God Answers Prayers - by Jane Sikora

And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them.  See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. ¹⁶ Rejoice always,  pray without ceasing,  give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.                                   

1 Thessalonians 5: 14-18

After I retired from my career, the missions committee at church was calling me or should I say God was calling me to missions.  I had never been on a mission trip so I decided to start big and travel with our church to Uruguay.  It was a thirty-hour trip from New Orleans, to Washington DC, Argentina and finally Uruguay.  We worked on restoring the oldest Methodist church in Uruguay.  The people were wonderful and so grateful.  It became a much bigger blessing for me than the people we served.  We traveled back to that church several years until the project was complete and the congregation became very good friends with our group.  They were to dedicate the new sanctuary the Sunday we left for home.  

We arrived into the Miami airport an hour or two before the dedication service.  Our flight back to New Orleans had been cancelled and several of our team had to be home by Monday.  We decided to just stop and have a prayer for the church dedication that was happening at that moment.  I felt a warmth go through my body. This was the right thing! After our prayer one of our team went to the airlines desk and pleaded her case about needing to get home.  As she was talking a pilot from another flight into Miami came over to that counter and told us he and his crew had eight more hours left on their schedules and they would take us to New Orleans.  THIS WAS A GOD THING!  We found out the next day that the congregation in Uruguay had been praying for us at the same time that we had prayed for them.  God’s answered prayer!

Dear God, we know you answer prayers and we are so thankful for your steadfast love for us. Thank you for your Son Jesus!

Amen 

From Fear to Faith - by Ann Utterback

Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

 I will strengthen you and help you:  I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isiah 41:10

We all have friends from our childhood.  Sometimes we are fortunate enough to have a BEST friend, and sometimes we carry those friendships into adulthood.  I had one of those lifelong childhood best friends.  We grew up in the country, playing with our pets, riding horses, loving our farm animals, water skiing in the river and enjoying nature.  We went our different ways after high school, but we always kept in touch and we continued our love for the things we experienced in childhood.  

We both got married, she had a baby, and then things changed.  She was diagnosed with cancer when she was a young adult and mother.  She went through treatment and thought cancer was in her past.  Then it recurred and the doctors said she had a very low chance of survival.  Instead of bitterness and fear, my friend turned to her faith.  She prayed earnestly that God heal her and allow her to raise her daughter, who was only a preschooler.  She studied her Bible and believed God’s promises.  She put her faith in God and her doctors, and then she relaxed and went about her life.

My friend told me that she knew the moment God healed her.  When her doctors would tell her there were still tumors in her body, her faith would overcome her fear. She had faith that God would give her the strength to survive.

People experience fear every day:   fear that our children will be hurt, fear over finances, fear of failed relationships, and fear of death.  What are you afraid of?  The way out of fear is faith.  When you fear, you don’t believe, and when you don’t believe, you fear.  Fight fear by trusting in God’s word.

My friend exhibited an admirable faith in the face of extreme adversity.  She was a living example of fighting fear with faith.  She lived 19 years after being diagnosed with cancer, which answered her prayer that she be allowed to raise her daughter.   Two days after Christmas, my friend passed away with me by her side.  Her daughter is a senior in college and will follow her mother’s example of fighting fear with faith.

Thought for the Day

Give God’s Word first place in your heart, because it is life, health and strength for your body.

Prayer

Dear Lord, show me how to believe in you and understand what you are saying to me.  Help me to give up fear and let you replace it with faith.  Amen  

FORGIVE - by Carolyn Clark

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.                                                 Matthew 6:14-16

If you are like me, I have many sins.  I tend to hold on to my grief, or annoyance or hatred a little too long. I have trouble letting go.  I feel justified in my anger and betrayal, and I play that record over and over.  Sometimes, I use it to stay connected to the wrong done to me.  But if I were to turn that around on myself, oh how easily I forget how I have wronged another. I forget my sins very easily. 

The word of God instructs me how to obtain forgiveness for what others have done to me and for what I have done to others, but time and again I am unwilling to put it into practice.  It is hard work to pull the thorn out, lay it down and walk away from it.  A wound cannot heal unless it is free from debris.  So, my challenge is your challenge.  You may not be able to forget or may not want to, but forgive. I am going to try for my sins cannot be forgiven otherwise.  

Peace to you.

Carolyn

Focus on Jesus - by Mark Faircloth

To me, Easter has always been a time of mixed feelings.  Unlike Christmas, with nothing but joy and expectation, Holy week also contains angst, pain and betrayal.  After 21 centuries of telling, I wonder if some of the danger and doubt has worn smooth on Christians, because we know how the story ends.  Would I have had the same faith in my Savior if I had been with Him during that terrible time? 

If one is looking for bad guys, it’s easy to pick out the usual suspects like the Jewish leaders, Pilate, the mob at the trial.  Even His own disciples’ behavior ranged from appalling (Judas’ betrayal, Peter’s 3 denials), to lost (Thomas asking the way in John 14:5) to petty (James and John arguing over who will sit next to Jesus).  As I read the story of Holy week, it’s uncomfortably easy to find myself in the crowd, at the trial, even at the table.

It’s just as easy to find my way out of guilt, by making a Lenten promise, by paying extra attention to the Bible or making/changing a habit for 40 days.  These are excellent ways to deepen my faith and living, but are they enough?  Will they prevent me from betraying my Master?  Will they keep me awake in the garden?  Only if they lead to true change of heart and action that doesn’t stop on Easter morning.  My prayer is that my temporary focus on Jesus’ journey will be the basis of renewed deeper living for Him. 

Colossians 2: 6-7        (“…continue your lives in Him…”)

John 15:1-2                 (“…cuts off every branch that doesn’t bear fruit…”)

(“…prunes others that they may be even more fruitful…”)

Fear & Awe - by Jill Taylor

Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.  The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation. Isaiah 12:2

FEAR is the byproduct of the original sin in the Garden of Eden.  Fear steals our joy and holds us back from experiencing the fullness of God’s blessing on our lives. But fear is also a healthy thing.  Webster defines fear as both “to be afraid or apprehensive” and “to have a reverential awe of God”.  Reverent AWE. 

 As a child, I was in AWE of my daddy.  My daddy was tall, handsome and exhibited a quiet strength that gave me comfort and assurance when I was near him.  I believed and now truly know that my daddy loves me unconditionally, but he has very high expectations for me.  He wants the VERY BEST for me.  He expects me to do what is right and is disappointed in me when I don’t.  That disappointment is a source of great fear. I want his approval and to make him proud.

In college, I lost my way.  I felt very alone, because I was not meeting the expectations that I thought my mama and daddy had for me.  Though my parents had always been supportive and loving, I did not reach out to them.  I withdrew from them.  It was a very lonely and dark place. I hid from them my fear and my struggle because I didn’t trust them to understand.   Then one day, my parents showed up at my room.  They confronted me.  They wanted to know why I was not going to class and why I was withdrawn from them.  I was forced to tell them that I was lost. I hated my major​,​ I didn’t know what to do, and I was a failure.  But the most beautiful thing happened in that moment; my daddy said to me, “You know, Jill, there is nothing you could do to make me not love you.”  Those words freed me from my chains of fear.  They gave me the hope that I had lost in myself and in my future. 

That one sentence taught me everything I needed to know about Jesus.  You see, God is worthy of our fear and our awe.  He is a MIGHTY God, capable of turning us to stone or striking us down in an instant, but HE LOVES US.  He wants to have a relationship with us.  The fear that keeps us from trusting ​H​im and being honest with ourselves and ​others​ is not a reverent awe.  Reverent awe is the fear of being separated from the love of God.  To have that awe, we must first know Jesus.  Jesus made a way when there was no way.  Once we accept that He loves us no matter what, we can trust that God is always on our side. 

God is Love - by Nancy Wilson

Scripture:  1 John 4:8  God is love

I honestly thought by the time I reached my present age, I would have all the answers or most of them anyway.  Well, it hasn’t happened, and I’m still on this spiritual journey as many of you are.

However, John’s “God is love” statement is one that speaks to me about the nature of God.  It’s straight forward, simple easy to grasp at first blush, yet demanding.  Let’s explore.

Doesn’t that “love” statement resonate when you enter our sanctuary?  You can feel the warmth, support, connectedness, and love embracing you as you peer into familiar faces and friendly smiles. You experience it through Sunday school, Bible Study, sharing a meal with a friend, walking with a neighbor, and on and on.

However, that’s the easy part, isn’t it?  How about loving the unlovely….the homeless, the abused, the abusers, the marginalized, the pedophiles, ruthless gang members, pimps, killers, warmongers, the mentally ill, drug dealers, etc.  

Yes, church, Sunday School, Bible study, prayer are all a huge part of our faith experience.  Yet, I fervently believe if we’re not acting as the hands and feet of Jesus in dealing with our fellow human beings, we’re not fulfilling our responsibility as persons of faith.

So during this Lenten season, let’s focus on God’s extravagant love flowing into our very being with new energy to touch persons with a depth we’ve never experienced before.

Prayer:  Creator God, help us to love generously those who are easy to love as well as those who are tough to tolerate much less love. Give us the strength to speak out against injustice where we see it and the courage to act on behalf of these injustices.   In Jesus’ name we pray. 

Divine Intervention - by Harold Ray

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.   Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you.  When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart,   I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.  Jeremiah 29:11-14                                                                                                                                                                                    

I was traversing the golf course backwards from number 9 hole to number 1 monitoring a tournament.  I stopped at the rest area between number 6 hole and number 5 hole (about 1/8 mile).  As I started to leave I discovered my wallet was missing.  I said out loud, “Mercy, Lord help.”  I turned around and started back to number 6 hole, driving slowly looking for my wallet.

A group of tournament players were getting ready to tee off on number 6 tee-box.  I stopped the cart to keep from distracting them.  While waiting for them to tee off, I happened to look down at the cart path, and lo and behold, my wallet was laying next to the path.  I didn’t even have to get out of the cart to pick it up.

This is a real example of a prayer answered.  Thank you, Lord.