A Short Story

I had plans on writing about the fifth video session of the Daniel Prayer but first, this popped into my mind and I am going to digress a little today. I’m going to tell you a story about how God intervened on my behalf years ago. This was back in 2003. I was working in a casino in Arizona in the IT department. It was a horrendous job with only some monetary rewards. But what I had to put up with far out shadowed that. Sexual harassment from one of my co-workers was on the menu and he also had harassed other women, as well. Well I had gotten fed up and lodged a complaint. He got tossed out of the department and not by my boss who was his close friend. Needless to say, I suffered persecution from that point forward. None of the guys would talk to me. I was ostracized. In the meantime, I had been accepted to a local college and had put in my notice as I was going to start in January of 2004. I only had a few more months left in the IT department.

Anyway, one day I was downstairs, having done some work on a computer in another department, when one of the guys from HR came up to me and handed me a round coin-like pewter disk on which there was an angel in relief on one side and on the back was written the word, “Faith”. He gave it to me and told me to have faith. I thanked him and pondered this gift. It was sometime after that I was called down to the HR department by the head of HR. When I got to her office she told me to close the door and sit down. Of course, immediately I began to wonder what I did wrong. But what she did next blew me away.

She pulled out a badge from her drawer and slid it across her desk toward me, telling me that she worked really hard to do this and got it done in a week. She told me to turn in my IT badge right then and there and take the HR badge. I was now working for her. To say my mind went into vapor lock is an understatement. She then told me that my boss had been working behind my back with false allegations to get me fired! She took it upon herself to counter all his moves and move me out of the department entirely and into hers. On top of that, she said my rate of pay would be the same and I could not tell anyone that, either. I was in SHOCK! I did as she said and handed over my IT badge and took the HR one. I was then told to go back up to the IT department and collect my things and come back down to her department.

I was stunned as I returned to IT. I don’t even think I said a word to my boss but packed up my belongings and left. I KNEW beyond a shadow of a doubt that God had gone to battle for me and worked behind the scenes so fast it made my head spin. Normally it takes way longer than a week to get transferred out of a department because it needed tribal approval first. God is a mighty God and have no doubts that He will fight battles for you. And to emphasize the Love of our Great God, I was not nearly as spiritually minded back then as I am now but I knew it was God all along. He did it because of His love for me and because God is always, always faithful.

Is He not awesome and deserving of our praise and worship?! I am telling you this so you can go forth with confidence that whatever you lay at His feet, He will take delight in answering that prayer. But the interesting thing in my case was that He worked this out for me and I never once prayed about it because I had NO idea what was going on behind my back to begin with. So how could I pray about it?

I stayed in the HR department until the time came for me to leave a few months later to start college. I actually had a pretty good time there and enjoyed working for that woman and all the others that worked there were really nice.

Oh and my boss? I was told much later that he was fired.

The Daniel Prayer…Part III

This one is the last post on the fourth video. Tomorrow I will have access to the fifth one. So…what is the outcome of me taking my list of sins before the Lord in deep repentance? I was given a gift from Him that I had always desired but never attained. Joy. One of the fruits of the Spirit. Because of this, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of going before the Lord and confessing your sins and asking Him to reveal any sin that is hidden. It also has drawn me closer to Him.

Anne Graham Lotz brought out a good point in the fourth video. (Mind you,videos 1,2 and 3 are important but the 4th had the most impact on me so far.) In Daniel 9:4, Anne brought out the covenant relationship between Daniel and God. Daniel said, “And I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession…” Herein lies a wonderful truth. Daniel had God and God had Daniel. I didn’t realize the impact of this until I heard Anne speak about it in the 4th video. She emphasized the importance of this covenant relationship and the closeness of Daniel to God. Daniel was committed to God and God was committed to Him, as Anne has brought out. I felt it at that point. I felt the whole concept of having a really close relationship with Him and how glorious it is and I would not trade this for all the world. To experience this, you will have to get rid of any strongholds that satan has built up inside of you. Let me tell you, whatever you have to go through to have a good house-cleaning of your soul is well worth it. But it is better to go before the Lord voluntarily and have Him clean you out, then resist and leave Him no choice but to shipwreck you to get your attention. Whatever stupid, egotistical garbage you have been hoarding, get rid of it. Let Jesus scrub you clean.

You know, you have to realize that this is not real life. Real life is the life with Christ that will continue through all eternity. This life will pass away and won’t even be remembered. I have no idea what Heaven is like or what I will look like when the change comes and I will be like Him. To be a completely different being is unknown to me because I have not yet seen Him face to Face. But I am committed to God and He is committed to me. What a glorious thing! Praising Him endlessly for this! I get up in the morning and sit in my chair that I have set aside in my prayer corner and praise Him first thing. Even if I am not awake yet, I do this. Then I can wake up enough to get about my day but to also make sure I get my study time and more prayer in with Him. I try to do this every day, though I will admit to being in a fog this morning due to a bad night’s sleep and I didn’t do it right away but I did get to it, nonetheless. (my cat yakking blew me out of bed during some wee hour.)

So don’t cling onto your garbage. Go before the Lord. It will be well worth it. Whatever you need: healing, answered prayer, getting rescued, whatever your challenge is, go before the Lord. Get the Daniel Prayer workbook or even the actual book itself and begin a new journey with the Lord. God Bless you all.

Daniel Prayer–Part II

Well, looks like there is a lot to write about in regards to the Daniel Prayer. I’m still in the fourth week. I had thought about writing out all the sins that Anne Graham Lotz wrote in the workbook. It will be a big task because it is not list a simple list. Each sin has an explanation included. I feel it is important enough to do this because I care about the spiritual welfare of my brothers and sisters in Christ. I want them to experience the release from the bondage of sins they might not be aware that they have and might be hindering their prayer life. Anne wrote an entire book on the Daniel Prayer. I’ve yet to get it and read what else she has written on the subject. I only have the workbook and videos to watch on the website.

Sin and disobedience to God is what got the Israelites in trouble and sent off to captivity and this is where Daniel’s prayer to God takes place. There is not one person who can say they are sinless on this entire planet. A spiritual housecleaning is needed in the Body of Christ. So..some or all of these sins will apply to you. You should go before God with this list because He will definitely point them out to you. I made my own list from this list and went before Him with it. I feel like my soul got Brillo-ed.

1) Ingratitude. Failure to thank God for the favors He has bestowed both before and after salvation. What blessings or answered prayer have you neglected to thank God for?
2) Losing Your Love for God. Loving people or things more than your love God. Have you lost your first love for Jesus?
3) Neglect of Bible Reading. Pushing daily Bible reading aside due to an over-full schedule or being preoccupied with other things as you read. How long has it been since reading you Bible was a delight? Do you remember what it says when you are finished?
4) Unbelief. Refusing to believe that God will give you what He has promised. (which is the same as accusing Him of lying.) What promise do you think He will not keep?
5) Neglect of Prayer. Offering prayer up to God as spiritual chatter, fantasy, wishful thinking, or daydreaming. Do you offer prayers without fervent, focused faith?
6) Lack of Concern for the Salvation of Others. Standing by and watching people on their way to hell without caring enough to warn them, pray for them, or admit that is where they are going. Have you become so politically correct that you don’t apply the gospel to those you know and love? Do you think it is someone else’s responsibility to tell them?
7) Neglect of Family. Putting yourself and your needs before those of your loved ones. What effort are you making, and what habits have you established, for your family’s spiritual good when it requires personal sacrifice?
8) Love of the World and Material Things. Thinking of your possessions as your own instead of blessings and gifts from God. Do you believe your money is yours and that you can spend it as you choose without asking God?
9) Pride. Over-concern about outward appearances and thinking you are better than someone else. Are you offended, or even irritated if others don’t notice certain things about you? How do you react when people say you are wrong?
10) Envy. Jealousy of those who seem to be more fruitful, gifted, or recognizable than you. Do you struggle with hearing somebody else praised?
11) A Critical Spirit. Speaking about others in a manner that is empty of grace and love. Do you find fault with others? Do you set standards for them?
12) Slander. Telling the truth about a person with the intention of causing people to think less of him or her. Whose faults, real or imagined, about others have you discussed behind their backs?
13) Lack of Seriousness toward God. Not showing God the honor and respect He is due. Do you show disrespect for God by sleeping through your prayer time or showing up late for church as though He doesn’t matter? Do you give God the leftovers of your emotions, time, thoughts, or money?
14) Lying. Saying anything that is contrary to the unvarnished truth. What have you said to impress someone that wasn’t the whole truth or was an exaggeration of the truth?
15) Cheating. Treating others in a way you wouldn’t want to be treated. Have you stopped short of treating others the way you would want to be treated? (I wondered about this one. I don’t know if Cheating is the correct word to use to fit the definition Anne has laid out. I wonder if I can find out from her.)
16) Hypocrisy. Pretending to be something you are not. Are you pretending to be anything you are not?
17) Robbing God. Wasting time on tings that have no eternal value or exercising your God-given gifts and talents for a fee. What are you not doing for God that you are willing to do for others–for a price?
18) Temper. Losing patience with a child, coworker, friend, spouse, staff member, or anyone else. What cross words have you spoken recently?
19) Bad Temper. Losing control of your emotions, thoughts, and words so that you abuse someone else verbally. Have you lost your temper recently?
20) Hindering Others. Taking other people’s time needlessly or destroying their confidence because you hold them to an unreasonably high standard. Have you done this?
21) Arrogance. Accepting God’s forgiveness while refusing to forgive yourself or somebody else. Have you been guilty of this lately?

Much prayers to you all. In Jesus’ Love…. Christine

The Daniel Prayer

This is a six week study by Anne Graham Lotz, who is Billy Graham’s daughter. I cannot recommend this study enough! This has done more for me on a spiritual level than any other study that I have bought and gone through. I am in week four right now. You would need the study guide which you can get off the website or other sites like Barnes and Noble. I also had ordered the DVD plus study guide for others to benefit from. I sent a study guide to my son, Derek, in New York. Here is the link to the Daniel Prayer website: https://www.studygateway.com/online-bible-studies/daniel-prayer-study-home-2/

Anne touches on various aspects of the prayer that Daniel prayed to God in Daniel 9. In the first video she has a small group of people that she is working with on how to do the study in the workbook. In all the other videos, so far, Anne is by herself and teaching you. I was so impressed with video number 4 that I watched it four times so far. There is a section at the back of each week’s lesson to fill in with what you have learned from the video. Here is a link to video number 4: https://www.studygateway.com/online-bible-studies/daniel-prayer-study-home-2/session-4-pleading-in-prayer/ I did just as Anne had done and wrote down things I know I’ve been guilty of from the list she has on pages 147-149 in the workbook and will do the same as she did and every day for the next seven days go over that list with God to see where I am failing. She does mention some of the sins in the video but the list in the workbook is longer; 21 sins listed. I would call this spring cleaning for your soul, even though it is not spring. She called it a personal revival. That is very true. I guarantee you will feel revived from this. I look forward to getting rid of each and every one of those sins because I want NOTHING to stand between me and my God.

If you feel your prayer life going flat or you just need to get closer to God (and who doesn’t?) then do yourself a favor and buy this study guide and watch the videos. You won’t regret it. I can see why her father, Billy Graham, has called her “the best preacher in the family.” God has gifted her mightily.

Review of Coffee For Your Heart

I am very familiar with Holley Gerth through her blog, Coffee For Your Heart, which I receive emails from when she has written a new post. http://holleygerth.com/ I do have another of her books, “What Your Heart Needs for the Hard Days”, which is a series of encouraging devotionals that start with the name of God. (“God Is Thinking About You Today,” is one chapter heading.)

Well she has written a number of books and this one is actually named after her blog, “Coffee For Your Heart.” First of all, let me say that Holley has a wonderful gift of encouragement and humor. When her posts land in my inbox it always brings a smile because no matter what she is writing about, you can’t help but feel better after you’ve read it. “Coffee For Your Heart” is a book of 40 short devotionals that have areas for you to respond to her prompts or questions. This is under the heading of “Reflect”. Then she has a short prayer of response and then something to remember. She deals with a variety of topics, all aimed at encouraging the reader. Titles such as Accepted, Wonderfully Made, Forgiven, Loved are examples. This is all to let you know how much God loves you and in so many different ways. His love is constant and He never abandons or rejects us. But sometimes we feel in need of a Divine Hug and this is one of the ways God gives it to us.

I truly feel blessed by her writings and in our present day with all the negative things we have to deal with, our trials, warfare from our enemy the devil, and other problems it is nice to get some positive reinforcement from Christian ladies like Holley. She has a great sense of humor and I laughed out loud when I read how she was not a morning person (neither am I!) and that she had one time put a piece of chocolate on top of her alarm clock to bribe herself to get up. She woke up, ate the chocolate and went promptly back to sleep!

I highly recommend her books for anyone in need of a lift, a little encouragement and some humor to go with it. This book was also previously published under the title “God’s Heart For You.”

Also see review under user name Wildstar on Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/coffee-for-your-heart-holley-gerth/1125446694?ean=9780736970945

World War II and The Devil

I had recently watched the longest documentary on WWII that I had ever seen. It’s on Netflix and it’s called The War; a documentary by Ken Burns. The first episode was over 2 hours long and each subsequent episode was almost 2 hours long. So I watched a total of just over 14 hours. The backstory was of some families in four cities across the United States and the soldiers. You can’t appreciate what they went through till you watch something like this. First of all, the U.S. army was little more than that of Romania at that time and still had guns from WWI. (That eventually changed when they got better weapons.) The U.S. was not prepared to jump into another war but the Japanese changed all that with Pearl Harbor. Kids were drafted. They were kids to me because they were sometimes younger than 18 years of age and even into their early twenties. They had to be hastily trained and thrown into battle, inexperienced and scared to death. Never mind what Patton, played by George C. Scott, did to that one soldier who was suffering from battle fatigue. He may as well have slapped every single soldier that was laying there wounded in the hospital because they were all frightened. One soldier in the Ken Burns film said that he was shaking so bad from fright while in the European theater that he was relieved to find out that another soldier near him, who was more experienced (and maybe by only a few months), was also shaking. But they pressed on. They got tough and better.

Pretty much like we Christians have to get; tougher and better. I had recently watched sermons by John MacArthur on YouTube in which he spoke about Satan and how God uses him to bring about certain results in us.(along with how horrendous evil Satan is and we are his main target and how the rest of the world is in his control.) Like in the case of Job, God allowed Satan to have his way with Job, except he could not take Job’s life. Job was a righteous man and loved by God. But at the end of that long and heartbreaking stream of disasters, Job’s righteous was refined like gold and he was on a whole new level spiritually. Those undergoing very tough and long trials should take comfort in the fact that God is actually accomplishing something in them that will truly amaze them once they come out the other side. And perhaps God is taking His relationship with you to a whole new level; closer, tighter and more intense.

Right now both my sons and myself are going through so many different and relentless trials that would make the non-Christian hit the bars. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on my knees crying my eyes out before God. But God has never left me. He’s right there with me and my sons. It was a combination of the WWII film and John MacArthur that made me see things with more clarity. Sometimes when we are in an emotional upheaval we can’t see very clearly, so God will show you what you need to see in ways that you would understand. You’d be surprised at what weapons Satan will use against you. Even other Christians. Even attacking your personal relationship with God and try to make you doubt that.

Back to the war. In stark contrast, the German, Japanese and Italian armies were way more experienced and way more in number. These were all highly trained soldiers, especially the Germans and Japanese, and better equipped. The Japanese were also relentless. The enemy soldiers were much like Satan’s army, highly skilled and motivated and also vast in number. The attack on Pearl Harbor would be typical of Satan, who often launches surprise attacks and then continues relentlessly. We have a superior Commander-in-Chief; Jesus Christ. But if we do not put on the whole armor of God, we can be unprepared and a target for our enemy, Satan.

It took forever to launch D-Day, which was the invasion of Normandy and a major turning point to the war. What surprised me was to see, when the newspapers printed big headlines that the invasion had taken place, how many people crammed into churches and synagogues to pray for the troops. People were praying everywhere; on their jobs, in the shipyards where battleships were being built and every other place. You’d never see that now. It showed a lot of men in the shipyard kneeling in prayer. I was stunned. There was also a lot of sacrifice on the part of the American people as well as the British; gathering scrap metal and rubber to be turned over to the government to make weapons and other needed things. Plus, food was rationed and Americans had to become resourceful in what they cooked.

Factories were pumping out weapons, munitions, tanks, jeeps, aircraft, etc, in amazing numbers. Bombers were cranked out every 63 minutes and had over a million parts. Some of the things I had previously heard about WWII were clarified in this film. For instance, it was only the Japanese on the west coast were hauled off to internment camps. Not all the Japanese in the entire country. Also, the young Japanese-American men who were conscripted into the army from those camps turned out to be the most ferocious soldiers we had and the battalion was nicknamed The Purple Heart Battalion. They fought in Europe, not in the Pacific.

Like Satan, the Nazis and the Japanese threw everything they had at the allied forces.The Japanese were particularly brutal and barbaric toward their prisoners and the Bataan Death March was the most infamous. And like Satan, those Nazis who ran the concentration camps were pure evil in what they did to millions of innocent and defenseless people.

One of the Marines, who was in the Pacific, spoke about the relentless shelling and never knowing if the next bullet had their name on it. He said, “It was a matter of faith. You will survive if the Lord is willing or you will not. So you just take it.” This was in the battle for Guadalcanal. We have an Advocate, a King, who has died for us and will not let us go and who will fortify us and help us. In some cases, He will fight the battles for us. I had the experience of the Lord working behind the scenes for me when I had no idea what was actually going on. He worked quickly and decisively and truly amazed me. I will talk about that at a later date.

Sometimes it is so intense you don’t know how you’re going to make it through. But you will. Jesus will get you through because you are His. No matter what Satan throws at you, Jesus is right there. Don’t forget that. Jesus has defeated him on the Cross. Satan has already failed. He’s already lost. Don’t let him convince you otherwise. Don’t let his lies infiltrate and make you doubt God or feel like you are alone. You’re not alone.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of darkness in this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” Ephesians 6:12-13

I’m Done With It All….

I’m not going to write about what someone else did or didn’t do or said, anymore. I’m tired of it and it effects me too deeply when I see something that is not right. Not to turn a blind eye to it but maybe just pray for that person because if their actions or words are wrong or un-Christ-like, they need help. I think I need some “spiritual white space”, as Bonnie Gray would say (she wrote a book on it). It’s a respite from everything but also includes rest and more time with Jesus. And I think I will be unsubscribing from some emails, too. It’s time to spring clean my spiritual house.

I’m just going to immerse myself in study and write about that or something that was in the news, like the continual radiation poisoning of our planet by Fukushima, which is still leaking billions of gallons of radiation into the ocean. If it is going to take Japan 40 years to clean that up, that’s 40 years of deadly radiation we have to deal with. http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-02-06-unimaginable-radiation-levels-detected-at-fukushima-mox-fuel-melts-through-reactor-floor.html A lot of it has been hushed up or just outright lies being told to the public. The people of Japan will suffer because of it.

Anyway, I have plans on writing a piece about the prophets which will require research. I had been thinking about their lives and the fact that some were completely alone. They didn’t have a support system of others and were sometimes asked to do strange things by God. But I’m not getting into that here.

I want to wish all of you a joyous Easter or Resurrection Day, for those who prefer to call it that. Let us celebrate with joy what our Savior has done for us. Peace to you all and God bless you.