Walk Boldly With Jesus

Today’s witnesses are from Matthew West’s website called popwe.org. If you don’t know who Matthew West is, he is a singer, songwriter, and storyteller. This website is for the non-profit that he has with his father, a pastor. Matthew and his father encourage people to share their stories. They have various categories of stories. Today I chose four testimonies from the Salvation Category. I love to hear about how people found Jesus and what their journey was like. Oftentimes, we can hear our own story in someone else’s story. When we hear others tell their story it helps us to see we are not alone. We are not the only ones who have struggled with God, faith, and religion. We aren’t the only ones who have been mad at God, frustrated with life, and so on. I pray when you hear these testimonies, you can see not only how God has helped them in their life but how He is helping you in yours and in your loved ones’ lives, too.

Bob: My story is so trivial compared to those you share at concerts and on TV, but I wanted to share. In 2014, after 35 years of marriage, 2 grown boys, and several grandgirls, I faced an unexpected divorce. During those days, I relied on a long-distance friend I knew from my job who would listen to my daily drama and provide feedback. At one point, she asked if I listened to Christian Music radio. I told her I did a little around Christmas, but otherwise, I did not. She recommended your friends at K-LOVE for support and a lift. I’ve been obsessed with CCM and K-LOVE ever since.

Since then I’ve joined a new church, which included a new member class and presentation of my faith journey. I was preparing a small visual aid to use with my journey, and I turned on the TBN app, and the first icon was YOUR Ryman concert. The title of my presentation appropriately became “My Story-Your Glory”. WOW, what an experience to share my life with others I barely knew.

After attending your awesome concert in Grove City (Columbus), OH, in October, I had a southern trip on my calendar. When I saw you were going to be in Ashland, KY, I contacted that long-distance friend who helped me years ago, who lived nearby, and asked if she would attend the Paramount Theater with me. On November 2, together, we sang and prayed and had a great time with you and Micah! The prayers you and your father presented were perfect and your interaction with the crowd was amazing. Definitely different crowds in Columbus and Ashland!!!! Thank you for sharing your music. Blessings to you and your beautiful family.

Melissa, My testimony is that I finally believed God’s truth enough to receive the miracle I have been hoping for my entire life (and I’m already 42) : “To know God’s truth without a doubt and to clearly see the face of God in ALL things.” This happened while listening to the CD “My Story Your Glory” shortly after buying it at the Crystal Lake, IL concert. I was listening to “Miracle” in my car and realized for the first time God’s perfect goodness despite my traumatic sufferings (and that God makes all things good, and in turn, I was good enough to be HIS) and this knowledge was completely transformational, something that spoke of the “kind of healing that comes swiftly” and it drenched my soul with joy in Him. It was as if suddenly I knew God’s every word to be true and that I could clearly express it in writing. I felt compelled in a way I never could have guessed to forever display this holy love to others as best I could.

Awestruck, I wrote the following poem:

If only you knew the beauty I see,
not just in you, but in everything,
you’d come sit awhile and ask what it meant
and I’d happily tell you it was heaven sent.
Now, I’m just a girl, no one would guess,
deserved such a treat to be so thoroughly blessed.
And I’d tell you it’s true, cause I was way worse than you,
just a wandering wanderer, not sure what to do.
And here is the answer, the thing that you seek,
to step into God’s power, you’ve gotta be weak.
And so thoroughly so, you’ve got nowhere to go,
but to sit in your mess, and just endlessly weep.
You may not believe it, but trust me it’s right,
that looking and looking, will never give sight.
But there is sight for the blind, BUT God’s gotta speak.
And as soon as you listen, you’ll find all that you need.

Thank you, Matthew West. Your music was the missing piece that gave me the wisdom I needed to finally put all the missing pieces together. I had been struggling to do so forever. I know others are sure to experience this beautiful shift from your wonderful songs as well. May all glory be to God, the author of all good things, and to the wondrous keeper of my heart, Christ Jesus our Lord!

Sammie: Ever since God entered my life, there has been healing, love, joy, celebration, restoration, peace, & His presence. The more that I’ve let Him into my life, the more of God I’ve gotten to see, know, experience, & share all of these things! This means through elementary school, middle school, high school, & now into college. When I asked God to come into my family, problems, sickness, friendships, relationships, and my heart, I got to see God save, heal, restore, & give. A lot of the time, it was so hard, but with or without God, life is hard.

I can say from experience though, with God, life is abundant, abundant with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, hope, and freedom. Without God, life is full of heartbreak, sin, emptiness, hopelessness, doubt, worry, anxiety, fear, lust, & it doesn’t get better. The enemy keeps stealing, killing, & destroying. Jesus came to earth, brought life abundantly & won a victory over the enemy and death & is offering right now and always to do the same in your life! The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophesy, and that means what He did for another, He can do it again!! He loved you, loves you, & will always love you for eternity! In Jesus’s name, Amen!

Bella:  My name is Bella, and I’m 15 years old. I went to church when I was younger, but I questioned God. And I was like, ‘If other religions have a book like the Bible, how do I know Christianity is real?’ At Vacation Bible School (VBS) one year, I prayed to Jesus with a group leader for Him to save me and be my Savior, and she told me when somebody gets saved, all the angels start singing hallelujah. I went on living my life, and then I got baptized in the Methodist church, but not really for the right reasons. So I went on with living.

When I was in seventh grade, I started to have friend problems. During eighth grade the girls I thought were my friends had practically ditched me, all except for one who caught onto that friend group not really welcoming us anymore. That one girl became my only friend. The church I was going to on Wednesday nights got a new youth pastor named Emmett and I started going to church. There were some days when I didn’t want to go to church because I felt like I didn’t have any friends there, but I kept going. I downloaded the YouVersion Bible App on my phone for when we would read Scripture. I started looking on the app one night and saw all the devotionals and verse of the day things and I wanted to start doing that stuff, especially since it was Christmas time and I wanted to do Christmas plans.

Jesus found me and gradually had me cultivate a relationship with Him. I started to do devotionals, pray, and do the verse of the day. I started to live for Jesus. That summer, my youth group went to a church camp called Fuge. It was one of the greatest things ever because I started following Jesus, and I didn’t worry about friends because I can’t make them accept me. But Jesus calls me His child. Lord Jesus actually gave me friends on that trip and I now have a friendship with a girl in the grade below me. I rededicated my life to Jesus that summer. Then I started having sin problems, and I finally had to open up to my dad and just tell someone what I was struggling with. Things got better, so don’t keep things to yourself.

Later that summer, I felt like I needed to be baptized, and I asked God for a sign if I needed to be, and He gave me one. I ignored it and put it off for a while, but one day I had finally decided I wanted to be baptized. I didn’t want to have to go up to the front of the church, so my dad got me to talk to the Senior Pastor about getting baptized, and he wanted me to come up to the front of the church during the invitation when I was ready. And, finally, I was going to do it. I prayed to God for His Holy Spirit to be with me and help me to do it. Because of God, I was able to go up to the front of the church with my dad and tell the church I wanted to be baptized. It was one of the best feelings ever. I got to be baptized by my youth pastor on November 6, 2022. I got baptized for real that time- I got dunked and came up clean.

I hit a dark patch that Christmas with barely being able to believe God because my mind just denied so much, but I kept praying, and God eventually pulled me out of that season. Prayer became my lifeline, and God would answer my prayers. I thought I was all alone in what happened to me that Christmas, but earlier this year, I got a book called “Get Out of Your Head” by Jennie Allen, and she went through something very similar. We aren’t alone in our struggles.

Now, in 2023, I’m trying to live for Jesus each and every day, and I’m struggling sometimes with how to do that. But God has pulled me out of the unthinkable, and God has never left me. God really loves you. No matter what, Jesus loves you! Just keep praying. God is faithful; just trust Him.
I went to a Matthew West concert (it was awesome!) and got to pray again for Jesus to come into my heart.  I got to hear the song “Me On Your Mind” performed live, and that is one song that I can connect with and just sing. I learned from that concert that God loves to hear the sound of our voice no matter how long it’s been and that we just need to trust and believe in Jesus.

I’m proud to say I believe in Jesus, and I trust Him wherever He’s taking me. Let God define you, not your sin.

Thank you all so much for being vulnerable and sharing your stories. I pray you continue to walk with the Lord and that each day you grow closer and closer to Him. I pray you know how much He loves you and how proud He is of you. Thank you again for sharing!

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Prayer For Victory

Psalm 20 “The Lord answer you in the day of trouble! The name of the God of Jacob protect you! May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion. May he remember all your offerings, and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices.  May he grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans.  May we shout for joy over your victory and, in the name of our God, set up our banners. May the Lord fulfill all your petitions. Now I know that the Lord will help his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with mighty victories by his right hand. Some take pride in chariots and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God. They will collapse and fall, but we shall rise and stand upright. Give victory to the king, O Lord; answer us when we call.”

I don’t usually do a whole Psalm. I usually just pick a verse or two. I went to this Psalm because Psalm 20:6 was used for teaching at my prayer group just before Easter. However, when I went to read it, I liked the whole thing, and I thought you would too. What I liked most about it is that it is a prayer for Victory. I feel as though we could all use a little victory in our lives right now. My mother and father-in-law came over for Easter, and my mother-in-law mentioned that she has 25 different people she prays for each morning. I bet she could use a little victory with those prayers.

Every time I go on Facebook, there are lots of people asking for prayer requests. In the Facebook group I am in, there are so many women who feel as though they are struggling. They feel as if they just can’t catch a break. It feels to them like the whole world is against them. They are experiencing one disappointment after another. There is one woman who has two young girls. Out of the blue, her ex-husband, their dad, died. Then she took her daughter to the ENT doctor to have her ears checked because the tubes came out. They said she has 10 % hearing loss in one ear and 20% in another ear. That is not what any mom wants to hear.

This Psalm is all about victory. It begins by saying, “The Lord answer you in your times of trouble. The name of the God of Jacob protect you! May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion. May he remember all your offerings, and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices.” This is a great prayer. It is asking for the Lord to answer our prayers when we are in trouble and also to protect us. We could all use some of our prayers to be answered and some protection from our Dad in heaven.

Psalm 20 could be a great prayer when you don’t know what to pray. Have you ever had a time when you just didn’t really know what to ask for? Either things were so bad that you couldn’t see a way out, or you were so angry, sad, and upset that no words would come to your mind. If this happens to you again, you could keep Psalm 20 in your back pocket and pull it out when you don’t know what else to say. This Psalm touches on all the important things.

The next part is my favorite part. It says, “May he grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans.  May we shout for joy over your victory and, in the name of our God, set up our banners. May the Lord fulfill all your petitions.” Yes, please! I pray he grants my heart’s desire and fulfills all my plans. I pray he grants yours too! I also love that it says, “May we shout for joy over your victory, and in the name of our God, set up our banners.” When I hear it, I picture a parade. I picture people waving around banners and flags and shouting for joy. It is important that we are joyful when our petitions are granted to us. It is important that we rejoice and we thank God for it.

The last part of the Psalm says, “Now I know that the Lord will help his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with mighty victories by his right hand. Some take pride in chariots and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God. They will collapse and fall, but we shall rise and stand upright. Give victory to the king, O Lord; answer us when we call.” I like that it says he knows the Lord will help his anointed. It says He will answer from his holy heaven with mighty victories by his right hand. Who could use a mighty victory right now? Who is waiting, praying, and hoping for something important right now? This verse says that the Lord will help his anointed. Guess what? You are His anointed. The Lord will answer your prayers with mighty victories.

The verse also points out where our pride should be. It says some take pride in chariots and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God. We have a God who answers our prayers. We have a God who grants us great victories. We have a God who grants our heart’s desires and fulfills all of our plans. We definitely have a God we can take pride in. God has done so much for us. This psalm is definitely one to write down somewhere and remember where it is so we can take it out and pray it when we are in need of a victory.

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode. Lord, we love you, and we are so grateful you answer our prayers, grant our heart’s desires, and fulfill all of our plans. Lord, help us to keep faith that a victory is coming. Help us to keep hoping when all seems lost. Help us to keep looking at you when things get bad. Help us to keep turning to you and trusting you are taking care of us. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. The theme for mentoring for this whole month is praise. I decided if we have a theme for a whole month it will allow me to go deeper into each topic instead of briefly touching upon a bunch of topics. Praise has made a huge difference in my life, and I can’t wait to share with you how much a difference it has made. If you would like to join us tonight in mentoring, CLICK HERE, or you can message me on Facebook. I look forward to seeing you tonight or tomorrow morning. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed night!

Today’s Word from the Lord was received in November 2023 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group or about these words please email [email protected]. Today’s Word from the Lord is “There is a river deep and wide, and it flows from my throne in heaven. It brings healing, wholeness, mercy, and holiness to all who bathe in its life-giving water. Jump in, my friends, and bring others with you. Frolic and play and enjoy this river of my deep-abiding love. Don’t be afraid of its depth, for I will help you stay afloat through its rapids, its turns, and its challenges. I long to wash you and cleanse you completely with my living water. Come. Come. Come and frolic with me.” 

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In The End, I Am Still With You

Psalm 139:17-18 "How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!  I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you.”

This is a great verse! It reminds us that the Lord’s thoughts are not our thoughts. In this verse, David reminds us that God’s thoughts are worthy of spending some time pondering. He is also saying that if we were to count God’s thoughts, they would outnumber the sand. We could spend all day thinking about God’s thoughts and how much He knows. I mean, He is the God of the universe. There are over 8 billion people on the earth, and God knows each one of us by name. Can you even imagine that?

If we truly sit down and think about how amazing God is, we could get overwhelmed. When we think about all the thoughts He has to keep at one time, it can seem impossible. Over 8 billion people, and he knows your name. He knows everything about you. He knows about your marriage, your kids, your divorce, your struggles with your job, your struggles with your kids, the abuse you have received, and the successes you have achieved. God knows all of it. There isn’t anything about you that God doesn’t know.

He even knows about all the things we try to hide from Him. He knows about that shame we keep stuffing down deeper and deeper. He knows about that anger we are holding onto because He took our loved ones, and we can’t see the reason. He knows about the hurt that was caused by someone or something in the church. He knows about that thing that we did that we don’t want anyone to know about. He knows. There isn’t anything we can do that God doesn’t know about. And that is a great thing!

The reason we don’t want God to know certain things is because we think He will judge us. We think He will stop loving us if He knew the real us. Who we are down deep inside. The one that we don’t show anyone because we are afraid if we do show anyone, they won’t like us anymore. This might be true for some people, but this is not true for God. He made you who you are. He knit you together in your mother’s womb. He hand-picked you to be you. God doesn’t make mistakes.

I know there are parts of you that you wish you could change. This is true for all of us. Yet, God made us who we are, and he put those parts in us, and I am sure He had a reason for it; instead of looking for the reasons we want to change all the things we don’t like, how about if we ask the Lord why he gave us those things and how He wants us to use them. God has a plan, he has way more thoughts that we could ever imagine.

Nothing is ever by chance with God. God made you specifically like you are. There is a purpose for each and every detail about you. That is how magnificent God is. Even though there are 8 billion of us, God knows each of us individually and intimately. We could ponder all day and night and not truly understand or grasp that, and that is okay. I don’t think we are meant to understand everything God does. There are some parts of God and the things that He does that will always be a mystery, or at least they will be on this side of heaven. I believe when we get to heaven, the fullness of God will be revealed to us.

The second part of today’s verse says, “I come to the end—I am still with you.” This is a short sentence, and yet it is an important one. King David was secure in his relationship with the Lord. He knew he was never far from the Lord. If we look at the Psalms David wrote, He knew God was always with Him. He knew no matter what he did, God was still with Him. David excelled at repenting and turning back to the Lord. He knew God was always by His side.

The same is true for us. God is always right there by our side. He is helping us, loving us, and being there for us each step of the way. When we mess up, when we sin, when we do something to hurt our relationship with Him, He does not go anywhere. We are the ones who turn away. We turn our backs to Him because we don’t want Him to see us in our sin, our shame, or our guilt. We turn away, and yet He still stands there waiting for us to return. This is why I love this verse so much. It shows us the confidence that David had in his relationship with the Lord. It shows us the confidence we can have too.

“When I come to the end—I am still with you.” This can be true for each one of us. All we have to do is believe it, and then, when we mess up, repent and turn back to the Lord. He is there waiting for us with open arms.  God never leaves us. He is always right there by our side. It is up to us to repent and turn back to Him. He is always right there, just waiting for us to come back to Him. Can we do that today? Can we turn back to the Lord and repent?

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode. Lord, we thank you for never leaving our side. We thank you for knowing each one of us intimately. We thank you for knowing so much more than we ever could. We know we know so little compared to you in any given situation. Help us to see this and help us to rely on you to guide us and to point us in the right direction. Lord, we ask you to open the doors you want us to go through and to close the ones you don’t want us to go through. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to Walk Boldly With Jesus. I look forward to seeing you here again tomorrow. Mentoring is tomorrow night. If you would like to join, CLICK HERE. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!

Today’s Word from the Lord was received in November 2023 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group or about these words please email [email protected]. Today’s Word from the Lord is “I am taking your mind and giving you my mind.”

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What About The Waiting…

1 Peter 2:24 “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed.”

Today is a very sad day. I know that without Good Friday, we have no Easter Sunday, and yet today is still a very sad day. Thinking about all the Lord went through for us is a bit overwhelming. To think about all he suffered and the fact that He never sinned. He was completely blameless, and yet He suffered immense pain for all of us. That can be overwhelming, too, if we really let it sink in that it was our sins that killed Jesus. My sins and your sins. That is a lot to take in.

I remember Father Mike saying that he was at an event once, and someone came up to him and asked him two questions. The first was, why do Christians blame all Jews for Jesus’s death, and the second one was, if you believe that Jesus’s death saved you from sin, shouldn’t you be thanking us? Father Mike wasn’t sure what to say, so he called upon the Holy Spirit. Then he explained that, yes, some of the Jewish people conspired with the Romans to put Jesus to death. However, the Catholic Church does not blame the Jewish people for Jesus’s death. Jesus would not have had to go to that cross if we were blameless. Jesus went to that cross for my sins and your sins. We are the reason Jesus was crucified.

This wasn’t news to me. Of course, I knew that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. However, it did hit me in a different way when Father Mike said that our sins are the reason Christ went to the cross. I don’t know if those sound exactly the same to you or not, but for me, they were slightly different. It was almost as if I was recognizing the redeeming factor of Christ going to the cross without realizing the blame I had for it. I don’t know if I can explain what I am thinking in a way that will make sense, but I am going to try, so please bear with me.

I know Jesus died from my sins. I am so grateful that because of his sacrifice, we have been set free from sin and bondage. I focused on that part of it in the past. Good Friday was about Jesus taking our sins to the cross. The focus was on Jesus and what He sacrificed for us. And the focus should be on Jesus. However, I don’t think I allowed myself, or I don’t know if I ever thought to think about my part in Jesus going to the cross. I don’t know that I ever really felt the guilt of sending Him to the cross. I don’t know that it really sunk in that it was my sins that caused Him to go to the cross. I am not sure if that makes sense, and it may be a subtle difference but it is an important one.

Another thing that I am reminded of each Good Friday is something I heard about at a conference in Germany. I unfortunately didn’t get to see it. I was at a conference in Ettal, Germany. This is not far from Oberammergau, Germany, where they hold the Passion play every 10 years. In 1633, the Oberammergau villagers promised to perform the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ every tenth year, in so far as no one was to die of the plague anymore. God answered the villagers, and therefore, in 1634, the first Passion Play took place. The promise has been kept until today. During some free time at the conference, some of the people took a ride to Oberammergau to walk around the village.

One of my friends went to this town. Her friends walked into a church, and she was outside. She entered just a few minutes after them, and she walked in, and they were all crying. She wondered what she missed, what had happened. Then, they pointed to a display at the back of the church. It was Jesus waiting in a cell, and it hit her, too. Can you imagine what it must have been like for Jesus to wait in a cell for the time to arrive? We tend to think of the physically demanding times, such as the scourging at the pillar, the carrying of the cross, or the actual crucifixion. But what about all the times in between all of that? What about the times when He was all alone, left with His own thoughts?

We know that when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, thinking about all He would have to endure, His sweat became like drops of blood. We know the pain of thinking about all of our sins was overwhelming to Him. What about when He is waiting to meet Pilate? What about after the scourging and before the crucifixion? Was He waiting alone in a cell somewhere? What was going through His mind? Did you ever take time to meditate on that? I know I haven’t because I never really thought of it before. The quiet part, the waiting part, isn’t really talked about.

I just looked up Jesus’s waiting to see if maybe it was talked about but I didn’t hear about it. I found an article  from a woman named Christina. Christina has visited Israel and was telling about what she saw when she went. Here is what she said: (Click Here for full article)

"On our trip to Israel, we went to that courtyard where a statue of a rooster now stands. We then went to an underground prison beneath Caiaphas’s home, where Jesus was likely held the night of his arrest. It was a deep, dark pit. There was one light dimly illuminating the room for us, but I could easily imagine what it would have been like turned off. I thought about the time our family went on a tour of a cave in the mountains of Tennessee. At one point on the tour, the guide turned out the lights so we could experience what it was like for gold miners when their lights were extinguished. It was the darkest place I’d ever been. Complete darkness. That’s what I imagine the pit in Caiaphas’s dungeon would be like without electricity."

As we know from our own lives, sometimes waiting can be the hardest moment. I invite you into Jesus’s waiting today on Good Friday. I invite you to ponder what it was like for Jesus in the waiting. What was going through His mind? What kept Him going? What gave Him the strength to remain silent and not call out in pain? I invite you to ask Jesus what He wants to show you today. I invite you on this Holy and somber day to spend some time with Jesus. Thank Him for giving His life for us. It says in the verse above, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed.” I invite you to spend some time with that verse today if you don’t know what else to ponder. “By his wounds, you have been healed.” That is a pretty powerful statement. Maybe spend some time with that one line.

Today is a day when we remember all Jesus sacrificed for us. We all have different ways of remembering Jesus today, and that is wonderful. It doesn’t matter how you remember Jesus today. What is important is that you spend time remembering Jesus and His sacrifice. I hope this has been a great lent for you this year. I hope it was challenging in all the right ways. I pray that you have an amazing Easter weekend and I will meet you back here on Monday! 

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each person listening to this episode. Lord, we are so grateful you sent your only son to die on the cross for our sins. We are forever grateful that you saved us and redeemed us. Help us to thank you for the way we live our lives. Help us never forget the price paid for the blessings we receive. We love you so much, Lord. Thank you! We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen! 

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I pray you have a very blessed Easter! I look forward to meeting you here again on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! 

Today’s Word from the Lord was received in November 2023 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group or about these words please email [email protected]. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “All is possible when you come to me. There is no problem that needs to overwhelm you. I am with you always, ever ready to help you in your times of need. Your first response should be to me. I am the one you should seek first. I am your Lord. I am your God, your Savior. I send my spirit to guide you so that life can be easier for you. Please take advantage of the help that I send.”

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"My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?"

Matthew 27:46 “About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

I just opened the Bible to a random place this morning, and this is what I read. I found it fitting since it is Holy Thursday today. I also found it fitting because I am listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast again this year, and Father Mike just talked about this line in the episode I heard yesterday. Father Mike explained that although Jesus asked God why He had forsaken Him, it is essential to know that Jesus was not actually rejected by His Father. God never turned His face away from Jesus. Jesus always lived and continues to live in the eternal gaze of love with His Father. “At the same time, in the redeeming love that always united Him to the Father, He assumed us in the state of our waywardness to sin to the point that he could say in our name from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He had such solidarity with sinners that he experienced what we experience when we are away from the Lord. He experienced what it was to be rejected, but he was never rejected. He experienced what it is to be cut off from the Father, although he never was cut off from the Father. His solidarity with us was so real, was so great that his experience and his humanity was that of he could say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But we recognize that he never, never, was away from the Father. He was never disconnected, just like in so many ways; I mean, we can have analogies here, right? We can experience this distance from the Father. We can experience the silence of prayer. We can experience dryness in prayer. That does not mean God is absent. His silence does not mean that His is absent. But we experience that. Jesus experienced what it felt like to have lost his Father, but He never lost the Father, and the Father never lost Him.”

Father Mike goes on to say, “God takes the initiative of universal redeeming love. He talks about paragraph 604 in the catechism and how it says by giving up his own son for our sins, God manifest that his plan for us is one of benevolent love prior to any merit on our part that is a mission of love. This is what God wants for us because he loves us. And so we just recognize that Christ’s redemptive death is in God’s plan of salvation. Yep, here’s God’s predestination and here’s God’s will working with our free will. Here’s our grace working with our brokenness. And yet grace still is operative and our free will is still operative. That Jesus Christ took upon himself the guilt of us all in such a way that he had this solidarity with sinners. He identified himself with sinners, although he himself never sinned, in order to reconcile us to God and that is God’s initiative. That is God’s prerogative that we did not deserve it, we did not do anything to merit it and we could never do anything to merit it. But God himself takes the initiative, which is just an incredible, incredible note.”

The Catechism has so much that I would love to share with all of you. It is so good! I recommend that you listen to this podcast if you have ever wondered what Catholics believe and why we believe it. I want to take a minute to read you paragraphs 604 and 605 in the Catechism, as I believe we all need to hear this, especially today, the day before Good Friday. It will give us more perspective tomorrow.

604 By giving up his own Son for our sins, God manifests that his plan for us is one of benevolent love, prior to any merit on our part: "In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins." God "shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

605 At the end of the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus recalled that God's love excludes no one: "So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." He affirms that he came "to give his life as a ransom for many"; this last term is not restrictive but contrasts the whole of humanity with the unique person of the redeemer who hands himself over to save us. The Church, following the apostles, teaches that Christ died for all men without exception: "There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.”

Did you catch that last line? "There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.” Do you know what that means? That means that the devil is a liar. It means that when he tells you that God forgives people but that your sins are too great, he is a liar. It means that when the devil whispers in your ear that Jesus died for other’s sins but not for yours, he is a liar. It means that when the devil whispers you couldn’t possibly be forgiven, accepted, or whatever else he is telling you, he is a liar. Jesus died for your sins, every single one of them. Tomorrow, on Good Friday, I invite you to offer your sins up to Jesus! I invite you to spend some time thinking about all the ways you have offended the Lord. I invite you to think of all the ways you haven’t been faithful to the Lord. Then I invite you to turn all of that over to the Lord. Tell Him you are sorry, and then release all of that to him and let Him take it all to the cross. Then I invite you to take some time to praise Him and thank Him for taking your sins to the cross. Thank Him for taking every sin you will ever commit to the cross in advance. Thank Him for the unending love He has for us. I want to leave you with the last sentence in paragraph 605 because I really don’t think we can hear it enough. “There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.”

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode. Lord, we ask you to remind us of any sins you want us to bring to you today. Lord, we ask the Holy Spirit to convict us of our sins, not so we can feel guilty, but so we can release them to Jesus and allow Him to take them to the cross for us. Lord, we thank you for loving us so much that you sent your only son to die for us so that we may be forgiven. You are amazing, and we are so grateful. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to Walk Boldly With Jesus. I am so grateful I am not on this journey alone! I pray each one of you has an amazing holy week. Tomorrow will be sad, but we know the ending, and we can all celebrate on Easter Sunday! I look forward to meeting you all here tomorrow morning. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!

Today’s Word from the Lord was received in November 2023 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group or about these words please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “Vision: “The Lord is calling us because when you feel the world is overflowing your boat and the waters are filling it up and you are bailing and bailing but you can’t stop the waters from rising. The Lord is saying Stop bailing. Let go and float; let Me do the work.

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Today’s witnesses are from Matthew West’s website called popwe.org. If you don’t know who Matthew West is, he is a singer, songwriter, and storyteller. This website is for the non-profit that he has with his father, a pastor. Matthew and his father encourage people to share their stories. They have various categories of stories. Today I chose the three they had on the front page. I don’t think they are all in the same category. The first one is about a young girl who had enough disappointment from her earthly Father but found her heavenly Father. The second one is about a mom who survived a car accident and her journey to find God. The last one is about a young man and his journey to find the Lord as well. I guess they are all about the journey to find God. However, they all have their different twists and turns. I pray when you hear them, you can see not only how God has helped them in their life but how He is helping you in yours and in your loved ones, too.

Reyna: My head fell into my hands and I was crying uncontrollably. I was about 6 years old when I learned what prison was. The guards had just brought my dad out and between the thick glass separating us I could see his hands and feet in shackles. I felt hopeless, and ashamed. I spent the rest of my childhood watching my dad go in and out of prison due to his alcohol and drug addiction. When I was about 10, someone invited me to church. It was there I learned about my Heavenly Father; the one who would never leave me and who had a purpose for my life. It was on a Sunday when the nice church people gave me a ride home that I found Christian music on the radio. The songs breathed life into my chaotic world and taught me the depths of God’s love. In my teen years I fell away from God and at 17 became a teen mom. A few years later my dad came out of prison and met my now 2 young daughters. I had high hopes that despite him not seeing me grow up, now he’d be the best grandpa to them. That dream was short-lived. A few years later he was back in prison and was handed a 35 year sentence. The pain became too much and I vowed to close that chapter of my life. I wrote my dad a final letter letting him know how much of a disappointment he was and that I would never visit him in prison again. Over the next few years God spoke purpose into my life. I rededicated my life to Him, and became the first in my family to graduate from college. I landed a good job and life was full. One day while I was thanking God for all he had blessed me with, I heard the still small whisper, “It’s time to go see your dad”. It had been 6 years. I went to see him and began telling him about Jesus and what he’d done in my life. After every visit we’d pray that God would allow my dad to come home, to our surprise my dad received a pardon. Today he’s home and has surrendered his life to God. As for me, the girl that vowed she’d never walk into a prison again, today I do prison ministry. I go to maximum security prison yards all over and tell prisoners about the freedom that can only come from a life fully surrendered to Jesus.

Tammy: In 2019, God saved me and my son from what should have killed us. We were in a really bad car accident that left me with a broken hip and a blood clot in my neck from the seat belt that all of the emergency personnel said I was “lucky” to have survived. I told them, no, I wasn’t lucky at all, I am “blessed” by a great Big God who loves me so much to save me! This accident had me off my feet for a few months, in which time I felt depressed, sad, and worthless. I felt like I didn’t deserve anyone’s love, especially the love of God. I felt like such a burden to my family and church family because of all they were doing for me to help me recover. During this time of recovery, I heard the song “Truth be Told” by Matthew West. I heard the lyrics and I related so much to this song. I was broken. Not just bone broken, but emotionally broken. Spiritually broken. I felt so far from God. Whenever anyone would ask how I was doing, I’d always say, “I’m fine” but deep down, I wasn’t fine, I was so broken. BUT GOD!!!!

God led me to listen to more of Matthew West’s music and the more songs I’ve listened to, the more I started to feel healed! To this day, Matthew’s music is on replay on my Spotify! 🙌 God picked me up from my deepest darkest thoughts and He took those thoughts of worthlessness and turned them into worthiness! I started reading my Bible more, I started praying more. I knew my healing was a gift from God! I am now almost four years from our car accident, and I’m still living my life with a great outlook on how far God has brought me and am so thankful for God’s protection that dreadful night. I may have lost my car, lost my job, and my sense of independence at the time, but I gained my relationship back from Jesus, and for that I will always be grateful for my car accident! God is good ya’ll! He just wants the best for us. He loves us so much! If you’ve turned your head from Him, look back! He is still there, and He still loves you! ❤️ God bless you for reading my story.

Luke: God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit healed my heart and healed my brain. Every time I had a seizure, God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit was there with me and He will always be there with me all the time. He will be there day in and out and what I say is it’s like chapters in a book, but with music. I know every single person has their own story to tell and decisions to make and it definitely happens to me. I listen to tons of music and Matthew West was on z88.3 when he released the song “More” and “Next Thing You Know.” When I got a chance to listen to the song, “Next Thing You Know,” it changed my music career life because Jesus put me in the right direction. There is this part in the bridge that says, “So, what’s your story about His glory? You gotta find your place in the history of grace. Yeah, what’s your story about His glory? Come on and find your place” and I concur with you, Matthew, because that bridge is definitely correct and it is definitely one of the coolest song structures to add to the bridge in the song. He changed my story and the decisions I make along the way. And that is My Story Your Glory.

I remember being baptized in 2019, and I felt like God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit was touching me and they heard my voice and it blew my mind when I got baptized in water. 💧 It changed my story around and helped me make good decisions instead of bad and that’s because God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit resurrected me.

Thank you all so much for being vulnerable and sharing your stories. I pray you continue to walk with the Lord and that each day you grow closer and closer to Him. I pray you know how much He loves you and how proud He is of you. Thank you again for sharing!

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Just Ask, You Are Not Bothering The Lord 

Mark 11:24 “So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

I saw this was the verse of the day today, and then I heard a brief description of it, and the man talking said that Jesus said this to his disciples on the Tuesday before Good Friday. Since today is Tuesday before Good Friday, I thought it would be a good verse. It is a verse I rely on often, and it is just after a verse that I love and struggle with. It is just after verse 23, which says, “Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.” I struggle with that one because I have a hard time believing I could have enough faith to throw a mountain into the sea. I have also prayed for things that I truly believed would happen, and they didn’t, or they didn’t happen the way I thought they might.

However, today’s verse says, “Whatever we ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” So, this verse is not much different than the verse right above it. Here the Lord is telling us in two different ways that if we pray with expectant faith, our prayers will be answered. What really piqued my interest about this verse today is when Brad, from Passion, the man who talked about the verse of the day on the Bible app, said this verse came right after Jesus was explaining why the fig tree that he cursed had shriveled up and died. In Mark 11:12-14 it says, “On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry.  Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.  He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it” When they passed by the fig tree the next day they noticed it had withered away to its roots. This is when Jesus started talking about our prayers being answered when we truly believe.

What this made me think of this morning is how powerful our words are. Actually, not just our words, but our prayers. Do you know you can ask for things that might seem impossible? Did you know you can pray for amazing miracles? Did you know that God loves it when we ask for big, amazing things? God is constantly telling our prayer group that we are not asking for too much we are asking for too little. This isn’t to say that God doesn’t care about the little aspects of our life. He cares about every detail. I think we get stuck in our heads too much when we are thinking about prayer. We don’t want to ask God about little things because we don’t want to bother Him. We don’t want to ask God for big things because we don’t want to ask Him for too much. I think we are too afraid of offending God or inconveniencing God.

What if we truly thought of God as our Dad? Is there anything too big or too small to ask your dad? I know we have all had different experiences with dads. Maybe yours was great, and you could ask him anything. This was my dad. I wouldn’t feel bad asking him to come over and fix a lightbulb, and I wouldn’t feel bad asking him to come watch my kids for a week. It’s not that I don’t know that would be inconvenient for him, but I know he would love to help in any way he can because he is my dad. Maybe you didn’t have that experience with your dad. Maybe you couldn’t rely on him to come through for you. If this is the case I want you to know our heavenly father isn’t the same.

He was not born with original sin. He was not a part of this broken world. He can be there for us in ways that no person ever could be. The closer we get to our heavenly Father, the more we will trust that we can ask Him anything. If you are still tentative with your prayers. If you are still thinking you are bothering the Lord with your prayers, you are asking for too much, or coming to Him too often, I invite you to take that to the Lord today. I invite you in this very holy week to ask the Lord what is getting in the way of your relationship with the Father. What is preventing you from trusting Him fully?

When I say trusting Him, I don’t just mean trusting that He will answer your prayers. I mean trusting that He wants to answer your prayers. Trusting that He loves you and that nothing you could bring to Him would be a bother because He loves you that much. Trusting that He cares about all the little details of your life. Trusting that you won’t be asking too much of Him if you ask for the impossible. Trusting that He isn’t too busy to deal with the things you consider little things in your life. God wants us to bring Him everything. He doesn’t get tired of us talking to Him. He could listen to us talk all day and not get bored, not get annoyed. When I just thought that I got this strong impression in my Spirit that some of you are thinking that very same thought. You think that because people you know have told you that you talk too much, God thinks the same thing. He doesn’t. He wants you to know He never tires of hearing your voice, of sitting and talking with you. He wants you to bring Him everything you have.

I feel like I can’t come up with the words to help you realize how important you are to the Lord. How powerful our prayers can be when we pray them with expectant faith. Expectant faith is when we pray like the verse says, believing that we have received what we asked for. My sister described it once as praying, not as if you are asking God for something, but praying like you know he will say yes. Praying like it is not a matter of if but a matter of when. When we can learn to pray like this, our lives will change. The power of the one living inside of us will be unleashed. I don’t think it is something that happens all at once, at least not from what I have seen. It is something that we practice, and over time, as we begin to see the power of this type of prayer, we begin to trust the Lord more, we begin to grow closer to the Lord, trust Him, and turn to Him more, and then we see our faith grow.

I pray I can help each one of you realize the power you have inside of you. I pray I can help you all believe that you can pray for miracles and see them happen. I pray that the Lord gives me the words and scriptures for these episodes that help teach each and every one of us to walk boldly with Jesus.  

Dear heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each person listening to this episode today. Lord, we ask that you show us how to trust you more. We ask you to impress upon our hearts how much you love us. Help us believe that we are not inconveniencing you or bothering you with our prayers. Help us to truly believe you love when we come to you with our prayers. Help us to know there is nothing too big or too small a request for us to bring to you. Help us feel your love for us. Lord, I ask for you to put on our hearts anything that might be getting in the way of us growing closer to you and of us believing these things. We love you so much, Dad, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name. Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I will be on live for mentoring tonight at 8 EST, talking about the power of the Holy Spirit that we have living inside of us. If you would like to sign up for mentoring, you can click on the link below or go to my website, walkboldlywithjesus.com. If you want to check it out before joining, you can reach out to me on Facebook or email [email protected], and I will send you the Zoom link. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow! Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!

Today’s Word from the Lord was received in November 2023 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group or about these words, please email [email protected]. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “My children, I want you to call out to me. I long to bless you, to bless your families, to bless your communities, to bless your world. When you call to me, you open the floodgates of my love and my mercy. Ask for more you are asking for too little. I have much to give you. I have much to bless you with. Trust in me.” 

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You, Too, Have The Power To Choose God’s Will

Luke 22:42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.”

This is the beginning of Holy Week. We are getting closer and closer to the day Jesus died on the cross for our sins. In today’s verse, we see that Jesus struggled with this. If you have ever doubted Jesus’s humanity, this is a great witness to it. Jesus knew what was in front of Him. He knew the pain, the agony, the betrayal, the mocking, all of it. He knew, and He really didn’t want to go through it. He asked the Father if He was willing to take this cup from Him. He asked His dad to save Him if He was willing to. Yet Jesus said, “Still, not my will but yours be done.” Jesus, even though He knew what was coming, He still submitted to the Father’s will. This is the ultimate witness of obedience and of love. The reason I say obedience is because Jesus was still willing to be obedient to the Father’s will, even though the cost was great to Him. I say love because Jesus was doing this for not only love for his Father but also for His love for us.

He asked the Father to let this cup pass from Him because He knew how awful it would be. Yet, He also knew it was the only way to free us from our past mistakes, to put things right, and to repent for our original sin. Ellen G. White said, “Christ was treated as we deserve that we may be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. “By His stripes, we are healed.”

When I read this verse, I immediately thought of how many times we are not willing to do God’s will. I thought of how many times we know what God wants us to do and choose to do something that we want to do. I am talking to myself as much as I am talking to all of you today. Take a moment to think about it. If you are honest with yourself, I bet you can think of plenty of times when you knew God wanted you to do something, and yet you chose to do something else.

I will give you some examples that come to my mind. When I was in college, I knew God wanted me to be at church on Saturday or Sunday, yet I wanted to be doing anything else but being in church. Or when I first got married and we would want to sleep in, even though we knew God wanted us to be in church. When it was a Friday during Lent, and someone invited us over for some sort of meat dish. Or, we decide to go out to eat, and the meat dish looks better than the fish dish. When I knew the Lord wanted me to fast an hour before communion, and yet I really wanted to drink a cup of tea or have a quick bite to eat before mass. These are just a few of the many examples that I can think of when I knew what the Lord wanted me to do and I didn’t do it. These are a few examples of many when I decided my will was more important than the Lord’s will. I am sure you have your examples too.

What I find amazing is that these are all instances where following God’s will really wouldn’t have cost me any great sacrifice. At most, I would have been inconvenienced or inconvenienced someone else. There would not have been anything more than a bit of discomfort on my part, and yet I still chose my will over the Lord’s will. I would like to claim that I was young and really didn’t know what I was doing. However, I can remember distinctly knowing what God wanted me to do and choosing to do what I wanted to do, so I can’t even claim ignorance.

Yet, Jesus, who knew exactly what was coming His way, was able to say, Yet, not my will but yours. This was at a great cost to Jesus. He was going to have to suffer pain; I hope none of us have ever known. He was going to have to suffer humiliation like I pray none of us have ever seen. I am sure he suffered heartache as well. I can’t imagine what it was like for Him to watch as one of His very own disciples betrayed Him. I can’t imagine what it was like for Him to watch as those who followed him now yelled crucify him. I can’t imagine what it was like for Him to know His beloved Peter, whom he made the cornerstone of the church, would deny Him 3 times.

Christ knew all of that was coming, and yet He was still able to say, not my will but yours be done. I think sometimes we can minimize this because we tell ourselves things like, “Of course, He could do God’s will; he is fully God and fully Human.” The thing is He did not use his divine powers while He was on earth. The only divine powers He used on Earth were those he received from the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of Him. And guess what? We have that same Holy Spirit living inside of us. Do you know what this means? This means we are capable of choosing to do the Father’s will also.

The only difference is that Jesus knew His identity and His authority in the Father. He knew He was the Son of God. We are still learning this. We tend to believe the enemy when he tells us we don’t have any willpower. When he tells us, we aren’t strong enough to say no to our wants and desires. He tells us we are weak, and we believe him because we don’t know the power we have living inside of us. However, if the Holy Spirit could help Jesus accept the cross because it was God’s will, He could surely help us give up the things we have been refusing to give up. He could help us make the small sacrifices God is calling us to make. We just have to realize the power we have living inside of us and start relying on that power instead of our own power. Can you do that today? Can you acknowledge that, yes, on your own, you are helpless to make the changes God is calling you to make? However, when you partner with the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of you, There isn’t anything you can’t do. Stop listening to the enemy telling you that you have to keep doing that thing you don’t want to do. You are stronger than you know. You have the same power that Jesus had living inside of Him. You have the same Holy Spirit He had. You are strong!!

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us put your will first. Help us realize that you gave us the Holy Spirit to empower us. Help us see that you have already given us everything we will ever need to do whatever you ask us to do. Help us see that your will is for our best. Help us realize our identity and authority as your sons and daughters. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen!!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus! I look forward to meeting you again tomorrow. Mentoring is tomorrow night. I will be teaching on the Holy Spirit and the power we receive from it. I hope you can join me. I will put a link in the show notes. CLICK HERE for mentoring. Or you can go to my website, WalkboldlywithJesus.com. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!

Today’s Word from the Lord was received in November 2023 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group or these words, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup. Today’s Word from the Lord is (Continued from yesterday’s image of the back of the washer) “In my mercy, I will reconnect you to the flow of my life-giving waters. When we are reconnected together, the power of our hearts flowing together will wash, cleanse, and make new many who are wallowing in the muck and mire of the world. Stay connected to me so that grace and mercy will flow out to all who need it.”

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Stay Close To Christ, He Is The Living Water! 

Jeremiah 17:7-8 “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought, it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.”

I really like this imagery. I can see this tree being planted by the water and can envision it sending its roots out to get the water. It doesn’t have to fear when it gets hot because it has ready access to water. It is not worried when water is scarce as it has its very own supply. I think this is a great metaphor for our trust in the Lord. 

When we trust in the Lord and trust the Lord, we have access to the Living Water that Jesus talks about to the woman at the well. Jesus is all the spiritual nourishment we will ever need for our souls to thrive. Yet, we need access to it; we need to be close to Him. The tree in this water was planted near the water. However, it still needed to send out its roots to get the water. We need to do the same if we want the nourishment that God is happily willing to provide for us. 

We live in a time where access to Jesus is easily accessible, at least in the United States where I live. We are free to worship as we like. Bibles are not that expensive, and if you have a smartphone with apps, you can get the Bible App for free. This will not only give you the Bible, but it has almost all, if not all, the various translations. It also has the bible in 130 or so different languages. On this You Version Bible app, there are also countless Bible studies for free. Then you also have rosary apps to help you say the rosary. There is a Divine Mercy app that helps you say the Divine Mercy Chaplet. There are numerous apps to have prayers, meditations, talks, etc. There is no shortage of ways that you can connect with God through His Word and through prayer. 

There are also daily masses where you can go and receive the body and blood of Christ every day. You can also go to Eucharistic Adoration when it is offered at your church. There are also more and more Perpetual Adoration chapels opening. Perpetual Adoration means that you can go and love on Jesus any time of the day. These chapels are open 24 hours a day. However, some have a policy only to let scheduled adorers go throughout the late night hours, so call ahead and let them know if you want to drop in during the middle of the night. 

Then there are also YouTube and Podcasts. You can find someone talking about pretty much any subject you want to hear about on these two platforms. You can find podcasts where priests and ministers put their Sunday sermons for all to here. You can find podcasts that talk about Scripture, almost like a Bible Study. Exploring My Strange Bible is a great one for that! YouTube, you can just put the topic into the search bar, and you will find several videos to watch on each topic you type in the search bar. 

As you can see, we have access to many ways to connect with God. It is not difficult, and yet we still need to reach out, just as the tree above needed to send out its roots. If the tree had just stood tall right where it was and hoped that the water would reach out to it, then it would have died. We can have all this free access to information and yet do nothing with it. The information is there but we need to read it, watch it, go to it, whatever it may be. 

It doesn’t matter how often they offer masses if I am not going to them or how many translations of the Bible I can get if I am not even looking. We need to actively search for ways to connect to the Lord. He is our nourishment, our peace. He will provide us with what we need to get through the storms, but we need to be prepared. We need to have our roots set down deep, right next to Him. 

We need to be in God’s Word, whether it is a printed Bible you hold in your hands or if it is in the Bible app. Or you could do the Bible in a Year podcast with Father Mike. He reads a bit of the Bible to you each day and then describes what he just read. He explains in a way that is easy to understand. I listened to that podcast for the first two years it was out, and then I switched to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. That is also a great one to help you learn more about the Catholic Faith. We need to be connected to the Word of God. We need to read it, study it, and memorize some of it. The Word of God helps us learn more about God; it helps us understand Him better. 

We can’t trust His promises if we don’t even know what He promises us. One easy way to connect with God is to just talk with Him. Bring Him all your cares and worries. When you are trying to make a decision about something, bring it to the Lord and ask Him what you should do. Then listen for what he says you should do. If you ask God, He will answer; we just have to be ready to listen. You can talk with the Lord anywhere. You don’t have to talk out loud, although you can do that too. You can have a silent conversation with the Lord while you are in the grocery store waiting to check out or just while walking through the aisles. You can talk with God while you are driving to and/or from work or when you are stuck in traffic. I like to start my mornings talking with God. I don’t do it every morning, unfortunately, but I would like to. 

However it is that you want to reach out and search for the Lord is great. Your way of reaching out can be different than my way. I just thought I would list a few ways in case you weren’t sure how you could do it. I know we are all busy, and it seems we don’t have enough time in the day to reach out to God. Trust me when I say everything gets easier when you take the time to reach out to God, kind of like the tree in the verse above. Its life was easier because it was planted close to the water, and it could just send out its roots to collect the water. What if it had been further away? What if it wasn’t anywhere near water? How hard would it be for this tree to get the nourishment it needed? This is true with us too. What if we aren’t anywhere near the Lord? What if we aren’t sending out our roots to gather that Living Water to nourish us? Where would we be then? How hard would it be for us to get the nourishment we need? Stay close to the Lord! 

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those who listen to this episode. Lord, we ask you to help us stay close to you. If we are struggling to fit this into our schedule, I ask you to give us clarity. I ask you to send the Holy Spirit to help us make this a priority in our lives. We need you, Lord; we know this. Help us to spend more time with you. We love you, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen. 

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. If you are wondering how you can increase the time you spend with the Lord without adding anything else to your already busy schedule, CLICK HERE to get my free audio training on how to invite Jesus into the everyday things you are already doing. I look forward to seeing you on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!

Today’s Word from the Lord was received in November 2023 from someone in my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group or the Words received, please email [email protected]. Today’s Word from the Lord is “When you think you have nothing left, there is more. When you think you are at the end of it all, there is more. You are my warriors. You are my children. You are my love, and I honor you because you honor me, and with that, I give you more.”

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Chapter 8 Pray without Ceasing

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

I don’t know about you, but I am sort of a perfectionist and rule follower. I like to do things the way they are supposed to be done. I am not a fan of recipes that say add a little of this and a lot of that. I like recipes that lay out the instructions step by step with exact measurements. I do not like to add things that are not in the recipe, and I don’t like to leave things out. I like to follow the instructions exactly. This is why, when I first heard this passage, I was stuck on the pray without ceasing part. How does one pray without ceasing? What about work, sleep, taking care of the kids? How can I pray all of the time and still do everything that needs to get done for my family? Have you ever had thoughts like these?

Over the years I have heard various ways to pray without ceasing and I thought I would share a couple with you to help encourage you, and to help you realize, especially any fellow perfectionists, you are probably already praying without ceasing. And if you are not already doing it you will see you could easily begin doing it.

In preparing for this chapter, I read a few articles and looked back at some sources I had seen before. They all pretty much agree it is not formal, audible prayer you need to do all the time. It is more of a “heart attitude.” Psalm 34:1 says “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praises will continually be in my mouth.” Isaiah 26:3 says “God will keep them in perfect peace whose minds focus on Him.”

Praying without ceasing is about shifting your thought process and turning every day moments into prayer. There was one analogy I found that said, “It’s like keeping the radio playing in the background.” It is not that you are audibly praying to God 24 hours a day. It is more that you are thinking of God, and he is in the background of all your thoughts throughout the day.

After reviewing all the things and getting ready to write, I reread the verse at the beginning and realized the answer is contained in the 1 Thessalonians verse. Rejoice always, is having an attitude of joyfulness, and in everything give thanks, is having an attitude of thankfulness. How do we rejoice and give thanks? Through prayer! Therefore, effective prayer is a proper heart attitude: a mental outlook of joyful thanksgiving.

Now some of you may hear that and instantly know you are already praying without ceasing. You may know you have a heart for God and you are praising and thanking him throughout the day with your thoughts and words. However, some of you may be like me and may be thinking, yes, that is great, but what exactly can I do to pray without ceasing. I am someone who likes exact steps to follow to make sure I am doing something correctly. This is why I will give you a few examples of ways you can pray without ceasing.

First, I will summarize a video I watched called “3 Steps to Unceasing Prayer” by Father Mike Schmitz. If you google this, you can watch the video yourself. It is just over 5 minutes long. In the YouTube video, Father Mike Schmitz lists three steps he learned from St. Francis DeSales that you could do to transform everything you do into a prayer.

Ask God to be present. Yes, God is always present and attentive to you, but by asking him to be present, you are letting him know you will be present too.

Offer this moment to God. Offer him all the joy, the suffering, whatever you may be feeling, offer it to God.

Accept –Resolve to accept whatever comes out of this moment.

This will not only transform your relationship with God, but it will also transform how you live. When you ask God to be attentive to you, you allow every moment to be a sacrament. You invite God into that moment, which makes it a channel of Grace. Then, when you offer the moment up to him, you make each moment a sacrifice. When you choose to accept the outcome, you make every moment a moment of surrender. For instance, you can do this when you go to bed at night. God, I ask you to be attentive to me, and I am attentive to you. I offer this night’s sleep to you as a sacrifice, as a gift to you, and I accept whatever comes out of it.

Another person I admire, Matthew Kelly, in his book Resisting Happiness, also talks about transforming every moment into a prayer. He suggests you pause for a brief moment before a new task or before another hour of work and offer that work to God as a prayer for a specific person. For instance, God, I offer you this task of doing the dishes as a prayer for my husband, or my parents, etc. He also mentioned if you are studying or reading, you could write the initials of those you know who need prayers on the top of each page, and before you read or study that page, you can offer it up for that person.

There is also something called the Jesus Prayer. This is something you can train yourself to have playing in the background of your thoughts. You can say as you breathe in, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,” and say as you breathe out, “Have Mercy on me.” This is something you practice, and although it takes conscious thought while learning, it could become something so natural that you do it without thinking. Did you ever notice some things that seem strange at first can become a habit? One thing that comes to mind is counting my steps. When I joined the marching band, we had to learn to count our steps because while we were marching, we were making different shapes on the field. This was strange at first, but 20 years later, I find myself counting steps occasionally.

There are a few other ways you can pray without ceasing. You can begin each day with a conversation with God. You can just sit down with Him and talk to Him as if you were a close friend. Tell Him all about your day, what you have planned and what you are excited about, maybe what you need help with. Yes, I know God already knows about your day, and He knows what you are going to say before you say it. However, there is something intimate about you telling Him anyway. As your day progresses, you can continue this conversation and let Him know how your day is going.

You can incorporate prayer into your daily tasks. While you wash dishes, you could pray for a different person with each dish you wash, or you could offer up the task of washing dishes for one intention. This is also effective with any task you do throughout the day, especially if it is a task you do not like doing. Offering up one’s suffering for an intention is a wonderful way to pray. If you have something you feel needs a lot of prayer, then you can attach that intention to something you do a lot throughout the day. For instance, you could tell God that every time you wash your hands, you are offering it up as a prayer for your children. Think of how many times you would be praying for your children throughout the day.

You could use the time you are stuck in traffic or waiting in a long line at the store to say a prayer for someone or something. Another way to incorporate more prayer into your day is to listen to music. St. Augustine said, “To sing is to pray twice.” I used to put on praise and worship music while I was cleaning or if I was driving somewhere, and I would sing along. It made the task go by faster, and I was able to turn that time into prayer time.

Another way to pray is to admit it when we mess up and then move on. Sometimes we spend too much time focused on all that we do wrong. When we confess to God when we mess up, he forgives us, so we do not need to stay in that place of guilt and shame. It is important to take a moment to let God know we are sorry, but he does not want us to dwell there. This prayer does not eliminate the need to go to confession, but it helps us not to hold onto that sin and get stuck there.

Another way to pray without ceasing is to give up worrying. Worry is the opposite of faith.  Philippians 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” We waste so much time worrying. Next time you want to worry, just imagine yourself extending it up to the Lord our God and letting Him hold it for you. You can ask if you have a role to play, something He wants you to do, but do not take back the weight of that worry. Then start thanking God for who He is and all He has already done for you.

One last way I will share with you is to stop talking once in a while and just listen. The number or quality of words in your prayer doesn’t matter because prayer is about God, not about us. Spend some time just being, simply sitting and resting in His presence. You won’t hear anything if you never stop to listen. This is something I feel many of us struggle with. We find asking God for the things we need or even thanking Him for the things He has done for us, comes much easier than stopping and listening to what God has to say to us.

I have always struggled with hearing God and understanding what that even meant. This can mean different things to different people. Most people do not hear an audible voice; it’s more of a thought in their head or a sense about something. I have come to know that a small voice deep inside is the Holy Spirit guiding me. If we never stop to ask God to speak to us, how can we be surprised He doesn’t. If we don’t step outside the noise and chaos of the world to really listen, then how will we hear Him?

I will end with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson “It is not only when we address our petitions to the Deity that we pray. We pray without ceasing. Every secret wish is a prayer. Every house is a church; the corner of every street is a closet of devotion.”

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. If you liked this chapter please check out my book at walkboldlywithjesus.com or amazon.com. If you enjoyed the ideas of various ways to include prayer in your everyday tasks, then I have a free audio training that goes into more detail on this idea. To get this free audio training, you can CLICK HERE, or you can go to my website walkboldlywithjesus.com. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Remember Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day.

Today’s Word from the Lord was received in November 2023 by a member of the Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group during one of our meetings. For more information about the prayer group or these words, please email [email protected]. “My children, you are my heart. You are the song of the morning and sweetness of a spring day. Forget yesterday; it’s ok. I know you, every fiber of your being. I have knitted. I love my children, and I am gentle with them. Just don’t stop talking to me. We’ll work it out. “

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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