A New Idea

Wow, I have started this post about 4 times now and keep deleting everything that I have typed! Let me start by saying that we had an incredible prayer meeting last night. God is so at work in our church and I am overwhelmed as I see all the prayers that He is answering and all of the things that are falling into place in people's lives. At one point while I was praying, (for all of YOU!) I had this idea for my blog (is that silly???). But truly, I want this to be more than the ramblings of my often uneventful life. I want ALL that I do to bring Him glory and for His light to shine through anything that my hands find to do. So, what I am going to try to do is each Friday, I want to post some sort of a devotional - something I felt in prayer, a bible verse, a thought or whatever. And I picked Friday for a few reasons. First, it is the end of the week, second it is the day after prayer meeting and third, today is my first one and it just feels right to go once a week! It will probably be more for me than anything else, but I pray that in some way, you will be blessed and maybe even changed from what you read! So, here is my first thought:

I already told you what a great prayer meeting we had last night - God's presence was so awesome and it was hard to leave. I came home, watched some fireworks with Mark and the kids, read my Bible and went to bed. Well, I didn't wake up til morning, but when I did, I felt like I had been beat up - I was sore (had not worked out!), felt soooo tired, and just had a hard time getting moving (which is not like me) - I even told Mark how I was feeling. As I started my chores, I was listening to a message from Brother Lee Stoneking and here is what he said (my paraphrase): Have you ever had a great church service where God's presence has moved so strongly and you come home, go to sleep and wake up the next day feeling terrible? He said that is because while I slept, there was a spiritual battle going on around me. When we get close to God, things try to attack us, but the angels of the Lord encamp round about them that fear Him and they were doing battle while I slept, so I woke up feeling the effects of the battle that was going on around me. I just thought that it was so awesome and it went along with what Pastor preached Wednesday about all of us being like Elijah (and other great men in the Bible) - one day we are on the mountain seeing the miracles of God and the next we are under a Juniper tree wishing we could die. The goal is to keep our eyes focused on God and not the things around us that can make us lose our focus.