Kathie, here I am again with a special prayer request. Bro Gene and Julie Pickern are missionaries in the Dominican Republic, and good friends of ours. Julie has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. She has been flown back to the U.S. She is in Atlanta, and she needs a miracle. Tomorrow morning at 8:00 we are having a special prayer meeting for her at our church. Please pray for her and put her on all your prayer lists. We know that God answers prayers!!!!

I hope some of you are online this evening and will pray, remembering what a privilege it is for us to intercede.  DADDY GOD always hears and always answers.  Hallelujah to His Blessed Name.

Holy hugs, Kat…

IDOK DEVOTION FOR FRIDAY, JULY 9, 2010

Praise Reports, Prayer Requests and Updates:

It is so important to be PRESENT wherever you are.  To be alive in the moment in which you are breathing. Yesterday I returned to the moment in which I was breathing and realized that not being PRESENT cost me $10.  But that was a small price to pay if it will teach me to be PRESENT today in all my breathing moments.

Am I writing in riddles?

Parking garages give tickets when you drive in, but that you know.  And you need those tickets when you drive out, that you know too. And if you lose it you are at the mercy of the attendant to believe you when you tell her what time you drove into the parking garage.  We were fortunate, she believed us.  So that is not what cost $10.

You see  I was not PRESENT when I handed her a $20.  She even suggested that we were owed change from a $20 but having been  somewhere else going over other conversations I was certain we had only given her a $10.  She did not argue. By the time we pulled onto the street I was fully PRESENT and the $10 was FULLY GONE.

This morning I am pondering still and am encouraging myself to discipline myself to be PRESENT.  Present in the moment.  Good and pleasant moments, even difficult and troubling moments, I would be wise to  stay checked in.  Checking out is costly.

Checking out on conversations.  Checking out from living in the moment and returning to ended conversations  or visiting future conversations might cost us more than $10. Spouses, children, grandchildren, friends, and strangers need us to be PRESENT  with them when we are sharing mutual breathing spaces.  (I am not negating the need and the absolute necessity for reflection of moments gone by, but that we do so when we are alone with DADDY not when paying for parking tickets.)

They need us and we need us to discipline ourselves to LIVE in our PRESENT moment.  To be fully alive to hear, to see, to smell, to feel, to touch, to learn, to give, to glean everything from that moment, that encounter that will grow us, mature us into holy, healthy Christians; it’s good for us, it’s good for them and most of all it is for His Glory.  He is PRESENT always in every moment He gives us, and we need to SHOW UP TOO.   Whatcha think?

2 Thessalonians 3: (New American Standard Bible) ¹⁵Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.  ¹⁶Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance The Lord be with you all!

1 Peter 3: (New American Standard Bible) ¹⁴But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed AND DO NOT FEAR THEIR INTIMIDATION, AND DO NOT BE TROUBLED,  ¹⁵but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;  ¹⁶and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.

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

DADDY, I am present but pressed.  I need Your help.  Thank You, ABBA.  You are Awesome.  I pray You will take this Ten Dollar Present and anoint it with Your Presence to encourage Your People and if possible even draw a lost soul to salvation.

I pray for our IDOK Troops asking them to know You are PRESENT with them.  I pray they will welcome and adore You in their present.  I pray too that You will bring each one of them home safe and sound.

I pray now too for each one on our List for Prayer.  You know each need.  You know each want.  You know each worry, each fear, each hope, each joy, each tear and You are keeping them all close to Your Heart; may they KNOW today You are with them in their Present. I pray for cancers to be cured, families to be mended, hearts to be made tender and receptive to Your Will for them.  I pray for America, forgive us, bless us with conviction and convince us of sin, righteousness and judgment to come in JESUS name. Amen and amen.