Monday 23 May 2016

A wife's prayer


a Wife's prayer


A wife’s prayers for her husband have a far greater effect on him than anyone else’s, even his mother’s. (Sorry, Mom.) A mother’s prayers for her child are certainly fervent. But when a man marries, he leaves his father and mother and becomes one with his wife (Matthew 19:5). They are a team, one unit, unified in spirit. The strength of a man and wife joined together in God’s sight is far greater than the sum of the strengths of each of the two individuals. That’s because the Holy Spirit unites them and gives added power to their prayers.

That’s also why there is so much at stake if we don’t pray. Can you imagine praying for the right side of your body and not the left? If the right side is not sustained and protected and it falls, it’s going to bring down the left side with it. The same is true of you and your husband. If you pray for yourself and not him, you will never find the blessings and fulfilment you want. What happens to him happens to you and you can’t get around it.

This oneness gives us a power that the enemy doesn’t like. That’s why he devises ways to weaken it. He gives us whatever we will fall for, whether it be low self-esteem, pride, the need to be right, miscommunication, or the bowing to our own selfish desires. He will tell you lies like, “Nothing will ever change.” “Your failures are irreparable.” “There’s no hope for reconciliation.” “You’d be happier with someone else.” He’ll tell you whatever you will believe, because he knows if he can get you to believe it, there is no future for your marriage. If you believe enough lies, your heart will eventually be hardened against God’s truth.

In every broken marriage, there is at least one person whose heart is hard against God. When a heart becomes hard, there is no vision from God’s perspective. When we’re miserable in a marriage, we feel that anything will be an improvement over what we’re experiencing. But we don’t see the whole picture. We only see the way it is, not the way God wants it to become. When we pray, however, our hearts become soft toward God and we get a vision. We see there is hope. We have faith that He will restore all that has been devoured, destroyed, and eaten away from the marriage. “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten” (Joel 2:25). We can trust Him to take away the pain, hopelessness, hardness, and unforgiveness. We are able to envision His ability to resurrect love and life from the deadest of places.

Imagine Mary Magdalene’s joy when she went to Jesus’ tomb the third day after He had been crucified and found that He was not dead after all, but had been raised up by the power of God. The joy of seeing something hopelessly dead brought to life is the greatest joy we can know. The power that resurrected Jesus is the very same power that will resurrect the dead places of your marriage and put life back into it. “God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power” (1 Corinthians 6:14). It’s the only power that can. But it doesn’t happen without a heart for God that is willing to gut it out in prayer, grow through tough times, and wait for love to be resurrected. We have to go through the pain to get to the joy.

We each have to decide if you want your marriage to work, and if we want it badly enough to do whatever is necessary, within healthy parameters, to see it happen. We have to believe the part of your relationship that has been eaten away by pain, indifference, and selfishness can be restored. We have to trust that what has swarmed over us, such as abuse, death of a child, infidelity, poverty, loss, catastrophic illness, or accident, can be relieved of its death grip. We have to determine that everything consuming us and our spouse, such as workaholism, alcoholism, drug abuse, or depression, can be destroyed, We have to know that whatever has crept into our relationship so silently and stealthily as to not even be perceived as a threat until it is clearly present — such as making idols of our career, our dreams, our kids, or our selfish desires — can be removed. We have to trust that God is big enough to accomplish all this and more.

If you wake up one morning with a stranger in your bed and it’s your husband (or wife), if you experience a silent withdrawal from one another’s lives that severs all emotional connection, if you sense a relentless draining away of love and hope, if your relationship is in so bottomless a pit of hurt and anger that every day sends you deeper into despair, if every word spoken drives a wedge further between you until it becomes an impenetrable barrier keeping you miles apart, be assured that none of the above is God’s will for your marriage. God’s will is to break down all these barriers and lift you out of that pit. He can heal the wounds and put love back in your heart. Nothing and no one else can. But you have to rise up and say, “Lord, I pray for an end to this conflict and a breaking of the hold strife has on us. Take away the hurt and the armor we’ve put up to protect ourselves. Lift us out of the pit of unforgiveness. Speak through us so that our words reflect Your love, peace, and reconciliation. Tear down this wall between us and teach us how to walk through it. Enable us to rise up from this paralysis and move into the healing and wholeness You have for us.”

Don’t write off your marriage. Ask God to give you a new husband (or a new wife). He is able to take the one you have and make him (or her) a new creation in Christ. Husbands and wives are not destined to fight, emotionally disconnect, live in marital deadness, be miserable, or divorce. We have God’s power on our side. We don’t have to leave our marriages to chance. We can fight for them in prayer and not give up, because as long as we are praying, there is hope. With God, nothing is ever as dead as it seems. Not even your own feelings.

I learned that the best things for my marriage was for me to have women prayer partners with whom I prayed every week. I now believe this is vital for any marriage. If you can find two or more strong faith-filled people whom you thoroughly trust, and with whom you can share the longings of your heart, set up a weekly prayer time. It will change your life. This doesn’t mean you have to tell your prayer partners everything about your husband (or wife) or expose the private details of his (or her) life. The purpose is to ask God to make your heart right, show you how to be a good wife (or husband), share the burdens of your soul, and seek God’s blessing on your marriage.
 
[Stormie Omartian]

Thursday 19 May 2016

Prayer journey for my family

Dear Lord, thank You for helping me to stay on this payer journey. You are a good good God and I am very thankful that I can trust and rely on You.
Lord my prayer for my husband today, is that he will give himself to You, totally, with his whole heart, body and soul. Make him to want to be devoted to You. Show him what love is and what it means to be loved. Show him how to love himself in a healthy and Godly way. Teach him to love others the same way You love us and to be good and kind and merciful towards every one. Even those that don't deserve it. 
 
Let he honour You with his daily choices, the way that he sees himself; the way he treats people, those who are poor and needy and especially those who have no influence and who is in no position to grant him special favour. I pray that he will show the same kindness to everyone, irrespective of their social standing in life.

Please teach him how to love and treat his bride....the way You love Your bride.

Give him a brand new love for her. Dear God please restore the flame of love between us that once burnt so high and so strong ... a love that could withstand any kind of heat. Make that bond between us unbreakable. Protect our love and marriage with a shield that nothing - no weapon of the enemy, can penetrate or even shatter.
Teach him the importance to capture his thoughts and not to entertain thoughts and desires that would defile his marriage and what would damage the love and respect between us.

Because You are Holy, show him how to be holy in every aspect of his life.
~ 1 Peter 15

In Jesus Name I pray
Amen

stop and ponder...


Thursday 12 May 2016

If i was...


If I was a painter, I would use the sky as my canvas so that the whole world would see how much I love You. I would use all the colours on my palette to create even more daring shades to describe how much You mean to me. I would paint a picture that would say a thousand words and I will sign it…’with love’

If I was a comedian I would amuse You with jokes and quotes. I would make You laugh until Your stomach hurts.

If I was a poet I would captivate You with words pleasingly arrayed that would make sense of the feelings that I cannot put to words.

If I was a sculptor, I would dazzle You with a piece of art that would show You how much I appreciate everything you have ever done for me.

But I am not a painter, a poet nor a comedian. I am just me. I don’t know how 2 express my love for You in fancy ways or with colourful words.

But I know this… I love You with all my heart.

Tuesday 10 May 2016

Mercy in the month of May

Stop and ponder on the word of God during the month of MAY...

His Mercy endures 4ever...

Mercy means:
compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, a sinner, compassion, pity

You, O Lord, are good and 4giving,
full of mercy toward everyone who
calls out to You.
Ps 86:5

Have you ever considered this?

Have you ever-ever considered this about God's creation ... the way He enjoys His own? The way He speaks to it? Have you ever considered this:  they speak back to their Creator? 

Have you ever paused to think that when God sends lightning flashes forth, they report for duty?

Do you know that the young ones of the crow calls out to God and tell Him they are hungry?

Have you ever wondered about God's wisdom, His cleverness, His knowledge, His ability to create and to make things work?

Do you know that God gives orders to the morning and instructs the sea where its proud waves has to stop?
That God walks through the valleys of the ocean depths and that darkness has a home?

Then consider this....
That this God, who created heaven and earth and everything in it, planned and created you.  But that is not all, that He loves you, with a love that is far beyond my understanding.  That He wants to be your Father, your friend and that He wants to have a relationship with you.

You, who have failed Him, you whom have hardened your heart against sin, you who have betrayed Him so many times before.. over and over. 

get this...
He loves you unconditionally,
There is nothing, nothing that you have done, that God cannot forgive.
He died for every possible wrong you could have done in your life.

and all you have to do, is to ask God for His grace, His forgiveness
then walk away from all the wrong in your life...
and start all over.

Job 38
(The Lord speaks to Job)

"...Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me if you have such insight.
Who determined its dimensions?
Certainly, you know!
Who stretched a measuring line over it?
On what were its footings sunk?
Who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Who shut the sea behind gates when it burst through and came out of the womb when I clothed it with clouds and wrapped it up in dark clouds, when I set a limit for it and put up bars and gates, when I said, ' You may come this far...  Here your proud waves will stop '.

Have you ever given orders to the morning or assigned a place for the dawn so that it could grab the earth by its edges and shake wicked people out of it?
The earth changes like clay stamped by a seal, and parts of it stand out like folds in clothing.
Wicket people are deprived of their light, and an arm raised in victory is broken.
Have you gone to the springs in the sea or walked through the valleys of the ocean depths?
Have the gateways to death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gateways to total darkness?
Have you even considered how wide the earth is?
Tell me, if you know all this!

What is the way to the place where light lives?
Where is the home of darkness so that you may lead it to its territory, so that you may know the path to its home?
Have you been to the warehouse where snow is stored or seen the warehouses of hail that I have stored up for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?
Which is the way to the place where light is scattered and the east wind is spread across the earth?

Who made a channel for the flooding rains and a path for the thunderstorms to bring rain on a land where no one lives, on a desert where there are no humans, to saturate the desolate wasteland in order to make it sprout with grass?
Does the rain have a father?
Who gave birth to the dewdrops?
From whose womb came the ice, and who has given birth to the frost in the air?
The water hardens like a stone, and the surface of the ocean freezes over.

Can you send lightning flashes so that they may go and say to you, 'Here we are'?
Who put wisdom in the heart or gave understanding to the mind?
Can you hunt prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of her cups as they crouch in their dens and lie ready to ambush from their lairs?

Who provides food for the crow when its young ones cry to God and wander around in need of food?..."


Have you ever-ever considered this?

What is your prostitute?

Do you remember the “great old bible stories” you heard as a child and how captivated  you were by the greatness of it all?

Noah - the man of faith, building the ark, with all the different animals under one roof? How on earth did he get them in there? What methods did he use to get them to follow him?

What about Jonah and the Whale – What went through his mind exactly when he was in the stomach of the whale? I cannot - not even in my wildest dreams, [and in the comfort of my home] imagine what he must have felt like... thinking about? Or was he just praying and repenting - scared of drowning everytime the whale opened his mouth. Surely it must have smelled!! 



Another old time favourite is the wonderful story of Moses. A story with so many hidden truths. And also a  story of a mothers protective love for her child, how she decided to stand the chance of ‘loosing’ him by hiding him by the side of the River Nile, not knowing if she will ever see him again! But in the end, God’s merciful love, orchestrating events for her to still raise her own child whilst in the care of another women. And then this young man, who grew up as an Egyptian prince, never forgot that he was a Hebrew and that his God had a calling on his life: to free the Hebrews from slavery.


Then there was Samson!  No ordinary man. A super human being.  A real-world Superman. Who killed a lion with his bare hands!  A man who's life story made me look deep and hard into my own life...




Samson. A captivating story of a man whom God miraculously brought into this world and whom He ordered to be put under a special consecration governed by the Nazirite vow. 

Not only was Samson a man called to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines who were occupying the land and oppressing Israel, he was also a man who did not share God’s hatred of evil, a man who lacked a compelling zeal to see Israel freed of Philistine domination.

Samson didn’t think the Philistines were all that bad. He even made an attempt to blend into their lustful and perverted society. His first girlfriend was a Philistine from Timnath (chapter 14). He became so infatuated with her he pressured his parents to approve their marriage. It was on one of his trips to visit his girl that he was attacked by an Asian Lion. Whom he bare-handed grabbed and tored in two.
 
Samson married her but their marriage did not last a week.  His wife betrayed him. He was angry and discouragedRejected and alone.  And after a while when he got lonely he went back to get his wife - only to find that she had been given to another man (chapter 15).
 
He frequently visited prostitutes – giving in to the lustful desire of his flesh. Then he met Delilah.  A [another] prostitute with whom he was besotted with.  A prostitute – a wrong decision - that caused him to lose everything;
 
His strength.
His sight.
His honour.
His life.


And still didn’t he realise he was on a destructive path…
Samson and Delilah.

A true story with great lessons to be learnt and still very relevant in this day and age.
Just like all of us, Samson wanted love and happinessAcceptance.

But he chose the wrong path.
He made bad choices.
He made mistakes.
He gave in to the luring of the evil --- Very relevant to me and you, as we too make wrong decisions. Bad choices. More often than we would admit. 

What did I learn from Samson and Delilah?

To really look deep into my own life, and ask myself this one question:

What is the ‘prostitute in my life? [and in your life]

- Is it my longing for affection and acceptance?
- Rebellion perhaps?
- The internet?
- My marriage?
- Maybe your work?
- Friends?
- An affair?
- Pornography?
- Unforgiveness?
- Money?
- Not sowing?
- Swinger parties?
- An old flame?
- Strip Clubs
 
What is ‘it’ that cause you to go astray?
To not be obedient?
 
What is the ‘prostitute in your life that brings distance between you and Jesus?
 
and then finally.... Is it worth it to have this ‘prostitute’ on the side…..