Walk Boldly With Jesus

His Divine Power Granted to Us

2 Peter 1:3-4 “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”

I really liked this verse when I read it and then the more I looked at it, the less convinced I was that I could explain it well.  I looked it up online to see what others said about it and it turns out that a lot of people have talked about it and they don’t all agree.  There is one article that I read titled “Created to Grow” By Daryl Dash. (CLICK HERE) The article seemed to explain this verse in a way I could really understand.  

I think what drew me to this verse were two different parts.  First, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.”  I like that He has granted us all things we need for life and godliness.  Our call, each and every one of us, is to become a saint.  We all have a call for holiness and to hear that Jesus’ divine power has granted us all we need for this is amazing.  The second part that drew me to this verse is when it says, “So that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature.”  We talked about this in my Encounter Ministries class and it just blows me away.  I am blown away with the idea that we may partake of the divine nature.  Can you imagine how much God must love us for Him to want this for us, for Him to share this with us?

Let’s take the first part of this verse.  His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.  This is not talking about the type of power we have on our own.  This isn’t talking about the power we have through our humanity.  This is divine power that we are talking about.  We are talking about the power that Jesus had.  God is giving us this same power.  It is a power that never runs out and that is sufficient for all that we need. This is something that can be hard to believe.  We often don’t feel like the power we have is sufficient for all that we are going through.  I mean we are going through so really hard times right now.  Our power seems pretty insufficient a lot of the time.  This is because we are trying to do it all ourselves.  We are forgetting to invite God into our problems.  Also, we invite Him in and we turn our problems over to Him, and then we take them right back.  God has given us His divine power and yet we don’t use it.  We rely on our own power.  Why do we do this?  Why can’t we invite God in and let Him help us?  

The next part of the verse after it talks about the kind of power we are given, it says how we received it.  It says it was granted to us.  Do you know what that means?  We don’t have to earn it.  The article I read compared this to when a student fills out an application for a grant to go to college.  If they qualify, they get the grant.  They didn’t do anything to earn it and they never have to pay it back.  It is just given to them free of charge.  This is exactly how we get our power by God.  You are a child of God, so you qualify.  Therefore, His divine power is freely given to you.  We don’t deserve it, we don’t earn, God simply gives it to us because we need it.  Just like the student requesting the grant, need is the only qualification.

Next it says what this power covers, “all things.”  That is pretty amazing.  God’s power isn’t like an insurance policy where they will cover this and that, but not that other thing.  God doesn’t say that His power will cover most of what we need, but then we need to come up with the rest.  The verse says that His power will cover all things that pertain to life and godliness.  There is nothing that is not covered by this power.  He give us all we need to live our lives day to day and He also gives us all we need to grown in holiness or godliness.  He doesn’t just give us what we need to grow closer to Him, He gives us all we need to grow in all aspects of our life.  

Once we can learn this, I mean really learn this and understand it the depths of our heart, life will get easier.  It won’t seem so hard.  Life may never be easy, and yet when you know with your whole being that you don’t need to be strong enough on your own because God has given you enough of His power for all you need, it feels a bit easier, or maybe not easier, but a bit lighter.   Once you fully accept that you are not alone and that you don’t have to do it alone, you can suddenly breathe a little easier.  God’s power is enough for whatever it is you are going through.  I know you feel like you will be crushed with the weight of your problems some days and yet, God has given you enough power to stand tall under all that weight.  I know you have days when you want to give up, don’t, God’s power is right there, just ask for it, just accept it!

The next part of this verse says, “through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises.”  When we are trying to grow closer to God the best way to do this is to get to know God.  Think about how you grow closer to your friends or your family.  Normally you spend time with them, you talk with them and you learn all you can about them.  It’s the same with God.  You can get to know Him by spending time with Him in prayer.  You can spend time with Him talking and then taking time to listen to what He has to say.  You can also get to know God by reading scriptures.  The more you read the Bible the more you learn about who God really is.  God is the same yesterday, today and forever.  That means the God of the Old Testament is also the same God as the New Testament, who is also the same God we have today.  

If we want to know how God will react in a certain circumstance we can see how He has acted in the past. If you want to know if God will be there for you when things get tough look back at all the ways He has been there for His people in the past.  If you want to know what God will do when you do’t have enough money to feed your family look back to how He miraculously provided Mana every single day when His people were in the desert.  If you want to know what He will do when you have you back against the wall, your enemy is gaining on you, and you can’t see a way out, read about what God did for the Israelites when the reached the Red Sea and there was no where to cross and the Egyptian army was right behind them.  He parted the Red Sea and made a way where there wasn’t one.  Then he let that Sea come roaring back to destroy their enemy.  Everything you need to know about God can be found in the Bible.  

This verse also says “by which he has granted to us His precious and very great promises.”  If you want to know what these promises are, you can also find that in the Bible. God has made many promises to His people and He has always kept them.  God is not like us.  He does not make promises and then break them.  I am guessing this is another after effect of the fall, I don’t know, but God does not do that.  When He says something He means it and He always keeps His promises.  When you read through the Bible and you read something that Jesus has said to the apostles, just know He is saying that to you as well.  You can read the Bible as if God is talking directly to you.  Sometimes people even insert their name when they are reading the Bible.  Especially anywhere where it says God’s people, or where it says the Israelites.  The words in the Bible are just as much for you as they are for anyone else.  

The very last line of this verse says, “so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” We are meant to partake in the divine nature.  Jesus died on the cross for our sins and when He did that he overcame evil.  That doesn’t mean that we will never give in to sin again, but it does mean that we are not slaves to sin.  We have a choice.  We get to choose if we want to spend eternity with our heavenly Father or not.  That wasn’t a choice before and now it is.  We escaped from the corruption that is in world when Jesus died for our sins.  Jesus has given us a divine power to choose God.  We have this divine power that makes us capable of all we need, we just have to access it.  We have to believe we have it and exercise it with authority.  The good news is we don’t have to do this all by ourselves.  We can turn to God, get to know God and the rely on His power instead of our own.

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, help us to rely on your power and not our own as we have no power without you.  We can do nothing without you and yet we can do all things through you.  We are so grateful for the divine power you are granting us.  Lord we ask that you put a deep desire in our heart to get to know you more.  Lord, we ask that you put a hunger in our heart to read the scriptures and to learn your word.  We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!

Thank you for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I!  Have a blessed day!

Article: Created To Grow by Daryl Dash

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Remember What God Has Done For Us

Isaiah 51:15-16 “I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the Lord of hosts is his name. And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’”

This was the verse that we used to go with the monthly bookmark that we do monthly at my prayer group.  It seemed to go well with the words of prophecy that we received and discerned for that month.  We were working on January’s discernment.  After reading this verse again this morning I wanted to get a sense of what others said about it.   I wanted to make sure I really understood what it meant so I could help you understand what it means.  I am glad I did because I definitely would have missed the context of this verse.  

The first line, “I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the Lord of hosts is his name.”  This is meant to remind the Israelites of when God saved them from Egypt.  However, not so much about how He parted the Red Sea so they could pass through on dry land, this is more to remind them of what happened after they crossed safely. God sent the raging waters to destroy those who chased after them.  This is God reminding them that He is there protector and that He is there savior.  A few verses earlier in Isaiah 51:12-13 it says, “I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy? And where is the wrath of the oppressor? God is trying to remind the Israelites who they are.  They are the chosen people of God.  They have His protection.  Throughout this chapter He is trying to remind them of who they are and that they don’t need to be afraid. They don’t need to be afraid of their enemies, they don’t need to be afraid of anything because God is on their side.  

This is a great reminder to us as well.  We don’t have to be afraid of the current president, the last president, or the next president.  We don’t have to focus on how bad the world around us is getting.  We don’t have to focus on all the messes in our life.  We need to focus on how God is Sovereign over all of these – He is the Almighty.  Everything He wills comes to pass. And God has promised Jerusalem that the day will come when her exile will be finished, and she will return. If God has promised it, then His people can count on it, they can rely on it.  God is trying to remind the Israelites that He is the Lord of hosts and if He saved them before He can save them again.  I think He is also telling us this too!  God rolled back the seas so His people could pass on dry ground and then let them roar again to protect those same people.  What has God done in your life that you can look back to and know that you will be ok in this tough time as well?  What has He done in the past that proves to you that He will show up in this present situation as well?  If you can’t think of something He has done personally in your past, you can look to what He has done in scripture.  Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” What He has done in the past that He can do again.  

The last part of the verse says, “And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’” This part of the verse is reminding us that we have a part to play in God’s plan.  Yes, He is there to protect us and He also wants us to go out and spread His message to all those we meet.  He doesn’t want us to sit around and worship Him and praise Him and yet keep Him to ourselves.  He is protecting us and filling us up with His graces so that we can share them with all we meet.  This might make us nervous to think about talking about God to others.  I know I get nervous thinking about it.  What if I don’t know what to say? What if they ask questions and I don’t have any answers?  What if I say the wrong thing, or say something that isn’t true?  In this verse God is reassuring us that when we say yes, when we step out in that call, He will be putting the words in our mouth.  God isn’t asking us to know everything, He isn’t asking us to be an eloquent speaker or have all the right words, He is asking us to be an empty vessel. He is asking for our “yes” and then He will give us the words to say.  

God is calling each and every one of us to go out and to pass to others all He has given us.  Each month when we review and discern all the words that God has given us throughout the prayer group meetings, we realize that God is giving us this call over and over again.  He doesn’t always say it in the same way, and yet it is always there.  Go and tell my people, go and spread my love, my hope, my love, my peace, my forgiveness.  God would not keep telling us every single week if it was not important to Him.  He also probably wouldn’t keep telling us this if we were doing it.  So, why aren’t we doing it?  Why aren’t we passing on what the Lord is giving us?  What is stopping us?  This will be different for each one of us.  I can’t answer these questions for you.  I can tell you when I started to read the Bible more and learn more about my faith, I started to want to share more with others.  Maybe it is the enemy telling us we don’t know enough to share with others?

Although, when God is asking us in prayer group to share with others, it is not knowledge of the scripture He is asking us to share.  He is asking us to share His love, His peace, His joy, His forgiveness and other things like this.  These are things we don’t need to be super smart and have the Bible memorized to share.  We can share these things without knowing much scripture at all.  However, we do need to have these things in our life if we want to share them.  If we don’t know God’s love, peace, joy, forgiveness then we can’t share it with others? God wants to give us all of this and more and all He asks is that we share it with those around us.  We don’t have to go up to strangers and share it, we could start right in our own home with those we spend the most time with.  I have included in this episodes the bookmark that we worked on yesterday.  I think hearing an example of God’s call for us to go out and share all He gives will help you understand a bit better.  Also, as you can see in the bookmark, He doesn’t start by directing us to go out and share.  He starts by calling us closer and then telling us how special we are and reminding us how amazing He is.  Then He asks us to go out and share it with others.  I will leave you with His words today.  Here are the words we felt God wanted us to use for the January 2023 bookmark:

Come closer to me.  Come deeper with me.  Come into my presence because I want you, my diamonds, to sparkle so that all those around you will want to come and be in your presence to absorb your light.  Your light is my life in you.  I am the God who loves you.  I am the God who protects you.  I am the God who never stops caring for you. I give you my abundant blessings.  No matter what is going on in your life right now I take each step that you take.  When you feel you can’t stand I am there to carry you. What I share with you , you must share with others.  It is I who sends you to share my way, my truth and my life so that others may grow in me and love me.  Arise and go forward with the name of Jesus on your lips.

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we love you and we are so grateful for your words above.  We are grateful that you want to spend your time talking to us when you have so much to do.  We are grateful for your protection and that we are your chosen people.  We are sorry we get it wrong so often and we just ask for your forgiveness.  We love you Lord.  We thank you for your protection and we thank you for putting the words in our mouth.  Please give us the courage to use those words to help bring others to you Lord.  We love you 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 look forward to seeing you again on Monday.  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I.  Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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Things Planned Long Ago

Isaiah 25:1 “Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.”

I saw this verse on Facebook today and I really liked it.  It reminds us of several important things.  First, it reminds us to exalt and to praise our Lord and Savior.  I thought I would look up the world exalt as it is one of those words that I kinda know what it means, but if you asked I wouldn’t be able to give you a definition.  In case this is you too, according to Oxford dictionary, exalt means to hold (someone or something) in very high regard; think or speak very highly of. This makes sense, we definitely should be holding God in high regard as He is the creator of all heaven and earth.  He is the creator of the whole universe.  We should definitely exalt the Lord.  The one part of that definition that I wonder if we do enough, or even much of at all is to speak highly of Him.  

Do we speak highly of God?  I mean to speak highly of Him means we are speaking of Him and are we doing that?  When do we talk about God?  When are we talking about Him and telling others about Him?  I think praising God is easier because we can do this on our own.  We can sing praise songs, we can say in our minds or out loud how amazing He is and we can thank Him for all He does.  I guess we could exalt Him on our own too.  We could speak highly of Him to ourselves I guess too.  When we are praising Him we could be saying how amazing He is.  

I think it would be great if we could figure out how to exalt the Lord more to other people.  Who do we feel like we could talk to about God?  Who would want to hear us talk about the amazing things God has done for us?  Do you have a group of friends you can talk to about God?  Do you have people who love to hear about the way God is working your life?  This verse is a great reminder to do this. If you don’t have friends who want to hear about it, this verse could be a prompt for you to find some.  A great place to find people open to hearing how God is working in your life is at church, a bible study, a Christian women’s group or men’s group, a prayer group.  

Having a faith community is so important, even if it is just online.  I am part of a Christian mentoring group and it has been so helpful over the years.  It is great to have people to reach out to and they support you with prayers.  Because it is a Christian group they help you solve your problems and they offer support in a way that is inline with the Christian way of living.  If you have a fight with your husband and you ask for prayers they aren’t going to be telling you to leave your husband.  They will offer suggestions of things they have tried when they struggled.  There is nothing like having a great group of fellow believers surrounding you.  This also provides lots of opportunities to exalt and praise the Lord with others who do the same.

The next part of this verse says, “For in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.” This reminds us that God is faithful.  I think we can forget this at times when it seems like nothing is going our way.  When we ask God for something and He doesn’t answer our prayers the way we want Him to.  The Bible says when we ask God answers and sometimes we think this means He gives us everything and anything that we ask for.  This is not what that means.  God does not ignore any of our prayers or our requests.  However, His answer is sometimes no and also He sometimes says not yet.  These can be hard for us to hear and since His ways are higher than our way and His thoughts greater than our thoughts, we usually don’t understand why the answer is no.  This can cause us to doubt His faithfulness.  This can cause us to believe He is not listening to our prayers.  

This verse reminds us that He is faithful to us.  He has heard every one of our prayers and He has answered every one of our prayers.  If we haven’t seen how the prayer has been answered than maybe the answer was no or maybe is was not yet.  Either way, we might have a harder time seeing those answers to our prayers.  We also may not like the answers to those prayers.  This is when we have to remember that God knows the whole picture and we only know the part we have lived already.  God has the benefit of hindsight because there is no time limitations on God.  He can see the past, present & future all at the same time.  I know this is not really something our brains can comprehend but it is how God works.  All we see is the no that God gave us, we see that closed door and we are devastated.  What we don’t see is the better door that He is going to open when we get there.  It wasn’t actually a no, it was a not yet.  

The last part of the verse says, “You have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.”  I think we often forget that God had our lives planned out long before we were even born.  There is nothing that we do that surprises God.  There is nothing we could do that He didn’t already expect us to do.  Sometimes when amazing things happen we think that we were just lucky.  We “thank our lucky stars” that the vice president just happened to leave at the exact same time that you were being looked at for a promotion.   Guess what, God knew when you were going to be looked at for a promotion and arranged an amazing job opportunity for the Vice President at that exact time. God knows our needs way before we know what we need.  He also knows what we don’t need long before we know.  God knew I didn’t need to be with a jealous man for the rest of my life and gave me the strength and wisdom to break up with my high school/college boyfriend.  He also knew who I did need to spend the rest of my life with and made sure I was available when I met him.  

God knows the desires of your heart, He put them there.  He knows what things we need and what things we don’t need.  He knows what jobs are good for us and what jobs are not.  He knows what people are good for us and which ones aren’t.  I wish that meant that we never made mistakes because we just let God lead all of our decisions.  However, that isn’t the case, we sometimes don’t want to hear what God has to say, or we don’t like what He has to say.  I knew in Sept of my sophomore year of college that I would need to break up with the boy I dated for the last 4 years.  God put it on my heart when we were at a Labor Day party with his family.  Although I knew we needed to break up in Sept, it took me until March to listen and to actually do it.  

Sometimes we know what God is telling us, what He wants us to do and yet we don’t want to listen.  God is so patient with us and sometimes He will wait for us to come around to our senses, other times, He will do something to wake us up and get us to listen to Him.  Not only is He patient with us when we don’t listen to Him or go against what He has planned, but when we come back He uses all that happened for good. God has amazing things planned for our life and they are things that He planned long ago.  It is not as if God is on the edge of His seat waiting to see what you are going to do.  He knows what you are going to do and He has planned in advance for it.  There isn’t anything we can do that is a surprise to Him.  He does wonderful things for us and He planned those wonderful things long ago!

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we love you and we are so grateful for all you do.  We are grateful you look out for us and you protect us from ourselves.  We are grateful you made plans for us long ago and that you have done wonderful things in our lives to keep those plans.  We are sorry for all the times we failed to listen to your promptings or turned away from you and we are grateful that you find a way to use all that happens for good.  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 look forward to spending time with you tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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Today I want to witness about how God is working in my life.  I don’t have any big miracles to share with you today and I think that is ok because the whole point of Witness Wednesdays is to show God working in our lives in big ways and in small ways.  I wanted to show how God is in the ordinary things in life as much as He is in the extraordinary things.  My dream for some time now is to be a speaker and to be part of a healing ministry.  I have been doing personal development for several years now and I have been motivated to change by so many speakers and one day I decided I wanted to be that person on the stage motivating others.  Except I don’t want to be a personal development speaker, I want to become a speaker so I can tell everyone who will listen about God’s love. I truly feel if people could learn that God is love and know this down to their core the world would be a better place.  Knowing I wanted to be a professional speaker, I joined the organization called Toastmasters because they help you become a better speaker.  If you haven’t heard of Toastmasters it is a group where you can give speeches, and practice impromptu speaking each meeting.  They also have an educational component to it that teaches you have to give a good speech and also teaches you how to do different types of speeches.  It is a great program and I really learned a lot.  

When I decided I wanted to be a part of a healing ministry I started reading all the books I could get my hands on about healing.  I looked into several healing programs where I could either go there to take a course or I could do it online.  However, all of them seemed a bit expensive at the time and also my family was falling apart and I needed to work on healing that before adding anything else to my plate.  My kids needed my attention and a lot of it.  It wasn’t the right time.  Then I heard about this new program called Encounter Ministries, but again it was not the right time for it.  It would have been online and it would have been during a time when I was having to drive into Boston pretty regularly.  However, the next year it came to the Boston area for an in person class and things at home had improved a lot.  I was able to sign up and take the course.  

During this course we had a quarter on Prophetic Words.  When doing the various activities during the prophetic quarter there were several people that told me that there was a breakthrough coming in my near future, sometime in the first half of this year.  I was excited because that confirmed what I had been hearing God tell me in my personal life as well.  I was thinking that breakthrough was going to come in the form of me talking at the retreat I planned to attend.  However, when I asked if they needed a speaker they said they were all set.  I was definitely disappointed as I felt that was what the Lord wanted me to do, but I trusted whatever His plan was, it would happen.  I kept my eyes open for other chances to give a talk.  One day in February the woman organizing the retreat said one of the speakers had to  back out and asked if I was still willing to talk.  I was so grateful.

I went to adoration to ask God what He wanted me to talk about as the theme of the retreat was Christ In Me.  What does it mean for us as women to have Christ in us literally and spiritually in mass and then to take that out into the world?  While in adoration I felt the Lord tell me I needed to learn more about the Eucharist, so I did.  It was so beautiful how he lead me to exactly what He wanted me to know and how He helped me put it together in a way that taught others about the Eucharist and what it means to have Christ within me, without boring them or giving them too much technical stuff.  Everyone at the retreat loved the talk and felt they learned from it.  My friend Joan said it changed the way she interacted at mass that day.  

This retreat was a breakthrough because I can finally say I am a paid speaker, because I got paid to speak at the retreat.  It was also a breakthrough because I got to tell all those who attended that I have a podcast and that I have a book.  I put 20 of my books out on the tables on the last day so that if anyone wanted to buy one, they could.  I sold all 20 of them.  There was one religious Sister who bought one book for each of the other 5 Sisters living in her house.  It was so great to share my book with others and hopefully they will enjoy it and share it with others as well!

Can you see how God was working in all of that?  He was working in the details to guide me to a Toastmasters group and He was working the details to provide an in person opportunity to learn more about healing and all the other gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Through this class I have grown so much and I have also met really incredible people who are all on this journey with me.  It really is great to be surrounded by others who are also working developing the same things you are.  We can support each other along the way, especially when the enemy comes in and tries to tell us lies.  When this happens we have each other to speak truth into that lie.  

This program has given me the courage to ask people if I can pray over them or to ask people if they want me to pray with them.  This was really helpful on the retreat I just attended.  I was able to ask the main keynote speaker if she wanted me to pray over her before her talk.  She then asked me to pray over her before her next talk as well.  There was one point where we were doing discernment for who will be on the next board to run the N. E. Region of the MCCW.  I was able to walk about the room and pray over everyone discerning the position.  It was a really beautiful opportunity.

God is so good to us.  He guides us in the right direction and He has perfect timing.  It doesn’t always feel like perfect timing when we are in it, but years later we can usually see how His timing was actually perfect timing.  I have done several witnesses lately about the amazing miracles God has done in my life or the lives of others.  I have had others witness about profound times in their life where God has shown up.  Today I wanted to share with you some of the smaller ways, some of the behind the scenes ways that God has shown up in my life.  God may not be making any giant, grand gestures in your life right now.  That doesn’t mean He is not there and that doesn’t mean that He is not working.  He is in every single detail of your life.  We just need to look for Him and we will find Him.

We have all seen God working in our lives, however, we might not all be aware it is God who is working in our lives.  This is why it is so important we start talking about it more.  The more we share our experiences the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us.  If you would be willing to share any experience you have had of how God has worked or is working your life, please email me at [email protected] or just click here.  It won’t take up much of your time and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today.  Prayerfully consider sharing.  Everyone has a story and the world needs to hear them.  I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow and I will have another witness for you next Wednesday.  Remember Jesus loves you and so do I. Have a blessed day!

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What Is The Enemy Saying?

Judges 7:9-11 “That same night the Lord said to him, “Get up, attack the camp; for I have given it into your hand. But if you fear to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah;  and you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to attack the camp.” Then he went down with his servant Purah to the outposts of the armed men that were in the camp."

This is one of the verses that Pastor Steven Furtick touched on in his sermon a few weeks ago.  The entire sermon was good and I will probably touch on something else he said in a different podcast because it had to do with worry and I know a lot of us struggle with worry.  I will put a link for the whole sermon in the show notes. (Click Here) However, today’s message is a bit different than you might have heard before and yet when I heard it I knew I could relate to it and I bet you will too.  The verse above comes after an interesting part in the Bible.  In this verse God is talking to Gideon.  He has been talking to him for awhile now.

An angel first appeared to Gideon and told him he was a mighty warrior that was leading his people to victory over their oppressors.  Gideon did not believe this as he really couldn’t see himself as a mighty warrior because he was the least in his family.  Gideon asked the Lord to do several things to prove he really was God and then he finally accepted this information.  Then Gideon gathered troops and went to fight the Midianites army. God told Gideon he had too many soldiers. If they went to war with 32,000 soldiers then the Israelites would take the credit for the win instead of knowing that it was God who delivered them.  God told Gideon to send anyone home that was fearful and trembling.  Gideon did this and 22,000 people left.  He was now down to 10,000.  

I am sure he was scared and thinking he was crazy for sending home all these people.  However, God told him that was not enough.  He told him to take those that were left down to the water and watch how they drank the water.  Split them into two groups, those who put there face to the water and drink and those who use there hands to cup the water and then drink.  There were 300 soldiers who cupped their hands to drink and 9,700 who put their face to the water.  God told Gideon to keep the 300 and send the rest home.  Can you even imagine this?  In Judges 7:12 it says, “The Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the east lay along the valley as thick as locusts; and their camels were without number, countless as the sand on the seashore.”  There troops are thick as locusts and Gideon now has 300 men.

This is where the verse above fits into this story.  God is telling Gideon that he has given the enemy into his hand and he should go and attack in the night.  However, God said if you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp and hear what they are saying about you.  That right there is the part I find interesting.  Sometimes we won’t listen to God about what he says about us, we need to hear it from someone else.  Why is that?  God is the almighty one?  He is the maker of the whole universe.  Why do we take someone else’s word for it?  Why do we need someone else to tell us the same thing?  I thought this part of the sermon was different than most other sermons because usually we are telling you not to listen to the enemy.  However, in this verse God is telling Gideon to go down and listen to what the enemy is saying about him.  

In Judges 7:13-14 it says, “ When Gideon arrived, there was a man telling a dream to his comrade; and he said, “I had a dream, and in it a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came to the tent, and struck it so that it fell; it turned upside down, and the tent collapsed.”  And his comrade answered, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, a man of Israel; into his hand God has given Midian and all the army.”  When Gideon heard this he worshiped the Lord and he believed what the Lord had said.  Gideon went back and got his army and did as the Lord had commanded.”  Gideon needed to hear it from the enemy that he was powerful.  God told Gideon that He had already delivered the Midianites into the hands of Gideon’s army and yet He was still afraid.  He was afraid until he heard the Midianite, the enemy, talking about how powerful he was.  

Is this you too?  Has God been telling you He has great plans for you?  Has He been telling you that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you?  Has He been telling you that you will make it through this hard storm?  Have you been listening to Him?  Have you been worrying instead of believing?  Are you scared?  If so, you are in great company.  However, I want you to consider this, if you weren’t powerful, why would the enemy bother with you?  The enemy has limited resources, you better believe the enemy is focusing on those who are going somewhere, doing something.  If you are lukewarm in your faith, the enemy is not going to bother with you.  He’s not worried as he knows that God is not interested in us being lukewarm in our faith.  If you have been under attack lately.  If you have noticed the enemy attacking your family, attacking you, attacking your marriage, attacking your friendships or your job, it is because the things God is saying about you are true.  You are the amazing, wonderful son or daughter of God that He keeps telling you about.  

This is the one time where I would say it is ok to look at what the enemy is saying.  Maybe not what he is saying with his words as the words may still be unkind.  However, look at what his actions are saying.  When you look at the spiritual attacks that are coming in your life, picture yourself as Gideon in this story.  You are facing an army as many as the locusts and you only have 300.  However, you have the 300 that God picked for you and you have the promise from God that He has already delivered them into your hands.  You’ve got this!  Whatever it is that you are going through right now, God will help you through it.  He has already made a way and now all you have to do is ask Him to help lead you to it.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, you are amazing and I don’t know why we don’t always listen to you.  Lord, we ask that you help open our ears to hear you more clearly and to be able to believe what you say about us.  Help us to see that we are worthy and we are amazing in your eyes.  Help us to see that the enemy wouldn’t even bother messing with us if weren’t a threat to him, if we weren’t growing closer to you.  Thank you so much Lord for believing in us even when we don’t believe in ourselves.  Thank you for saving us even when we doubt.  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 look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow with a witness.  Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I!  Have a blessed day!

Elevation Podcast Episode Instruments of Victory (CLICK HERE)

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Are You The Hands & Feet of Jesus?

Matthew 25:35-36 “Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;  for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

I spoke at a retreat this weekend and the theme was Christ In Me.  While writing my talk I realized that my parents are the best example I have seen of “Christ living within me.” They not only taught us about God and our faith, they lived it in a way in which you could see Christ just by looking at them.  There are 11 children in my family and we all vary in our degrees of faith in God.  Some believe, some don’t.  Yet, all of us would give the shirt off of our back to someone in need.  We don’t think twice about offering to help and we truly mean it.  We do not feel it is an inconvenience, we don’t resent it afterwards, we just know it is the right thing to do.  If we have met you more than once, you are now officially part of our family.  We have so many friends of the family that we just consider part of our family.

All of this is because my parents led by example.  They didn’t lecture us on being kind and giving to others, well, I am sure we did get lectures, however, they followed those up with actions.  Often times we can tell our children to do something, we can lecture and we can nag and yet if we aren’t showing them with our actions then it doesn’t matter what we are saying.  You can tell your child that giving to those in need is important and they may or may not understand why.  However, when you give to someone in need while they are with you and they see that person’s face, that person’s gratitude then they are more likely to be impacted.  They are more likely to do the same.  

Our parents would give to anyone that needed something, even if they really couldn’t afford it.  My parents had 11 children so my mom stayed home with the kids and my dad worked.  My dad had a great job and yet they still didn’t have a lot of money because we had a big house and a lot of kids.  My parents did not let that stop them from giving to the church, helping those in need and helping anyone that asked.  I didn’t understand when I was a child what a sacrifice that was for them.  I saw how much my mom was writing the checks for in mass and I thought to myself, when I get older I am going to give a lot more than that.  Now that I am older I see how hard it can be to give.  We don’t have 11 kids and we make more money than my dad did at the time, and yet we struggle to give at church at times.  

What just came to mind is Mark 12:41-44 “Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”  This is what my parents were doing.  They were giving all they had to give and some weeks that would be $5 or $10 dollars and some weeks it would be $20.  We on the other hand are wanting to give out of our surplus.  

I remember a time when I was explaining to a friend how my parents gave money to the church even when they didn’t really have money for their bills.  My friend said this was just bad financial decisions.  This is a worldly way to think of it and yet this is how many of us think of it.  We feel we need to pay all or our bills first, pay for all the things we need, then all the things we want and then if there is any left over money, we can give that to God.  When we think like this we are relying on ourselves to take care of our needs.  God knows what you need and He will make sure you have it.  We should be giving to God first and then everything else can come after that.  This is not the worldly view though.  It does not make sense to many people.  Remember God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts.  It doesn’t have to make sense to us according to our worldly view, and my parents knew this.  

It felt as though they weren’t afraid to go against the crowd if they were doing it for God.  My dad wore a big crucifix around his neck for the longest time at work.  He knew not everyone liked it but it wasn’t for them, it was for him.  My mom stayed home and didn’t work even though not everyone agreed with this.  She was very smart and could have done anything for a job and yet she sacrificed and stayed home with us because that is what she felt was best.  

Over the years we had many people living in our home because they had no where else to go.  We once had a family with 10 kids living in our home with 11 kids.  Another time we had someone who moved in with her husband and grand children.  We have had numerous friends stay with us.  If you didn’t have a place to stay you were always welcome at the Desilets house.  It wasn’t always super convenient for us kids and yet it taught us so much without saying anything.  We could see how grateful the people staying with us were.  We could see how important it was to help people, even when it wasn’t a perfect situation, even when it didn’t fit into what you thought it would look like.  

Christ is calling us to be reflections of Him.  He is calling us to help His people, His beloved brothers and sisters.  God is asking us to see the face of Christ in all those we meet.  If Jesus was asking for food, would you tell Him no?  If Jesus asked if he could crash at your place for a bit while He got back on his feet, would you tell him no?  This is exactly what we are doing when we are saying no to others.  Jesus is in each one of us and if we want to help Jesus then we need to help those around us as well.  

When my parents go to heaven the will be able to confidently say when you were hungry I gave you food, when you were thirsty, I gave you a drink, when you were a stranger I welcomed you and when you were naked I clothed you, when you were ill I cared for you and when you were in prison I visited you, just as it talks about in the verse above.  The awesome news is that they taught us kids to do the same, and not just their kids, but all who meet them.  If you have the pleasure of knowing my parents I am sure you have experienced their kindness and their willingness to help out has rubbed off on you too.  We all have the Spirit of Christ inside of us, let’s share that with others.

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those who are listening to this podcast right now.  Lord, we thank you for filling us with your Spirit and we ask that you help us to use this strength to do all the things you talk about above.  Help us be your face to those who don’t know you.  Help us to help all those in need.  Help us to not turn away.  Help us to give more expecting nothing in return.  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.  Thank you also for your prayers for this past weekend.  The talk went really well and we all had a great time on the retreat.  It was just what we all needed, time away with Jesus and with fellow ladies who are so faith filled.  It was the perfect mix of liturgical celebrations, like daily mass, stations of the cross, illuminated rosary, and adoration w/confession and then we also had speakers and lots of time for fellowship.  I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I!  Have a blessed day!

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You Are Never Alone, The Father Is With You Too!

John 16:32 “ The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.”

I saw this verse or the verse right after it in at least two places this mornings so I think I am supposed to talk about it.  The first place it came up was in the notes of my prayer group meeting from last week and then again on someone else’s facebook post.  The verse directly after this one, John 16:33 says, “ I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” Jesus told us in the verse above that the time had come when his disciples were going to leave Him alone and yet they didn’t have to worry because He wouldn’t be alone, His father would be with Him.  In the next verse He said that He told them this so that they would have peace.  I wonder if they remembered this in all the chaos of the next few days?  I wondering if they did have any peace when they saw Him suffering knowing that although He seemed to be all alone, He wasn’t.  Jesus did all He could to prepare the disciples for His death and resurrection.  

Although Jesus is saying these things to the apostles, He is not just saying them to the apostles, He is saying them to us too.  I think He is letting us know that when we turn away, when it seems like we have abandoned Jesus, He is not alone, He is with His Father.  We are not alone either.  When Jesus went to be with His Father He asked His Father  to send the Holy Spirit down to be with us, and to never leave us.  When we are going through hard times, when we feel as though we are alone, we must remember that we are never alone.  We have the Holy Spirit, living inside of us and that gives us so much strength.  I think we all underestimate how much strength we have with the Holy Spirit living inside of us.  Have you ever taken time to consider what it means to have the Holy Spirit living inside of you?

I don’t think we really understand the gift Jesus was giving to us.  The power and strength He was giving to us.  In Romans 8:11 it says, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” Did you know that Jesus, although fully God and fully human, only used his human nature to do all the miracles? He relied on His human natured and the power He received from the Holy Spirit.  That same Spirit that empowered Jesus lives inside of you. Isn’t that incredible?  Tonight I went to pray with someone who’s husband died unexpectedly.  There were 9 of us that went to pray with this friend of ours.  We weren’t just going to pray with her though, we were going there to pray for a resurrection.  You see the power that raised Jesus from the dead lives inside each one of us.  And Jesus said in John 14:12-14 “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.  I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”  

We will do even greater works than Jesus did because He is with His Father now.  So, we were hoping to get to pray over her husband’s body and bring him back as they did in the Bible.  Did you know it wasn’t just Jesus that raised people from the dead in the Bible?  Peter raised Tabitha from the dead.  Elijah raised the son of the widow from the dead.  Elisha raised the son of the woman of Shunem.  The power to raise someone from the dead lives inside each on of us.  We are learning how to use the gifts of the Holy Spirit more and more in each class that we take.  So tonight 9 of us went to our friend’s house so we could pray with her and we could pray over her husband.  We were unable to pray for her husband as the place they moved him too closed at 4:30 and we got there at 5.  We prayed with our friend, for our friend, for her children and for her husband.  We prayed for love and for peace to come upon their family and we also prayed that God would breathe life back into her husband.  My friend happens to live in Boston.  Can you imagine what a spectacular event that would be in Boston, with this Satanic Conference about to kick off and God shows up and raises someone from the dead right in the morgue in Boston.  Praise God, that would be amazing!  This has happened before.  I talked about it at one of the Witness Wednesdays.  Someone died in the morning and 8 hours later came back to life, unzipped himself and went home.  All things are possible with God.

Going back to the verse above, “The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.” When I think of this verse and I think of my friend, I think about how the Father is with her too.  It was very clear while we were praying over her that the Father is with her, He will not leave her alone, He will not leave her kids alone.  I hope and pray their dad comes back home.  And yet, I know, even if He doesn’t her kids will still have a Heavenly Father who will look out for them and take care of them. They will never be alone!  God made that abundantly clear as we prayed over our friend.  

The Father never left Jesus alone either.  He was right there with Him every step of the way.  He was right there on the cross with Him.  God won’t ever leave you alone either.  I know if feels like you are alone at times, I promise, He is right there with you.  Sometimes when we feel the most alone is when we are the closest to Him.  I have heard that when you feel dryness in your prayer time, when you feel like you can’t hear Him or you can’t feel Him, this could be right before you break through to a new level of closeness.  Keep showing up to prayer time, even when you can’t feel Him, even when you don’t know what to do, even when you can’t say anything, keep showing up.  God is there with you.  He will never leave you.  God was there with Jesus and He is there with you.  You are never alone! Lean into Him and know he is there.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we thank you that you are always with us and you never leave us.  We thank you for sending your only Son to come down and walk among us and to die for our sins.  Lord, we thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to us so that He can empower us and guide us throughout out lives.  Lord, I ask that you help each person listening to know the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of us. I ask that you put on our hearts how we can live more boldly with this knowledge.  How can we step out and use this power you have given us?  How can we use all the gifts you have given us to help build your kingdom?  We love you Lord, you have given us so much and we want to give back to you, show us how.  Lord, we ask you to keep our friend and her family in your prayers.  We ask for you to breathe life back into her husband.  You said when we ask, you answer and we are asking Lord.  Jesus, You said whatever we ask in Your name we will receive since you are going to be with the Father, so we are asking in Your name, Jesus!  We ask all of this in accordance with your Holy will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  Please remember to keep me and all those who are on the retreat with me in your prayers this weekend, please keep Boston in your prayers this weekend as there is a satanic convention happening there this weekend, and if you could keep my friend Malinda, her husband John and her children Isabella and John in your prayers.  They could really use them right now.  I will definitely be doing a Witness Wednesday if God answers are prayers the way we would like Him to weekend with her husband.  I look forward to meeting you hear again on Monday.  Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I!  Have a Blessed weekend!

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God Chooses The Most Unlikely People

Acts 9:15 “But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.”

This verse comes just after Saul has seen a vision of Jesus and Jesus asked him why He was persecuting Him.  Then Saul losses his sight and is told to go into the city and wait to be told what to do.  Then the Lord asked one of his disciples to go to Saul.  There is a conversation between this disciple and the Lord in Acts 9:10-16: “Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying,  and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.”  But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem;  and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

There are several themes that I see coming across in these verses.  First, I always find it interesting when the disciples of God, the ones that get to have a conversation with Him, argue with Him or question Him.  I always think I would respond differently and yet, I do get to have conversations with God and I do still question.  I mean we are all human and questioning and doubting are definitely human things to do.  In these verses Ananias is giving a task to do.  God wants him to go and restore Saul’s sight.  I wonder if Ananias every healed anyone before?  Would this be his first time?  Also, Ananias has heard rumors about this person he is supposed to go and heal.  Saul’s reputation preceded him.  He was not a nice person.  He was in that town to collect any believers of Jesus and bring them to jail essentially.  He approved the stoning to death of Stephen, one of Jesus’ followers. I can totally understand why Ananias would question this plan.  Why he might be scared even.  If he goes to heal this man in Jesus’ name, then Saul will know he is a Christian.  What if there are ramifications of that?

There are many reasons why we might question the Lord’s plan.  I think worrying about our own safety and the possible risk to our life is a pretty big one.  It’s interesting how I can silently judge Ananias for questioning God when he is dealing with someone that has stoned fellow believers, and yet I question God when I am completely safe and yet just being asked to step outside of my comfort zone.  My life is not in danger and yet I still question God’s plan.  I still hesitate to do what I know He is asking me to do.  So, why do I always think it is crazy when others question God’s plan?  I am the first to say God has a plan.  I am the first to encourage someone to step out in faith and do the scary thing God is asking you to do.  I am also the first one to hesitate when God asks me to do some things.  I am the first one to question and to wonder if I am really the best person to do that.  I question if He really knows what He is doing asking me to do that.  

In this verse Ananias is actually not questioning his own ability, he is questioning Saul’s worthiness of being healed.  This is another thing that we can be quick to judge.  We can all question God’s decisions on who He heals, saves, works through.  Maybe you know someone really great who died from cancer, or was killed in a car accident when they were a teenager and you also know some pretty terrible people that beat cancer and seem to have everything going for them.  In our eyes, these things can seem very unfair and we don’t understand them. They make no sense to us.  I don’t understand them either, so I will not be giving you any answers to those questions today.  However, I do know that God has a plan and He can use anyone for that plan.  I do know when it comes to the question of worthiness, none of us are worthy on our own merit.  We can’t judge others because we don’t know their heart, only God can judge as He knows what is in our hearts.  You can have someone that seems as nice as can be in public and yet is awful in their private life.  You can have someone who is not very nice to people and yet that is because they were wounded and they don’t know any other way.

I saw the movie and read the book called The Shack. If you have not read the book or seen the movie you should check it out, it is so good.  Of course the book is better, but the movie does a pretty good job explaining why we shouldn’t judge others.  It talks about how we don’t see the whole picture.  We can judge the man who is abusing his wife and child, but would we judge that child?  What about when that child grows up to abuse his wife and child?  We only see a tiny part of who a person really is.  I am really noticing this in my class.  There are so many different people and they all look like they are doing great.  Then when you talk to them you see how they are struggling, how we are all struggling. I shared in class the other day about some of the things that happened when my boys were younger.  I had volunteered to run through an exercise on healing a wounded memory.  It was really powerful.  Afterwards several people approached me and told me they came from a similar situation.  You never know by looking at anyone where they came from, what they have been through, or what they are still going through.  

That felt a little like I was off on a tangent, but I think someone needed to hear that today.  Back to what I was saying, God can use anyone and He often chooses the most unlikely candidate.  He tends to use imperfect people, people who have messed up, people who seem broken, people who have struggled, people who have sinned.  God uses people who can easily be judged for their faults.  These people, people who aren’t perfect (no is perfect by the way), people who have really struggled are actually the perfect people to use because they can speak to those who are also struggling.  They are someone you can look at and say, if they could do it, so can I.  If someone who grew up with nothing can make something of themselves then I can too.  If someone who has been abused was able to get away from that abuse, then so can I.  If someone who was an alcoholic can give up alcohol so can I.  If someone who is a sinner can be used by God to do amazing things, so can I.  

I love the story of Saul in these verses because it gives me faith for my boys.  I was always a bit worried because although I know God can do anything and in His timing He would call my boys back to Him, I also know that He honors our free will.  I wasn’t sure my boys would ever be searching for Him or looking for Him.  What I feel God showed me with these verse is that they don’t have to be looking for Him.  Saul was not looking to be the next Pope.  He was perfectly happy with his current job and was not in the market for a new one. Yet one encounter with Jesus and He was ready to devote his whole life to Him.  This is what I have hope for my boys and for you can too for anyone you are worried about.  Just as Anne talked about in the witness yesterday, one encounter with Jesus can change their whole world.  Keep praying for them and for this encounter.

Dear Heavenly Father I ask you to bless all those who are listening to this episode today.  Lord, let them hear exactly what they need to hear today.  Lord, help us to not judge others.  Give us your heart and your eyes for others Lord.  Help us to be compassionate and to know that there is always more to the person than what we are able to see.  Lord, give us the boldness to do whatever you ask us to do, even when we are scared, even when we don’t understand it, even if you are asking us to heal a really scary person.  Give us the strength and the grace we need to follow your commands no matter how hard we think they are.  We can do all things through you who strengthen us!  We love you so much Lord.  We are grateful you have a plan and you don’t let our questioning it get in the way.  We are grateful you use all things for our good and you don’t let us mess up your plan.  We love you 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.  Today I am headed to Hartford CT for a retreat with the Military Council of Catholic Women.  I will be speaking at the retreat tomorrow so please keep me and all those attending in your prayers.  Please pray the Holy Spirit is with us and fills us all up this weekend so we can go back to our regular lives renewed in the Holy spirit!  Also, please remember if you are local to try to stay out of Boston this weekend and to pray from afar about the Satanic convention that is happening this weekend.  St. Michael the Archangel defend us in battle.  Be our protector against the wickedness and the snares of the devil.  May God rebuke him we humbly pray and do thou oh prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.  Amen!  I look forward to meeting you hear again tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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We have all seen God working in our lives, however, we might not all be aware it is God who is working in our lives.  This is why it is so important we start talking about it more.  The more we share our experiences the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us.  If you would be willing to share any experience you have had of how God has worked or is working your life, please email me at [email protected] or just click here.  It won’t take up much of your time and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today.  Prayerfully consider sharing.  Everyone has a story and the world needs to hear them.  I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow and I will have another witness for you next Wednesday.  Remember Jesus loves you and so do I. Have a blessed day!

Visit Anne's Website: The Mission On The Mountain

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Let’s Have A Conversation With Our Heavenly Father

Psalm 145:8 “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”

I heard this as the verse of the day on KLOVE radio last night when I was picking Sam up from work.  I instantly knew it was one I wanted to talk about because I have been thinking a lot about God lately and who we think He is.  I have heard several people say lately that they think of God as a task master in the sky who is watching us carefully and He is just waiting for us to mess us so he can punish us.  I can’t say that I ever thought of God in this way.  However, I did used to think I needed to do the right thing or say the right thing in order to make God happy, in order to earn his love or his approval.  I can also see how one can look at God like He is up there waiting to judge us.  I mean we are taught to fear God and yet I don’t think we are taught what that actually means.  When it says we should fear God it actually means to have reverence for God.  Our fear of God is not negative, but a positive attitude of reverence, which helps us ascribe to God His due Omnipotence, Sovereignty and Supremacy.

I now think God is Love.  I know God loves me.  I know He delights in me and that He is pleased with me.  I know I am His beloved daughter.  I know I don’t have to do anything to earn these feelings, they are freely given.  I know he is not up there waiting for me to mess up so that he can punish me, although he is waiting with open arms for me when I mess up so that I can come back to Him.  When I try to think about how I know this, I am not too sure.  When I was on the Big Life New Year’s Retreat I was reading one of my journal entries to two of the ladies there and I felt like the Holy Spirit said to me, “This is how you know.  This is where your confidence in yourself and in my love for you comes from.”  I took a minute to think about it and I knew He was right.  I mean, He is the Holy Spirit, so of course he was right.  But I could see how He was right.  I learned about writing letters to God in my journal and then asking Him to write back to me using my pen in 2019 when I was learning to be a life coach and a spiritual coach.  I started doing this regularly at some point in 2020.  

I was listening to the Bible in A Year Podcast and Father Mike was talking about how if we want a more intimate relationship with God we could start by speaking to Him more intimately.  I am not sure what he said exactly but that is what I heard.  I started writing in my journal as if it was a letter to God.  I started addressing it Dear Father, because Dad felt to informal and I wanted to make sure I was being reverent.  However, over the days to come I experimented with other terms, Dad, Daddy, Papa.  It felt strange at first but the more I did it the more comfortable I felt with it.  I did feel as though I was growing closer to Him.  I went back and looked in my journal.  I am not sure which journal I used before this one, but his one starts May 1, 2020.  It seems I was writing pretty often during this time. That is probably because it was during Covid and so the world kind of slowed down and we had more time.  The first time that I can see in this journal that I asked God to answer me through my pen was June 2, 2020.  This is what I felt He said to me:

“Dear Holy One, I love you!  I do not feel you lack trust.  You are a good and faithful servant.  Thank you for getting the prayer group online.  I missed you ladies and the praise and worship.  I am here for you, lean into me.  I love you my daughter.  I love what you are becoming.  I will mold you if you let me.  Help the leaders of the prayer group as the leaders are tired.  You can bring a new energy into the group.  The workshop is a good idea.”

Can you see how hearing words like this from your heavenly Father would help build you see that God is love?  Can you see how it would help build your confidence and help you realize more about who He is and more about who you are in his eyes?  It is not always super positive.  It is not as if the letters are always filled with compliments and that is it.  Sometimes we need correction and guidance and sometimes we don’t want to hear that.  However, when it is coming from God correction is given with love and grace.  When you spend time listen to what God is actually saying, you realize He is not a mean task master waiting for us to screw up.  He is a loving Father wanting to help us and protect us.  Here is an example from June 24, 2020.  This is the second time in this journal that I asked to hear from God.  This is just a portion of what I felt He was saying:

“You will do a great many things.  I will show you when you are ready, stay the course.  Your work pleases me.  Your effort pleases me.  Notice the good more in Tony.  Point out the light you see.  Live by “will this matter in 5 years.”  Help bring more light into your family instead of darkness.  No sarcasm, no teasing, just building each other up.  You are better than that.  Be a good listener, put first things first.  You are doing great, keep going.  I love you my daughter and I am with you, I know your name.  I love you.”

Again can you see the love in His words?  I know that every single word might not be from God.  Sometimes our own thoughts can get mixed in as well.  However, I asked God to answer me and when we ask God He answers, so I trust most of this is from God.  Another way you can tell when you are writing that the words are not mostly from you is because we are not this kind to ourselves.  We are own worst critic and we don’t believe in ourselves like God does.  We don’t say nice things to ourselves like God does.  

God loves you and He wants to tell you how much, we are just too busy to listen.  I have found, sometimes even when I do sit down and find quiet time to listen to God, I can’t hear anything.  I think for me, this is because I get too much in my head.  I tell myself I won't hear anything or I question everything.  This is why, for me, writing letters to and from God helps me hear him better.  When I am writing I am not thinking too much.  I am not questioning or over analyzing.  I am just writing all that comes into my head. Sometimes it was a few things and sometimes it was longer.  There were times when we had a conversation back and forth.  I would write something then I would write what I felt God said in reply and then I would write again and so on.  It was amazing!  Have you ever wanted to sit down and have a conversation with God.  A real back and forth conversation, you can.  All you have to do is start it and then listen for God’s reply.  If you are listening and you can’t hear Him, try writing down what comes into your mind.  We don’t usually hear God’s voice as a loud booming voice from the sky.  Usually He sounds more like your own voice in your head.  It is more like a thought than an audible voice.  

Writing these letters to God and having Him write back has been amazing.  I truly think it has helped to cement my knowledge in who I am in His eyes.  I have less stress and anxiety because I don’t just think God is looking out for me, I know He is because He tells me often.  I don’t just think that God loves me, I know he does because He tells me often.  I don’t wonder if He is proud of me or if I am doing a good job, Know I am because He tells me often.  He is longing to tell you too.  All you have to do is ask and then listen for His response.  Give it a try, I know you will be blown away by the love He gives you.  If you give it a try and nothing happens, please reach out to me.  I would love to help you with this as I know God is longing to talk to each one of us individually.  He tells me often, and also tells us at prayer group that His people aren’t listening to Him.  If you struggle to see God as a loving Father, start writing letters to Him and ask Him to reply.  You will see just how much He loves you and who couldn’t use more love in their life?

Dear Heavenly Father I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, I ask you that you show each person listening who they are in your eyes.  I thank you for all the times you have answered my letters and I ask you encourage others to write to you as well.  Lord, I pray that each person listening begins to listen more to what you have to say.  I pray that your words will fill their soul and they will see just how amazing you are.  I pray they will see that you are not waiting for us to screw up so you can punish us, you are waiting to welcome us back with open arms.  You are a good good Father and I pray that every person listening  will be able to see that for themselves, not just take my word for it. 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 looking forward to bringing you a witness tomorrow from my friend Anne Trufant.  I met Anne on a Military Council of the Catholic Woman’s conference.  She is a Catholic speaker, singer, and she and her husband run a summer camp. Anne was such a great speaker we hired her to come back the following year.  I have had the pleasure of hearing her speak at at least five conference/retreats.  At the very first one I bought one of her CD’s.  It was amazing.  I didn’t really know Christian music was a thing before her CD.  I listened to it every day. It was so good.  The next year I bought the other 2 or 3 that she had.  I was hooked! I know you will love Anne as much as I do.  She has so many great stories of encounters with the Lord.  Tomorrow she will tell us about her first real up close and personal encounter.  It is pretty amazing, you won’t want to miss it. I will see you tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus love you, and so do I.  Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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