Something About The Joy

I’m still ruminating on the thought in my last post that I might be missing things God is saying because I’m not listening, or I’m not listening right. Maybe His words are blocked out by my preconceived ideas, or my lack of faith keeps me from tuning into the proper channels. Lack of faith could be a huge block to my hearing from God. Today I read the story, in Luke 8:22-25, of Jesus calming the storm. The disciples are with Jesus on the lake in a boat they’re used to sailing by themselves. But on this day a storm comes up—something they can’t handle. This is a serious problem. The Bible says they were “in great danger.” But in this account they don’t even ask Jesus to help. Maybe it hasn’t occurred to them yet that He could do anything about the situation. They just tell Him, “We’re going to drown.” He calms the storm, and then he asks, “Where is your Faith?” I’ve always assumed He was just asking why they doubted, and Mark's gospel account of the story supports...

I’ve been reading in Luke during my times with Jesus these days, seeing lots of things I never noticed before, some significant and some just interesting. I’ve decided, as part of my new years’ plan to blog more regularly, that I will share random thoughts from my devotional journal in this blog. So here goes. My first random devotional thought of the New Year, from Luke 1:57-66 . It's in the "Interesting" category. Did you ever notice that when Zechariah was unable to speak for those months before John was born, his neighbors thought he couldn’t hear either? When John was born, and they were discussing what to name the new baby, “they made signs to his father , to find out what he would like to name the child.” So why didn’t they just ask him? Dumbness is normally caused by a person’s inability to hear spoken words. Zechariah’s friends had probably never met a dumb person who was not also deaf. This is a great big LOL for me. I can just see Zecharia...

I just finished re-reading This Present Darkness , by Frank Peretti. He has angels prompting people to pray when the spiritual battle becomes hot and heavy. It reminded me of times in the past when God's people have been wakened in the night to pray for someone far away who is in need of prayer at that moment. It happened frequently with saints who've gone before us. I believe it's the Holy Spirit, not angels, who does the prompting, but it seems like a long time since I've felt that nudge. It bothered me, and I asked the Lord why. He said, "How long has it been since you asked how to pray?"