side which was not quite wide enough for the entire little red Datsun. I was pinned in and emergency personnel used “jaws of life” to extract my unconscious body.  I guess somewhere en route to the hospital, I would become semi-conscious enough to give them phone numbers to call my family that met me at the hospital.  I would spend 3 days in ICU and 16 days in the hospital in Nederland, Texas, as my body healed from the injuries – 2 broken pelvis bones, a broken finger, a concussion, a chipped vertebra in my neck, 30+ stitches in my elbow, and multiple scrapes and bruises. It was years before I fully recuperated.  

And now… the REST of the story…

I had left my residence that morning around 7:20 and my wreck happened around 7:30. Miles across town, at 7:30 Linda (Gould) Burton was impressed to pray for this Becki she barely knew.  She stopped her morning activities and called my name in prayer. Linda and I had only met a few times at the church we attended together. (I was living in Nederland temporarily while my husband attended college in Houston and had only been going to Triumph of Southeast Texas for a few months). As Linda heard of my accident, she filled my family in on her side of the story - praying on my behalf!

While Almighty Sovereign God can control the whole universe and all our lives without our assistance, sometimes He invites us to participate in the supernatural. I am not able to articulate this on a theological level by any means, but I do believe that God allows events to happen where someone literally intervenes with their prayers to build our faith and to increase our trust in Him.  He allows us to become partners with Jesus Christ in our prayers.  (“…Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” Romans 8:34b) I don’t know how it works, but I do know that on August 4, 1984, a lady who did not know me well was impressed by the Holy Spirit to intercede for me, and my life was spared in a car crash that could have been fatal.  I don’t question it!  I don’t doubt it!  I know it happened just as she said and that her prayers stood between me and death! The doctor told me that I physically came within a fraction of an inch of being paralyzed from waist down or dead from the injury to my neck. 

I once thought “Intercessory Prayer” was a special gift for certain people of great faith or the pastoral team.  Sometimes these prayer warriors are called Intercessors, but all of us can pray for another person and be the intermediary for their answer from God.  Intercession is merely intervening for another at possibly a time when they are not even aware that prayer is needed.  I was driving routinely to work preparing for a busy day… and boom… out of nowhere, an accident happened. There was no time for prayer as my car flipped into a ditch and I was knocked unconscious.  But thankfully somebody on the other side of town heard the Holy Spirit calling my name to her and she stopped her busyness to call my name to the Father!  She did not have time to call a prayer meeting with her ladies’ group. She did not take time to call the Pastor and tell him to pray for me. There was no time to go and light a candle in the sanctuary. No, she prayed right then and there.  How awesome! 

Fast forward 35 years later…  This weekend (February 8, 2019) I got to meet Linda again after all these years and hug her and tell her how much I appreciate her praying for me that morning!  My aunt had a 90^th birthday party celebration in Nederland and I got to spend some time with Linda.  What a blessing! 

James 5:16, “The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” 

Note:  it doesn’t say, a “long and eloquent prayer." Or a theologically correct dissertation.. Or any rituals. Nothing wrong with those prayers if they are sincere.  And when we know of a long-term need, we use every method we can to combine our faith. There is a time and place for all kinds of prayers and prayer groups.  But that day for me, all it took was just an EFFECTIVE AND FERVENT prayer by one woman of faith.

CORRECT POSTURE = STRENGTH

CORRECT POSTURE = STRENGTH

Correct posture is something I have to consciously alert my body to - slumping over and slouching just feels more comfortable.  As I grow older and arthritis and muscle pain control my body, it is even more difficult for me to maintain the correct posture at all times. 

I wish I had a dime for every time my mother told me to “stand up straight,” or “sit up straight,” when I was young.  And then another dime for every time she told me, “hold your shoulders up,” as an adult.  Even when she was elderly and in the nursing home and I was slumped down in the chair beside her bed, she would in her feeble little voice say, “hold your shoulders up!”  I knew she loved me and wanted me to be healthy, but it felt so much better to slouch! 

Who knew that posture could be so important to overall health?  It really hit me a few years ago when I went to a chiropractor because I literally could not stand up straight because of excruciating pain in my low back. Plastered on every wall of the chiropractor’s office were posters about keeping your back and spine in alignment with correct posture to avoid pain and disfigurement, plus a plethora of other negative conditions.  Holding your spine in alignment leads to feeling better in many areas:  your circulation, your muscle tone, your digestive system, and more. 

Our spiritual posture is even more important than physical posture.  How many times have we felt slumped down under the pressures of life?  There are times when it is hard to even stand under the weight of the pain and stress.  If we reflect back a little, we will realize our posture has not been right for some time.  It’s usually a gradual decrease of spiritual input and time spent in the Word or communication with Father God.    

Just as I had ignored my posture for some time and had let the slumping and slouching cause me to get in a bind with back pain, we can let our spiritual posture slip and next thing you know, we are weighed down with life.  Spiritual posture consciousness begins the moment you choose to follow Christ.  You begin reading His Word, praying and devoting time to advance His Kingdom. This must continue daily to build our stamina and strength so that we can be offensive instead of defensive in our efforts to stand strong through life’s battles.  We can’t wait until the pain sets in and say, “I wish I had prayed and studied His Word more; I’m weak.”  We must build those spiritual muscles constantly to maintain strength in the days to come.  There is no quick fix to strong muscles. 

What do you do first thing every morning?  Grab the television remote, or your Bible?  Grab your i-Pad/i-Phone, or grab an inspirational book to get His Word in your spirit for the day? Chat with a friend on the phone, or spend some time in prayer to your Father?  Our loving God, with mercy and grace, waits patiently for us to turn to Him so that He can assist us with every part of our day.  But if we never invite Him, we are basically on our own to face all the trials and temptations. It is so much easier to invite Him early in the morning than to wait until we are in the heat of a battle later in the day.

  

Our God is a good, good Father who never wants us to fight battles on our won!  So, stand up straight, hold your shoulders back, lift up your head, and be in correct posture to receive His strength and His blessings!

If you are weary in the battle, you are fighting too much on your own!  Let God take charge!