I’m studying for Sunday School and this question is LOUD within me: What would happen in us and in our families if we pursued the study and application of The Word of God just 10%, let alone the full measure, of time and effort we give to making money, building a career, academic studies, recreation, etc. etc. ?

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.

IDOK DEVOTION FOR THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2010

Praise Reports, Prayer Requests and Updates:

There is truth in the adage: ‘No use crying over spilled milk’.

Just get busy cleaning it up and figure out how it spilled and don’t do it again.

I am so grateful this verse is true!  Joel 2: (New King James Version) ²⁵ “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, The crawling locust, The consuming locust, And the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you.

Especially since I did not do these following verses all the years my Babies were home with me.

^{Deuteronomy11: 18}“You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.  ¹⁹” You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up.  ²⁰” You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,  ²¹so that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens remain above the earth.  ²²“For if you are careful to keep all this commandment which I am commanding you to do, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and hold fast to Him,  ²³then the LORD will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you.

I was not careful all their pre-adult years that what they saw and heard within the walls of our  home was holy; or demonstrative of the love and the holiness of God.  The walls of our home and the walls of my mind and walk did not year after year display the Word of God. The Word of God was not the last Word spoken before we went to sleep and His Word was not the first Word spoken when we woke up each morning.  For too many of those years, it was not my normal practice to get out and laugh and run and play and marvel at the Creation of our God with them.  For at least a decade of those important years, I did not seek the Holy Spirit for teachable moments in our day to day comings and goings when He in me could make the Word of God come alive to them in ways that would turn them on to Him rather than off.

The Text says bind them as a sign on your hand, that is my hands (your hands), what we DO, must demonstrate the Word (the Character, the Ways) of God to our children; if not, we have failed them in the worst way possible.  The Text says as frontals on your forehead that is the Word of God governs our choices so consistently that our children SEE it.  They SEE GOD IN US.   And unless they do see Him in us then we have failed them in the worst possible way.

They may have gourmet meals, they may have perfectly decorated rooms, they may have the latest fashions to wear and every electronic gadget known to man BUT if they do not SEE GOD in us, all that stuff will become a tool for the Evil One to steal their souls.

The GOOD NEWS, the GREAT NEWS is as long as there is LIFE, there is HOPE.  If we have failed them in the worst possible way, we can start today with that spilled milk clean up.  And we can trust God to restore.   We can seek Him and when we do we will find Him.   (See Jeremiah 29:11-14.)

For my Babies and me, He’s been restoring for about 15 years now and He is AWESOME!  And my Babies?  They’re not too ‘shabby’. :)

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

ABBA, I praise You for Who You are and what You have done and are continuing to do.  I pray for families out there still young that they will learn from Your Word and start today to practice these very verses and give their children the best possible foundation to choose You early and miss the hell of rebellion in the here and now and the eternity of it. And I pray for older families that like me did not do as well as I could have chosen to do that You will encourage them, that they will pick up today and start the clean up process with You and will trust You to restore the years.  I pray Holy Spirit that You will take this hard lesson and make it real and practical and start rescuing families this very day.

I pray for our IDOK Troops; asking You to protect them; asking that they make good choices today; that they choose to listen to You today and live godly in hostile places and friendly places.  And, ABBA, yes please bring each one home safe and sound to waiting families and friends.  And, ABBA, I pray now for each one on our List For Prayer; asking You to take a reading on each heart and apply what is needed to restore. encourage, correct, heal, make well, and all that You desire to do for them.

And again we pray for America, for Your Spirit to come and convict and convince of righteousness and judgment to come and, LORD, start right here with me.  ABBA, I’m not any where near as ‘fanatical’ about You as I need to be; as my family and friends and others need me to be.  Get me there, please get me there, in JESUS Name. Amen and amen.

Happy 11th Birthday, Josh!!  You are so loved my Angel Boy.