Category Archives: Guests

A Water Buffalo

Sarah Bendenkop and her family have been on our Praying for These since the days when she and Ryan and the Boys were still in Costa Rica — silly me I write like I am face to face friends — just sister bloggers and email exchanging from time to time BUT Sarah wants a Water Buffalo for Christmas!

Please visit her at her Blog Splashing Glory and read about her Water Buffalo Wish and if you will pray and ask ABBA if He has any desires to minister through you to Sarah and her Christmas Wish.

Thank you with Christmas love and hugs!! kt

Gladness

Thursday, December 16, 2010 *** 9 days till Christmas Day!

Christmas Song # 11 *** Every Light That Shines At Christmas *** By Ernie Haase and Signature Sound!


I am encouraging each of you to visit Peace For the Journey, particularly Creating Interest for the Kingdom.  Elaine gives an understanding of the Parable of the Talents that is superb!

You turned my lament into dancing; You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness. Psalm 30:11

I read that verse in my Journey marked for Wednesday, December 15. Immediately, I said in the quiet halls of my head: “One true, believing gaze at JESUS would do this for a soul — any soul, every soul and that is what He came to do.

John 1: CEV 14The Word became a human being and lived here with us. We saw His true glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father. From Him all the kindness and all the truth of God have come down to us.

All that is required of us to have His fellowship which for sure will bring us gladness and dancing (yes, even Baptist .. :)  ) is to lament over our sins. Grieve over them, agree with Him that our sins are evil, unholy, ungodly and worthy of  death. I remember this kind of  lamenting. Heartbroken, soul in anguish, just all messed up, and finally agreeing with Him and indeed He did turn my lamenting into dancing.

Lamenting. Proper lamenting would be a wonderful Christmas gift — don’t you think?

But praise Him, not a ‘gift’ to hold onto forever! You see lamenting is as the wearing of sackcloth. Not my desired Christmas Attire.  For more sackcloth information click here.

And right here I am praying earnestly for dancing and gladness. You see  from the word ‘here’ of this post a cyber glitch has dumped ‘lamenting’ all over me by taking away my FULLY completed post.  Praise Him, praise Him the prayer is not forgotten — by HIM that is (and He is answering it even though only I got to pray it).  Me? Well, truth is it’s gone and recreating it as it was?  Well …. it ain’t gonna happen.

SO.  I pick up again, but before I do I need a walk to the kitchen.

One walk to the kitchen, a phone call, more praying, and waiting and waiting and waiting — Finally

I  read the  Journey selection in its entirety, here is the pertinent part:

. . . or watched something precious crumble right before your eyes? Unfortunately most of us will face our share of crises and the tumult that goes with them.

It’s during such times that we must be prepared to call upon the faithfulness of our God like never before. We are wise to prepare ahead by getting to know Him now, by immersing ourselves in His Word, and storing it in our hearts. Then, when He has faithfully walked through our crises with us, we will be able to say with the psalmist (Psalm 66:16),  “Come and listen, all who fear God, and I will tell what He has done for me.”

Amen and amen!

John 15: (Amplified Bible)11I have told you these things, that My joy and delight may be in you, and that your joy and gladness may be of full measure and complete and overflowing.

Praying for These

ABBA, this is so not what it was but I trust You. I trust You, HOLY SPIRIT, to answer this prayer and the earlier one and in the process squash my pride which I now confess before You and thank You for clothing me in Your Gladness. I pray our IDOKs and Readers will now come before You in their closets of prayer and give You glory in their own lamenting, fully receiving Your Gladness. The Gladness You prepared for us before the Foundation of the World in our Savior JESUS.  Amen and amen.

Christmas Gladness and holy hugs to you all, kt

Widen Those Margins!

Tuesday, December 7, 2010 — IDOK Devotion.  Day 7 of our Countdown to Christmas.  Song 4.  Hallelujah! Light Has Come!

I’ve been shedding a few tears this morning over a missed opportunity.  Right about 5:00 PM on Saturday the big screen flashed “Siestas come to the Sound Booth.”  Siestas is blog-land code because only those who frequent LPM Blog know they are ‘Siestas’.  But TIME  and FEAR won out and I left the arena, and not by way of the sound booth. This morning as is my custom I stopped by LPM and there I read:

“Hey, Darling Things! I have you on my mind because I’ve just seen 80+ of you this weekend backstage at Deeper Still.”

Yes, you read it right! I could have been one of those 80 + to say hello and thank you to Beth but I missed that opportunity thinking about T I M E.

And this morning I have come to this conclusion: I have spent too much time thinking about time! :)  Perhaps I’m not the only one.

But there’s more and it’s worse! It’s F E A R.  I missed that opportunity listening to such trash as this:

What if I am wrong? What if YOU are not really one of those SIESTAS that screen is signaling? Who do you think you are? Just because you read and comment at LPM, does that make you a Siestas to Beth Moore?!

And obviously I answered in the negative.  Am I alone in this? Perhaps not.

So today I am relying again on Romans 8:28.

Romans 8: (New American Standard Bible) 28And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Seeing that flash upon the screen was a gift from my ABBA but I let TIME and FEAR keep me from receiving it.  And so from this platform of Romans 8:28 I am encouraging us, you and me,  to STOP IT!  To stop talking ourselves out of opportunities and gifts that our DADDY GOD offers us! To stop missing out because of TIME and FEAR on encounters that very well could advance the Kingdom of our Great God and King and bless some Siestas and Sisters and Brothers in the process!

As Beth said under point 4. ‘Our treasure gets lost in the same trash as our time.’, we need to put some margins in our lives! And by GRACE, my margins are beginning to widen! :)

Yep! The Deeper Still messages were for me and this gift I failed to unwrap at the conference just got re-wrapped and presented to me again in Romans 8:28.  No more tears over what was missed, otherwise I’ll miss more missing this one.  Anybody know what I mean? Widen those margins!!

ABBA, Thank You. You keep teaching and in JESUS Name I’ll keep learning and so will our IDOKs.  Thank You.   Bless You and thank You for our Praying for These and for IDOK Troops – we are entrusting them all to You and praising You for Your goodness and mercy and answers to all their needs.  Amen and amen.

Christmas love and blessings with holy hugs, kt