Father I just want to give You praise for all that You have given me Lord. You have had Your hand of protection on me my whole life. I know that You must have something planned for me Lord because with all that I have done out of Your will I should be dead or sick. But I'm not! I'm healthy, happily married, with a wonderful baby girl. Maybe this was all of what You had planned, if it was, it's enough. I know You have blessed me in so many ways and I know You have held on to me and loved me and I just praise You for it. I bless You Lord, for You are a Mighty God. You are sovereign! I know that You are in control and I trust completely in You! I want to walk in Your presence and surround myself with Your Word! I know Your will, will be done! You are the Great I Am!
August 8, 2002
Father, I ask for guidance in giving my testimony Wed night to the Manna class. I'm not sure where I need to start and what I need I need to say or if I even need to say anything at all. What is my mission Lord? What is my purpose on this earth? What is my gift? How am I supposed to be serving You? I want to serve You. I want to help others learn to lean on You and to love You and to fear You. I want to be filled with You! I want my thoughts, my words, my actions, to be filled with You and to glorify You. Forgive me when I get angry at You Lord. Forgive me when I think You aren't doing enough for me. You owe me nothing and I owe You everything.
In Jesus name,
Amen
It was almost 10 years ago that I wrote these prayers and praise in my journal. In these almost 10 years since, God has answered the prayers and I still sing these same praises to Him. And yes, sadly enough, I often am still asking for forgiveness for some of these same things...
There is something very strong about the impatience of human nature.
I read these entries again and I can't help but smile... especially since in September I will begin leading a Precept course on spiritual gifts at my church. Almost ten years after I made this cry to my God He is going to use me to hopefully answer the same cry that is coming from someone else.
I sit here once again in tears as I think upon the mercy of my God. Oh His grace! His glorious grace! The person, the woman, that I was, the things that I had done... Oh how I have so profaned the name of my God... but He redeemed me anyway. He redeemed my life from the pit and He continues to redeem me.
Oh Father, who am I that You would be so mindful of me? Who am I that You allow me the great honor to teach You Word, to open my mouth and have You speak through me to proclaim You Word, Your truth... to serve You...
I teach with fear and trembling. It is a scary thing, a very scary thing. With each lesson I feel as if it was a total train wreck. I begin in fear and I close in fear and half the time I have no clue what happened in the middle. I finish and then I immediately try to remember everything that was said so I can make sure that I did not just misquote or misinterpret the Word of the One who upholds the entire universe by this Word of His power that I have just attempted to teach and share with someone else.
My prayer is always that the Holy Spirit would guide me into all truth and He alone would speak and that He would just shut me up.
I have a little personal litmus test for classes. For my Sunday morning class, I look for the Pastor to confirm the lesson. I ask God to let me know that I was in tune with His Spirit by someway having the Pastor share a Scripture I covered or back what I had taught with a like word or similar story. You see I believe that the same Holy Spirit that is in me is in my Pastor and if I am in tune with the Holy Spirit then what we teach will not contradict and I believe that whatever message God has for the church that particular day will be woven through every deliverance of His Word and be used to build on each other precept upon precept.
Some of today's words were "turtledove" and "nothing added to it"
I was teaching from Luke 3:1-18 and our Pastor was teaching on and administering the Lord's Supper...
I rarely have peace with a lesson until God confirms it... after this I am able to take a deep breathe and say "Thank You Lord. I was afraid I had really screwed that one up and that I made it a jumbled up mess."
You see I might have done just that, delivered a jumbled mess, but God just reminded me that He was the One who would unjumble it in the hearts of the hearers and He would take my worship and use it to profit. Becasue He is sovereign over all
"The LORD has established His throne in the heavens,
And His sovereignty rules over all.
And His sovereignty rules over all.
Psalm 103:19
So I suppose you have noticed by now that the answer to my prayers on Feb and Aug of 2002 was teaching. I love to teach the Word. I'll teach any age any where, it doesn't matter to me. Teaching is like breathing to me now... not because I had a talent for it, but because it is my spiritual gift in Christ.
I can only teach in and by faith because it scares me to death... but God has taught me to do it scared, that's what faith is for.
So I am excited to have the great joy and honor of being used by my God to teach of the gifts that belong only to those that are His in Christ and I pray for those who are seeking as I was. I first thank God that they are seeking and then I pray that they will know what their gift is and employ it in the work of the building up of the saints of our God.
And I look forward to sharing with you what I learn through this study...
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