03.27.2007

1 John 3:1
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

Psalm 42:11
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Hello everyone,

I hope that you are all well and that you’ve been encouraged and strengthened by the Lord as you go through your days. Last week I mentioned that I needed prayer for patience, and this week I found that I felt a bit more at peace with the way things have been going here in Philadelphia. It’s so awesome how God provides for us.

Recently I’ve been going through 2 Samuel after having gone through 1 Samuel, and although I’ve read these stories before it’s almost a totally different world to read it with the Psalms. It’s very interesting to see the correlation between the events of David’s life and the outpouring of his spirit as he speaks to God through Psalms. The Psalms build up such an intimate picture into David’s life as he struggles through being hunted, struggling through sin, and repenting of sin. He struggles to understand what’s going on his life, vents all kinds of emotions to God, but he knows in the end that God is good.
David is such a picture of fallen humanity whose desire is to see God. Despite his murder, adultery, and failure to set his children on the right path, David is still called a man after God’s own heart. Amazing! Isn’t this what we all, somewhere deep within, long to be? Men and women after God’s own heart?
I think that at times we have a hard time calling ourselves God’s children, let alone calling ourselves God’s beloved children… But if we are followers of Jesus Christ, this is what we are. We are His children. We will sin, and sometimes we will fall into the same sort of behaviors that David himself had to deal with. However, this does not change our status in God’s eyes: He still loves us the same today as He had before the sin was committed. God is not the frowning, disapproving parent that some of us make Him out to be in our heads. (Neither is He the passive parent that allows us to run willy-nilly into whatever danger we please.)
I wonder if we can be like David – like Christ – in our attitudes of our sin, repentance, and deep need for God. We will struggle. We will be persecuted. We will sin. … But through our troubles can we seek His face? And, in the end, can we acknowledge that God is abundantly good?

I would love to be like David in this regard: completely transparent with the Lord, even though the Lord knows all.

I pray that we can be like David, in that we would be enabled to praise God through our circumstances and repent where necessary. I pray that we can praise the Lord no matter what happens. Moreover, I pray that we can be like Christ in our behaviors and attitudes, learning humility and submission to our Father in heaven. I also ask that He teaches us to accept our status as dearly beloved, children of God.

In love and in Him,
Your sister,
Yvonne

03.17.2007

Philippians 4:6
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Matthew 6:26, 34
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Psalm 105:4
Look to the LORD and seek His strength; seek His face always.

Micah 6:8
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.


Hello everyone,

Sorry that this week’s Weekly is late. I hope that each of you is doing well and that the Lord spoke to, encouraged, or challenged your heart somehow this week.
In recent weeks, it’s become more and more evident to me how much of an impatient person I am when it comes to waiting for something to happen or change or develop. Unfortunately, patience seems to be intimately tied to trusting God. He is so good to reveal this to me, and even more amazing in how He chose to speak to my heart this morning. I’m one of those people that processes information best through speaking and writing, and as I was writing in my journal a prayer to the Lord came out that I wasn’t expecting. I’d like to share it with you:

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How good you are to me! Why do I so easily forget what has come from your hand? I ask for forgiveness in this, and I ask for you to build up my faith. I know you are able to provide and your word says to not worry – it came out of Jesus mouth. You ask me to not be anxious about ANYthing, but by prayer and petition, to present my requests before your throne.
Help me to be faithful in what I ought to be doing, Lord, and trust that you have it under control. Help me to trust and be patient. I worry about how things will turn out, but why? You have told me that as much as you have provided for birds and lilies you will provide for me. Why? Because I am more valuable to you than birds or lilies, which are here today and gone tomorrow… because I am your child, and sister to the one who has given His life for mine and who intercedes on my behalf before your throne.

This is how I know you will provide for me, now and always. By the blood of Christ and for your glory, you maintain your promises.
“Lord, write this in my heart! Do not let me forget it. This is how I know I can trust you.
And who am I to be concerned? You have fed me, clothed me, and provided a roof over my head. What I have now has come from your hand, Lord. Why must I dare to have an ungrateful attitude by looking beyond my present condition? Tomorrow may not even come for me and you ask me to seek your face TODAY, and be thankful TODAY.
Today has enough trouble of its own. Unlike you, I can only handle what goes on in the present. You have given me today and have not yet given me tomorrow… While I can pray for tomorrow and make plans, those plans only happen if you are willing to have them happen. But today is what you have for me to focus on. ‘Give us this day our daily bread…’ I am to ask daily for you to provide.
I am to honor you today; seek you today; be a light today; be faithful today. I am to act justly, to love mercy, and walk in your ways TODAY.
I can’t say, “Oh, I can do those things tomorrow,” because you haven’t given me tomorrow.

If I really look at each day in this fashion, would I trust you more and worry less? How can I remind myself to look at each day in this way so I don’t forget again? Somehow I feel this to be true, but I don’t know how to be reminded each day… Perhaps a memorization of Matthew 6, about worry, would remind me more readily. Truly, though, I can do all I want but it is you who changes my heart. Holy Spirit, change my heart. Show me how to be grateful for the things the Father provides each day and to present my plans and requests at His throne.
I don’t have to be anxious about anything because you want me to be focused on today, and you ask me to be faithful today. I don’t have to worry because I am your child.
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Maybe we could all do with a similar prayer? Pray for me that the Lord of our salvation would write these things in my heart, as I will pray the same for you.

In love and in Him,
Your sister,
Yvonne

3.4.2007

John 16:21,22
A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

Psalm 35:17,18
O Lord, how long will you look on? Rescue my life from their ravages, my precious life from these lions.
I will give you thanks in the great assembly; among throngs of people I will praise you.

Philippians 4:6-8
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. … Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Hello friends-

Last week, I had gone to a conference over in New York City and running around from that right after a different conference has left me pretty exhausted, and also a little sick because of my foolishness to not take a full day to rest.
As I think I have mentioned, I’d been going through Psalms with my boyfriend and it’s truly awesome to see the different things that God has to teach us all through them. I think one of the more striking things up to this point is that although the psalmist (typically, David) cries out to the Lord for deliverance and although he states how dreadful his current situation is, he is still able to turn it around and praise the Lord. If you look at David, a good portion of his time is spent being pursued by men who want to kill him – which I’m pretty sure that most of us have no idea what that must be like – yet, through David’s prayers (the psalms he writes), he is still able to praise the Lord and say that He is good. How crazy is that? But even more profound is that I know I’m quick to grumble and complain when something I want doesn’t go my way. It’s kind of convicting to see the life of David through God’s word, and I’m willing to bet that God did that on purpose to show us that although bad situations will come, we are to praise Him in the end. God is still amazingly good through our bad times and our good times; our situation may be changing constantly, but God is constantly the same all the time. He doesn’t change. I find this greatly comforting because then I know that I can trust God. Like the psalmist, you and I can cry out to God and put before Him our grief. We’re allowed to do that… we’re allowed to be fully emotional with God. I know that some of us go about our day thinking as though God is too high and mighty to really care about the deep gamut of our emotions. This simply isn’t true, for why would God give us emotions if He didn’t care about them?
Also like the psalmist, we are also able to praise the Lord through thick and thin. If we ask the Lord to give us faith and strength to do this, He will.
The balance of being emotional with God and being able to praise Him makes me think of something I learned at the conference I was at in NYC. Although the speaker was talking about art, I think the same is true for our entire lives: he said that we are to have Authenticity and Hope. To be Authentic is to be real, and to acknowledge pain and suffering (because those things are very real in our lives). On the flipside of the coin, however, is Hope. While we can acknowledge pain, we have hope because Jesus Christ bled, died, and rose to life again. There is life and beauty in the person of Christ. Living for Him and relying on Him allows us to seek what is good in our broken world, because He is the epitome of what is Good.

I pray that each of us would be refined by the Spirit in such a way that we would seek the Lord through our good days as well as our bad days. I ask that He would teach us to praise Him always, and give us strength to seek His face. I also pray the Holy Spirit would break down our pretenses with the Father, because we are allowed to have a full range of emotion with God. I pray that we would be enabled to acknowledge the brokenness of the world and our own lives, yet be instilled with the Hope of Christ and not despair. May these things be accomplished in all of us so that we can better reflect the light of Jesus in our lives.

In love and in Him,
Your sister,
Yvonne