IDOK DEVOTION FOR FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2010

Praise Reports, Prayer Requests and Updates:

In order to make our prayer list more effective and for me to more responsibly care for it I have begun a renewing and removing policy.  Your Prayer requests are welcome to remain on the list for years — some have been and that is good — however, as I daily review the list I will now be removing requests (IDOK Troops are exempt from this time frame) after one month unless you advise me the name needs to remain on the list longer.  I trust this is honoring to the LORD and will inspire me to be more attentive to our prayer needs.

For this season our my life Deuteronomy 30 has become one of my favorite passages of Scripture.  My love for it began growing in particular when I began to pray verse 6 for myself and my descendants (family).   Read along with me and you’ll see why.

6. “Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

I can think of nothing more wonderful and more desirable for my family and myself than for us to love JESUS with all our hearts and souls.   Oh my goodness!  I cannot tell you how ‘sickeningly’,  obnoxiously happy I would be to have all my descendants from here to eternity to be head over heals, out of their ‘natural’ minds in love with JESUS!  Oh my gosh! Make it so LORD! Make it So!  And not just them but me too!  Me too!  Okay, calm down here, Girl!  Before you think I am looking to be so heavenly minded that I am no earthly good — Certainly I want my family to be ‘successful’.  I want their needs to be abundantly fulfilled and even their wants!  And it can happen!  BUT.  And it’s a BIG But!   There’s one way for this ‘so that you may live’ to happen to them (and to me) and please don’t tell my ‘younguns’ what I am praying  for them!

Do you see the 7th word in the verse?  C- I-R-C-U-M-C-I-S-E.  Circumcise.  We  know what that means, don’t we?  PAIN! If our baby boys could talk they would tell us — oh but they do — when this procedure is going on they scream as loud as their little lungs will force air  out of them.  And who could blame them?!!  However, do we beseech the doctor to do this procedure on our sons because we hate them, because we delight in inflicting excruciating pain upon them? HEAVEN FORBID!  We do it because we covet health and life for them.   I am pleading for health and life for my sons, daughters, granddaughters, grandsons, me, my beloved and on and on from here to eternity.   The thing is I know there is  only one way for us to have this ‘so that we may live’.  And that is by the cutting away (circumcision) of everything within us  and around us that hinders us from loving the LORD our GOD with all our hearts and souls!

Sobering, isn’t it?  Like I said — please don’t tell my children I am praying this for them!  You know I’m just kidding — they read this too.  I love you, Babies.  I REALLY do!

Perhaps another day we will look at more of the chapter.  It is truly a chapter of comfort and blessing IF we are exercised by it!

To review the list of names for prayer, please click here.

Oh my goodness, ABBA, it has taken some time to get this on the screen and it is not as it began; it’s so much better.  Thank You. Thank You.  And I pray LORD, make it so.  Make it so!  Please, please take that holy scalpel of Yours and go to work on us … me first.  I know You have already.  Don’t let up, don’t let up.  I praise You so for loving us!!

Today in Baldwin Square for National Day of Prayer was so good.  I so enjoyed talking with You there.  It was so good to love on You and worship You.  And James, he sang so beautifully.  Thank You.   Thank You for my Pastor, for each Minister You have given me at Satsuma First.  You know my heart for this Body of Believers – circumcise our hearts, Holy Spirit,  and make us a church that honors You wherever we traverse this planet.

I’ve called again the requests on our list to You; thank You so much for this privilege and thank You for what You are doing in the lives of each of them.  Thank You for taking care of our IDOK Troops too and from time to time let us hear from them, how they are and ways they are experiencing You.   Again I pray for peace and protection for Israel – for them to KNOW You, JESUS.   And again today I pray for this Nation, forgive us LORD, grant to us more mercy, more grace and space to repent.  Bring revival to Your Church here in America.  And, ABBA, I pray too for my sisters and brothers in countries and lands far from me, especially those who are experiencing persecution.  I pray their faith and devotion will not fail and thank You that You are rewarding them in ways we cannot imagine and that every suffering they endure – You are making it worth it all.

And thank You that Gracin is doing so well.  Amen and Amen, LORD, in Your Holy Name I pray.