Transcend: Why Pray?

I find it so interesting how I'm in a job now as I was with my previous job where I know someone that doesn't believe in God, yet....talks about him in the sense that he's trying to disprove he exists. Claims its just what other people think, why do "other" people think like this? he asks. The most interesting chat today was about prayer. "Why Pray"? He asked. When everyone in the world lives to be around the same age and whether you are a believer or not you still end up dying of the same stuff.

You know, God never intended that we were to be immuned from the same problems and diseases that un-believers deal with. When your trying to understand the question "why pray" for those that believe its your direct line with God, we know this well. On the other hand I just continually get the question in my head when I have these chats with people, "why not believe? Isn't that better then believing in nothing at all?" Why pray I ask? It might help save those people that we know in our lives that do not know or see God daily because they have bought into the devil's lies, may we all pray for those around us that do not see and do not know the glory of the lord and the goodness that the rest of us are so blessed to know on a daily basis.

RMOJ: Could I have a spotlight, please?

I'm tired, and at the end of my rope, and cranky.

And then a grown man starts improvising childish actions and asking for a spotlight.  And I crack up, play along, and am refreshed.

Transcend: Riches do not profit in the day of wrath

It is 6 weeks now that i have not been working. Others who have family to support, or who did not choose to resign from their job are facing a tougher battle than me. It has been a wild and wondrous walk with the Lord - waiting on Him to provide a job and yet still running back and forth like a chicken without a head trying to make it happen the best that i can in the flesh. It seems now that i'm missing out on something big. While the money is dwindling weekly, i don't want that to be the focus - and it too often is. I'm hoping that God will be glorified in transcending me into someone who doesn't care about controlling money and where its next source will come from.

This morning i woke up with a puffy eye and it hurts. It reminds me of the verse that says "Get the plank out of your own eye before trying to remove the speck out of your neighbours" I wonder if the speck is the source of money and where it will come next and this plank in my eye is the lack of trust, a deep sense of obligation of needing to rely on myself, or even worse, a desire for money and comfort high above a desire for the God and Father that brought me out of death into life. This verse from Proverbs popped up in my reading this morning:

"Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death"

Lord, may Your will be done in our lives today. Remind us Lord what you have brought us from and what we are selling ourselves short of. Teach us God about following you and being a blessing by following in faith without sight. We need you, I need you now Lord, Amen.

Imagine: Answers from Within

Sometimes I think that if I just ask enough people the right
questions, I'll get the answers I need.

And most of the time, that works. I can ask a specialist about a
specific question that baffles me at work. I can get a second opinion
from another doctor. I can ask "where am I spending my money?" and
come up with a budget.

Ask, investigate, plan, do, revise. That's generally how I live my
life. There's a series of problems to be solved, and every day leads
me one step closer to things more easily falling into place. And
there is a large portion of the world that works this way.

But interestingly, none of that large portion is, to me at this
moment, interesting in the least. Because they're all minor
problems. The big problems aren't really problems - they're questions
- and the answers aren't found from outside. They're found from within.

Why do I love someone? I can ask all sorts of experts, but even if I
had it explained, the answer wouldn't satisfy. Where do I get my
strength from? How do I live life? Why am I happy? Why am I not?
Why is it that this world seems to operate by a set of principles...
and I don't get to choose them?

Those answers are ones I must answer by myself. Alone. Others may
have opinions, but that is all they are. What I need is convictions -
firm beliefs that don't change based on circumstance, values that hold
true to the real way this world works.