Click HERE to read original post.

I did a little gardening yesterday; no, my back, my hands and my knees are correcting me – I did a lot of gardening yesterday, at least for me.  Did you know, you really have to dig and pull to get monkey grass up?  And call me crazy, but after awhile of that a comparison settled in on me. It did not take too many times of chop, chop, pull for me to begin to enjoythe sound of roots breaking loose from the soil.  And with that sound I wondered aloud if ABBA enjoys that sound too.Shall I explain?  Sometimes we have roots – weed roots.  Roots like bitterness, un-forgiveness, unbelief, to just name a few, growing in our hearts.  And being daughters and sons He loves ABBA has no choice, He has to chop, chop, pull to get those things out of us.  So in my ‘sanctified imagination’ I compared my enjoyment of my ‘monkey grass sounds’ to what He may ‘hear’ when as we read His Word and pray, and our weed roots start breaking loose from the soil of our hearts and our habits; does He enjoy that sound? I think He does.  I think it is music to His ears.  It sure was to mine yesterday because I knew when I heard those sounds that it would not be but a few more pulls and that monkey grass would be out of my garden!  Yep!  Yesterday I was rejoicing to monkey grass sounds.  Will ABBA be rejoicing today to similar sounds?  Dare any of us think we have no weeds growing?  How about we make some noise today?  Chop, Chop, Pull!

Hebrews 12:
7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?
8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.
9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?
10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.
11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Some may call me crazy, ABBA, but I don’t care, I enjoyed writing this message today – it’s cute to me but at the same time a really good message I think. And You know as I was pulling that monkey grass yesterday I really did wonder with You if You enjoy the sound of entrenched roots coming loose and letting go from our hearts and our habits.  Even if there is no real sound other than our praise and Your delight, I still enjoyed thinking of it and writing about it this morning.  I am grateful for the fun we have together. I am grateful for You LORD JESUS and the Event of all events we are about to celebrate – Your Sacrificial Death and Glorious Resurrection – so I can even have such a relationship with You to wonder and enjoy You.  Thank You.  I am so looking forward to seeing You Face to face.

And this morning we know we are so privileged and we are honored to bring this list of names to You in prayer.  It is so good that we can time after time come and each time You will hear us and You are all the while responding, tending and healing us.  Thank You. Thank You for what You are doing and shall yet do for each one of these.  Thank You for tending and protecting our IDOK Troops.  I am so very grateful for the safety You have given each one on our list here.  You are so good to us and we love You so much, ABBA.  In You, loving You, obeying You, fellowshipping with You, life is good even when hard stuff comes.  You make it all worthwhile.  You are Awesome.  As we sum this up, I pray for our IDOKs and our Readers today, for peace, for safety, and for some chop, chop, pull today. I pray we will make some noise with roots letting go that are growing some pretty nasty stuff. We want to have hearts like lovely gardens, beautiful fruit that feeds all You send our way.  You are so good to let us be co-laborers with You.  And yet I must say, please forgive me for growing the weeds of laziness and procrastination that so hinders me from helping people.  Make some noise in me today, ABBA, in Jesus name. Amen and amen.

*****
Revelation 2:17– His Ministry to you,
Kathie

Click HERE and pray for today’s needs — Dori for sure.

As I was driving across the Bay on Tuesday mulling over recent days a picture formed on the wall of my mind and I want to share it with you.  I want to share it because I really believe the Holy Spirit of God gave it to me for me and for you.  I believe it will help us.

When we first begin to bring our thoughts into captivity unto Christ; you know what thoughts I am speaking about.  Those thoughts that Scripture calls fiery darts; those that begin with ‘what if’; those thoughts that can send us into an emotional heap – those kind! And so when we first begin (or maybe, begin again) to resist those thoughts rather than laying in an emotional heap beneath them, it can FEEL like we are standing before the mouth of hell with a tea cup of water trying to put out the fire. And as we are about to pitch that tea cup of water on the fire, we are hit with more fiery darts, like: ‘What’s the use? Who do you think you are? And what good do you think this is going to do?  This is too much, you can’t win this.  You can’t put this fire out with a tea cup! And then what he hopes to be the clincher: You know if God really loved you, He would not allow you to suffer this way!’  Please refuse to listen to that trash!  Please don’t give up.  Let us keep on keeping on with our tea cup of water pouring every drop we got on those raging fires and the Holy Spirit WILL come in and He WILL turn our tea cup of water into a FLOOD and He WILL extinguish those flames.  And YOUR victory will be oh so sweet!!

Here are some verses to put in our tea cups.

What a confession is this one!  The Psalmist knew unless he believed, he would loose heart, he knew he had to keep on keeping on with his ‘tea cup’ until he SAW the Goodness of the LORD in his ‘here and now’.

 14 Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!  Look at that promise!  If we will wait on HIM (and the wait means trust, rest upon, lean back on; curl up in His Lap, so to speak, and rest our head on His Heart), HE shall, not maybe, but SHALL strengthen us.

Amen! Stuff is going to happen and we are going to get cut and bruised and wounded BUT we shall NOT be utterly cast down!! AMEN!

I’ve seen the time that this one got me through some really lean times but in HIM we knew we would NOT starve.  And today you and I can know, we may not always be comfortable but in HIM we will get through any hardship, even debt and financial losses. Amen!  And this one.  Now this one in years passed I wrote it and others out on index cards and taped them over my kitchen sink, the bathroom mirror and various other places, as well as carried them around with me so I could read them again and again.  Sound radical?  Maybe so but when one is desperate, desperate measures get the job done.  And at the time I didn’t even know Beth Moore.  :) I’ve since learned she does the same.

This one I particularly like in the NASB  Psalm 145:

This one said to me that even though what I was experiencing was not right and certainly was not kind that my GOD was Right and He was Kind even though He was allowing me to stay and stay and stay in that season.  If I had not chosen to believe those two verses moment by moment, I don’t believe I would not have kept on loving Him in that season of my life.

Today we may want to pick up 17, 18 AND 19 to put in our tea cup.

  19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them.

As I complete this writing I am so excited about it that I am having to curtail myself to keep from posting it early.   I so want you to have His Word to sustain you, encourage you and lift you higher than you have imagined.  I love you all, my dear, dear IDOKs.

A P.S. from later in the day from page 209, day 4, week 9 (The Patriarchs by Beth Moore): Remember, the goal of all true discipline is to disciple.  God never chastises His child past the point of teaching.  He never punishes just to punish.

. . .

Thank You, Father, for this ministry.  Thank You for this Word this morning.  We need it.  I want my appetites, all of them abandoned to You.  I want to want nothing that You don’t want for me. I’m not there I think but I am asking You, Holy Spirit, to get me there.   . . .
Thank You, that You are You and You make no mistakes and Your love for us NEVER fails.  We pray to grow more and more like You.  And we are continuing to pray for each one listed.   As our eyes looked at each name, there are some really serious situations, some physical, some emotional, and the most serious ones I think, the rebellious, the wayward soul – souls having not rested themselves in You alone, these are the most serious I think. Yet we pray for them all, for each to be blessed and favored; for each to release themselves to You and find that You are completely faithful to heal spirits, souls, and bodies.

And we pray for our IDOK Troops to be protected and come home safe.  . . .
Thank You for each one that has come home safely – we pray so will the rest of them.