#PRAYFORCHARLOTTE

#PRAYFORCHARLOTTE

Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

Ps 133:1

I live on the outskirts of Charlotte NC. As a young adult the city lights amazed me and I loved driving into and out of Charlotte, late at night, and seeing the tall buildings lit up. At one point, I thought nothing would be better than to live in an uptown apartment, walk to work, and enjoy Charlotte night life. I am far from that 20 something girl, full of big city living dreams, but I still love to see the Charlotte skyline. Now, I drive into Charlotte early every morning. I enjoy watching as the skyline comes into view and as I turn onto Morehead, the street is alive with people jogging, walking to work, parking, and just getting ready for their day. It is, the Queen city, and to me, it is a place of imagination. It is the home to my Carolina Panthers, Charlotte Hornets, Charlotte Knights, and The Charlotte Checkers. She, is a diverse city, where people from every walk of life end up, either on purpose or by chance. People migrate to her with big dreams and unfailing dreams. I have friends that were just passing through and never left. She, Queen Charlotte, is full of life, love, and hope.

This week, Charlotte has been rocked by violent riots, hidden under the name of protest. I’ve seen and heard evil, hate, and hopelessness. Hope, that is what a very good friend of mine said. The people out there have lost hope. This is what happens, when people lose hope.

Jehovah (the Lord) will be a refuge unto his people and a stronghold to the children of Israel.

Joel 3:16

Our society looks to the US government for hope, instead of looking for hope in the One from which all blessings flow. Instead of getting on our knees and praying for love, peace, and hope, we stand firm in our belief that we are right and all other opinions are wrong. I have a very good friend that is probably as far left, as I am right. I love her and I respect her opinion more than most people in my life. When something bad happens, I know I can go to her and she will love me without judgement. I can only hope I provide the same to her.  I know, I can go to her and say, why do people feel this way, and she will give me an educated response. That’s not something, I can always do, however, she has taught me to educate myself and to not just believe something, because a certain news station is reporting it. When the riots started in Charlotte, I sent her a crying cat emoji, with no words and no prior conversation about the riots. She responded, “I know girl! I feel the exact same way!!” We know each other and we have both learned from each other. We often joke that we should go to Washington and show them, that you can achieve bi-partisanship. Just look at us! Maybe we should start a podcast?

So then, as we have opportunity, let us work that which is good toward all men, and especially toward them that are of the household of the faith.

Gal 6:10

But if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink.

Rom 12:20

I’m in a funny place this week. I see a city that I love in pain and I want to help her. I ask you, to Pray for Charlotte and don’t just stop there! Pray for this country. Pray for those that have lost hope. Don’t watch TV and read the comments and start calling people animals. Instead, me included, let’s rise above that and start calling out unity in Jesus name. Let’s speak peace and hope over these cities that are being violated by the enemy. Look past the people and remember that our fight is not with flesh and blood and remember who the ruler of this world is. The enemy has to flee at the name of Jesus! Stand in your home and just shout His name, if you don’t know how to pray for this world. JESUS, JESUS, JESUS!

Father God, humbly I come. Humbly I pray. I ask for guidance over how to pray for the evil our enemy is bringing against us. I pray for hope for the hopeless. I ask your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus Christ name. Amen.

And we desire that each one of you may show the same diligence unto the fullness of hope even to the end.

Heb 6:11

Directions

Directions

 

 

I had made the drive to and from Raleigh, NC, a few times now and I had become confident that my directionally challenged self, could find my way home without assistance of the Garmin, sitting in the front seat. This was a few years ago and I did not have an IPhone to correctly direct my path, nor did my car have Blue Tooth or my phone for that matter. I headed home, feeling good as we had gotten out of the meeting, early, and this meant I would be home around 7 and not the normal 8 p.m. About an hour into my drive, I realized that I had missed an important exit and decided to stop and ask for directions back to I-85.The person at the convenience store was not much help and sent me on a wild goose chase down a back road that led me once again to another store. By this time I was so far off track the store clerk did not have clear understanding of where I-85 was. I was completely thrown off guard by this, as I have always lived close to this interstate and this made me realize exactly how far off course I had been led. Finally someone from the area told me to turn left out of the parking lot and it would take me to I-85. Relieved, I hopped back in the car and began a terrifying trip down a two lane road, in the dark. I called my husband, but he was unable to help me as he had no idea where I was either. He was just as worried and worked with the little he had to try to help me. Of course, my phone battery was getting low. In an effort to save my battery, we hung up and I continued to drive. I turned the Christian station I was listening to up and cried as I realized I had no idea where I was and the only light I could see was from the houses far off the road, mingled between long stretches of farm land. At one point I was hysterical in my pleas with God to help me find my way. I just drove through the darkness, frantically looking for the familiar road signs that would point me toward the highway I so desperately sought. Finally, I saw a sign that pointed I-85 forward. I was so relieved that again, I cried. I was shocked to see that I ended up in Burlington, NC, only an hour and a half from home. I made it home around 9:00 that night and hugged my husband, thankful to be home.

“Lord,” Thomas said, “we don’t know where you are going, how can we know the way?”

John 14:5

Have you ever been invited to a meeting, but didn’t know the way to the conference room referenced in the invite? What about dinner with a group of friends and everyone knew where the “usual” place was, except you? You are not alone! The disciples had been a privileged group of men that got to walk with the Savior for 3 years, yet when Jesus sat with them during Passover and began to prepare them for his death and then told them not to worry, that he was going to prepare a place for them – they were clueless! Thomas, innocently ask, what I am sure the rest of them were thinking. Um, Jesus, are you going to give us directions to this place you are “preparing”? I know I would have been, clueless, as well. I’m pretty sure that if I was in the, Christ is the son of God circle, and not the,  this man is crazy, circle, that I would have believed He was here to prepare an earthly Kingdom. You know, like King David and He was going to save us from the Romans? Right? I can imagine the confusion in the room as the disciples start to realize that He was talking about His death. I am sure that some shook it off as more parables He would explain later.

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

If you know Me, you will also know My Father. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”

John 14: 6-7

Um, what? I think that would have been the thought in my head? What did He just say? I’m just being honest, friends. Especially that last line? So, if I know you, I also know your father and from now on I have seen Him? I don’t think the disciples got it either.

“Lord,” said Philip, “show us the Father, and that’s enough for us.”

John 14:8

If I’m Peter, I’m like, thank you, Philip! Whew, so happy I am not the only one that needs to see the Father. Okay, I’m getting a little silly, but if you read this conversation, without the benefit of the knowledge of the Cross and Resurrection, one can image how confused they were. Remember, this was before the Holy Spirit had come on them. They did not fully understand what Christ was telling them.

Jesus said to him, “Have I been among you all this time without your knowing Me, Philip? The one who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that

I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who lives in Me does His works.

Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. Otherwise, believe because of the works themselves.

John 14: 9-11

When I talk to people that are not Followers of Christ, I find myself sad that even though they have been shown the directions to eternal life, they still have a hard time following them. Before that faithful, Easter Sunday, when I accepted Christ as my personal Savior, I would have told everyone that I was saved and eternally secure. I had been raised with a good knowledge of the Bible, I knew that one must believe in Christ to enter the Kingdom, and of course, I had been baptized. I was not following the directions. To know who Christ is, to know the sacrifice He made on the cross, to be baptized, are just landmarks on the map. To follow the directions one must understand that Christ is the, Way, Truth, and Life. One must accept that to go to the Father, they must go through Christ. When your heart fully accepts what that means. Only then, have you followed the directions. The other, is just stuff. For me, it was a moment that stood still in time when my heart understood why my Savior was on the cross. I, had put Him there. The choir sang, Behold the Lamb, and I watched on a screen, a Hollywood portrayal of Christ crucified on the cross. In that frozen moment of time, I was transported to the cross and fully understood the consequences of my flesh. My very nature to sin, had created a need for a perfect sacrifice. One that could redeem me from past, present, and future sin. Christ understood before we were created, that free expression, freedom to choose, meant the inability to remain sinless. He choose, before Creation, to die. He could have chosen another plan or cease all together. Instead, He created a world, destined to fail, and prepared a way for those that accept Him, to have eternal life.

I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me.

If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into

the fire and they are burned.

John 15:5-6

Abba Father, my Savior, my redeemer, my eternal hope. I pray for all of those that do not believe this road is for them. Those that find the directions too simple and reject the idea that they are worth saving. I pray for those that sit in pews each Sunday, separated from the vine and unable to see this. Father, I have friends that do not believe they can be forgiven. I write their names in my journal and I lift them to you. Show them the Light, which has already forgiven them. Amen.

Uprooted

Uprooted

 

I felt the familiar tug on my heart, as I collected dirty clothes, dreading where the Lord was leading me. I knew what I needed to do- you see I heard, God loud and clear, this morning during worship. The Preacher, in an effort to answer the question around why terrorist attached during 09/11, took us to James chapter 4. Scripture that was intended to talk about evil in the world and the reason other countries hate us, had instead stabbed me.  

What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from the cravings that are at war within you?

James 4:1

There it was, that stab that I talked about. The word cravings stood out to me and spoke to my heart in a place I thought I had long since felt peace and forgiveness. I knew what I would have to do, even then, and I blocked it out and tried to listen to the rest.

You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war.

You not have because you do not ask. You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may

spend it on your evil desires.

James 4: 2-3

There it was, the stabbing that continued. “You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives…….” I put my shield of dirty laundry down, grabbed my bible, pen, and made my way for my prayer room. I closed the door and looked to the night stand for the prayer room journal and flipped to the next empty page. I wrote out the scripture above and then without hesitation I began to write truth. I began to write the real desire in my heart surrounding what I really want to happen to the person in this world that the enemy has used to tear apart my family. It wasn’t hard, the pen flowed quickly, as I knew exactly, the revenge I wanted to see my God strike, with the full force of His Angel army, on them. I wrote on and on and then I stopped. I took a deep breath as the revenge seeped from the ink. I didn’t need to go back and read it; that revenge has rooted in my heart for years. I exhaled, and began to ask God for forgiveness. I’ve been asking God to restore my family, when in my own heart, what I am really asking for is, to win. I had to take a minute to write down what I really want. That was the revolting part. The revenge came so easy, but to write out what I really wanted, the healing, I really want for my family, well, that took a little time.

 A prayer warrior and friend from church told me that God had laid it on her heart to pray specially that the darkness rooted in the heart of the person that has caused our family to be torn apart,  be pulled out. Confirmation of this prayer has come from a weekly devotion I read. I never thought that any of the conversation around evil taking root was for me personally.  I had allowed the enemy to root such revenge in my heart that God had to show me what it was doing to me. I explained it away by reading the Psalms and seeing how King David ask God to strike down his enemies. The difference was that God knew David’s heart; just, as God knows mine.

Teach me Your way, O Lord: I will walk in Your Truth:

Unite my heart to fear your name.

Ps 86: 11

We must trust that when we confess He is our help – that He will help no matter what happens. We must trust that He will make what is wrong, right. We must also recognize when we have allowed evil thoughts to take root in our own heart.

I sat, closed my eyes, ask God to remove the root and then I imaged Jesus pulling the root from my heart. The anger is still there and only God can help me with that. I know that God is protecting us and working to restore our family. I am encouraged when He takes time to help me grow through this trial. I see it as one more way God is using something the enemy intended for bad, to be good.

What is the root in your heart? Do you have resentment, jealousy, hate, shame, fear, guilt, pain, etc.… Whatever it is; Jesus Christ can uproot it from your heart.

Father, I thank you for showing me the root of revenge in my heart and for uprooting it. I pray that if the roots try to take hold again, that you are there to weed them out. I pray for those reading today that you show them the roots in their own hearts. Let’s begin to uproot evil so that we can be vessels for you. Amen

Holes

Holes

Yesterday I sat with a gentleman that was out give me an estimate for cleaning out our air ducts and a few other things. He began showing me pictures he had taken under our home of areas that allow for wasted heating and air conditioning. He then took me through pictures of other older homes, showing how a home loses air, which in turn leads to higher heating and air bills. This conversation could not have come at a better time, due to the ridiculous check I just sent to the city for utilities. Of course, it is yet again, a very hot summer in the beautiful South, thus a very high bill to cool my tri-level home. I started to think about all of those small holes in my home that were costing me more than I knew. Is it, like this in our own lives? Small holes, small worldly things that waste energy and cause us to pay a high price?

Even now, I sit alone at the kitchen table, breakfast beside me, computer in front of me, while my sweet 9 year old eats his breakfast downstairs, while binge watching a Netflix cartoon. While it seems harmless, how many evenings are spent with each family member in a separate place eating dinner, scrolling Facebook, watching Netflix or doing something other than eating together? As a child, we never ate a part. Dinner time we sat together in the kitchen eating a dinner my mother prepared. There were normally handmade buttermilk biscuits, a meat, bologna if it was the day before Daddy got paid, and sweet tea to drink. My mother liked it really sweet! If peas were involved, mom always baked potatoes, so I could hide my "yucky" green peas in the empty potato. This was so ,Daddy would not force me to eat them. Thank you Mom. J

This, is a hole in my family. I know that in a few short years, puberty will infect my sweet baby and he will no longer want to tell us the tales from a long day playing at the day-care. Instead, he will want to be alone as his body changes and he is no longer comfortable with the people trying to tell him what to do. Even at 9, he would rather watch TV than to sit and eat dinner with us. My older son doesn’t mind, when he is home, and encourages his younger brother to eat with us.

 He was raised before social media and Netflix. However, I do recall a time, that as a manger, I carried my phone, everywhere. We had stopped at a Pizza Hut for dinner and before we headed in, my son ask me to please leave my phone in the car so that he and I could eat dinner together. I was taken back. I remember a feeling a deep sadness as I realized that he felt like my cell phone came not just between us, but before him. I did leave my phone in the car and it wasn’t long that God placed me in a less stressful job, so I could be with him more.

Fast forward to a few days later….

Unlike, the man, currently under my house, taking pictures of all of the holes and places that energy escapes, in life we don’t have a service provider that can inspect our lives and see where we waste energy. No one can come out and fill in the holes and lay new insulation around us. What we do have, is God’s unfailing Word. We have direct communication to the Father and we have the Holy Spirit, to guide us.

Then Jesus spoke to them again:

“I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows Me will never

Walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.”

John 8:12

In John Chapter 9, our Lord and Savior heals a man blind from birth. The Pharisees, refusing to believe that Jesus is the Savior, question the man many times and his parents, trying to verify that he was indeed blind and that now he sees. The man, frustrated with the Pharisees says:

“I already told you,” he said, “and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again?

You don’t want to become His disciples too, do you?”

                                                                                                                                                              John 9:27                                                                                                                                                                             

Like with many unbelievers today, the Pharisees ridiculed him and threw him out. The man got another jab at the Pharisees, which is ultimately why they threw him out, but, I’ll let you read that. Soon after, Jesus heard what happened to this man and found him.

When Jesus head that they had thrown the man out, He found him and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

“Who is He, Sir, that I may believe in Him?” He ask

Jesus answered, “You have seen Him; in fact, He is the One speaking with you.”

“I believe Lord!” he said, and he worshiped Him.

Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind.”

Some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and asked Him, “We aren’t blind too, are we?”

“If you were blind, “Jesus told them, “you wouldn’t have sin. But now that you say, “We see” – your sin remains”

John 9: 35-41

How many times did the Pharisees use Moses and Abraham to justify their unbelief? The truth was they saw God sending a King that was to be served, not a man, serving others. They had holes in their faith and refused to see them, therefore when they claimed to “see” the truth, they in fact were sinning.

Have you ever wondered which side you would have been on? Would you have believed that Jesus was the Christ or would you have been shouting, “Crucify Him!” I recently had a conversation like this with an Aunt on Facebook. I thought about her comment to me and realized, that I would have probably found going against the Pharisees and the tradition of the day, hard. I tend to be very conservative, (all of my close friends are smiling), and I just don’t know if I would have believed? It scares me to think I may have been crying out for his death instead of following Him as I do now.

Father God, I pray that you help us find the holes in our life. Help us move away from things that are wasting our energy and be a more productive disciple of Christ. Amen.