I am going to keep this short because our brothers and sisters are still in harm’s way, but I’m extremely grateful for God’s response to our prayers in diverting and minimize/mitigating the intensity and damage stemming from this historic category 4 hurricane. As we continue to pray for Laura to completely dissipate, I wanted to remind you that all it takes is one prayer to change everything!

It’s no secret nor surprise that prayer reminds us that God can handle our doubt, anger, fear, grief, confusion, and questions. We can literally bring everything (big or small) to God in prayer. James 5:16 confirms, “The effectual (specific)fervent (earnest) prayer of a righteous (only righteous in Christ) man availeth much.”

With that said, praying to God should be similar to breathing His air; it’s easier to do than to not do! When we come to God with our specific requests, we have God’s promise that our prayers are not in vain, even if we do not receive specifically what we asked for (Matthew 6:6; Romans 8:26-27). God promised that when we ask for things that are in accordance with His will, He will give us what we ask for (1 John 5:14-15). Therefore, let’s us be found incessantly before God’s throne room of grace and mercy and let’s take up permanent residence at the foot of Cross. We should be immensely grateful to have a high Priest in heaven who can identify with all that we go through (Hebrews 4:15-16). The good news is we have God’s promise that He will respond to our petitions (Psalm 91:15).

As our brothers and sisters to the North and East begin to make damage assessments and prepare for damage recovery my prayer for them is people will help in anyway they can as they begin to rebuild and restore their lives and their property!

All it takes is one prayer to change everything!

Why do people give up on God? Why have you given up on God? Well, I don’t believe this is a difficult question to answer because most people typically give-up when God’s response time to their personal prayer or petition take too long!

While hanging in the balance, in lieu of staying in God’s presence (prayer, praise, and worship) people way too often choose to believe that God is absent (fear, doubt, and worry). We’ve all heard it said that, “God’s timing is perfect” and for the most part people accept that, but what they really want to know is which time zone is He using (CST, EST, GMT)?! Fact is, God doesn’t reside in time, rather time resides in God!

Let’s be honest, we want what we want when we want it and time is always of the essence! The undetected paradox in fostering this kind of mindset is that God already knows what we need even before we ask! Jesus told His disciples not to be like the babbling pagans of their time because God knows exactly what they need even before they ask (Matthew 6:7-8).

If you’re presently in a holding pattern my first suggestion is to make sure God isn’t waiting on you. If that’s not the case, I challenge you to recognize that God’s timing does two things: It grows your faith as you are forced to wait and trust in God and it makes certain that He, and He alone, gets the glory and praise for pulling you through. In Psalm 31:15, David said “My times are in Your hands …”

Maybe you haven’t given up on God, but perhaps you know somebody who has. If that’s you please remind them not to give up until God answers their prayers. Since time exists in God and God’s timing is perfect, it often takes a little longer for the Master to complete His masterpiece. God will always answer our prayers with either a “yes” or a “no” that’s intrinsically clear; all we need is to patiently wait until the right time for the answers, miracles, and breakthroughs to come.

In closing, when you feel like God is absent and/or deaf, He may actually be saving you from yourself. Saving you from your own desires that will lead you astray and potentially not turn out well. When you get into those moments where you feel like God isn’t listening that’s an indicator for you to trust Him even more. Therefore, take rest in knowing that God is in control! God knows, God sees, and God cares about you and everything your going through!

Father God, all the elements of nature obey Your voice at Your command. Therefore, today we stand as a community of believers requesting that You calm the hurricanes that are presently threatening our well being!

Holy Spirit turn our fears into faith as we walk in the power of our praise and in the light of Your grace, mercy, and goodness.

Lord Jesus, build a spiritual fence and protect our homes from the inside-out from all potential disasters of nature.

Father God, as You know we have gone through a lot in 2020 and this impending tropical burden is way too much and our cups are running over! Help us O’God weather all of these things we have endured. Help us O’God not to quit and to be steadfast, immovable and strong!

Father God, we surrender and holdfast to Your word written in Psalm 57:2 where it is written, “Have mercy on me, God, have mercy, for in you my soul is taking refuge. In the shadow of your wings I take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.”

Father God, as I move from prayer to praise, we want to thank You in advance for Your hand moving favorably on behalf. Thank You for reducing and dismantling each every corner of Hurricane Laura and other potential system lurking and/or brewing in Your waters. Thank You for accepting this declaratory petition and for granting us unity and strength to get through this together! We pray all these things in our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever. Amen and Amen!!

BeStrong

The one thought I believe most of us are pondering is when and how is God going restore what so many have lost in this season.

According to USAFACTS.ORG as of August 8, 2020, the nationwide initial unemployment claims totaled 971,000 and as of this date continuing claims are hovering right at 14,844,000. This number only reflects individuals not the total number within their individual households.

It’s acutely obvious that a great number of families are financially struggling trying to keep ends met—not to mention safe!

Financial burdens is only one end of a much broader spectrum because financial burdens often leads to a host of other worldly and spiritual repercussions.

So, to ponder when will God restore what so many have lost is not at all unusually because or nation is need of help that our government can’t necessarily provide!

But, I have good news; God promises to deliver the impossible. In Joel 2:25 we learn that ‘God will restore the years that the locusts has eaten’. The immediate meaning of this bilateral promise is clear. God’s people had suffered the complete destruction of their entire harvest through swarms of locusts that marched like an insect army through the fields, destroying the crops, multiplying their number as they went.

For four consecutive years, the harvest was completely wiped out. God’s people were brought to their knees in more ways than one. But “the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people.” God said, “Behold I am sending to you grain, wine and oil, and you will be satisfied (Joel 2:18-19).

In the coming years, God said, their fields would yield an abundance that would make up for what had been lost: “The threshing floor shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. . . . You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied” (Joel 2:24, 26). This wonderful promise for the people meant that years of abundant harvests would follow the years of desolation brought about by the locusts.

Now, feel free to substitute locusts with ‘COVID’ and or any other ‘thing’ that has caused you or someone you know to be adversely impacted in this season!

Before I close, I have to let you in on one infinitesimal condition. The people in Joel’s time had to repent and turn back to God in order to receive the bilateral promise of restoration. God literally exchanged His restorative blessings for their faithful obedience and that’s exactly what He is calling us to do!

There is no doubt that God is able to restore the beaten, the bruised, and the broken. God has promised to not only deliver us, but to give us ALL THAT WE WOULD HAVE HAD during this season of lost. (Somebody say amen!)

God wants us to bring our sin and shame to Him. In return, He will turn our past guilt into weapons for His glory, and like He said in the above passage from Joel, the time we’ve lost to shame and darkness will be restored to us. God will restore what was lost when we turn our hearts, souls and minds back to Him!

In I Corinthians 15:58, we learn that it’s important to the Christian faith to be “steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord our labor is not in vain.”

Paul encouraged the Corinthian church and he is encouraging us today to remain faithful and spiritual grounded. He also encouraged the church at Ephesus in Ephesians 4:14 that a steadfast person shouldn’t be “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching.”

Let’s be clear, Paul is primarily teaching believers to stand firm on God’s word and not false doctrine (man’s word) because many Christians back then and also today fall victim to all kinds of deception. In another letter to Corinth, Paul expressed similar concerns and he said, “I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3).

Interchangeably, we can equally apply Paul’s teaching regarding deceptive and misleading doctrine to our lives in overcoming everyday challenges, stress and threats. With that being said, the more common definition of steadfast is firmly fixed in place; firm in purpose; immovable; not subject to change; unwavering. So essentially, these two terms are one of the same and thus can be used interchangeably.

But more importantly, it’s equally beneficial to note that in order to be steadfast and immovable sufferings has to be part of it (See Romans 5). You see, the beauty in suffering is gravitational because sufferings pulls us closer to Christ, and it allows us to become more like Him.

When we are steadfast and immovable we are rewarded for our obedience. The rewards are usually not in the form of monetary gain or improved status. The primary reward is spiritual maturity. We begin to appreciate what we have more and examine all of the ways God has blessed us in spite of the challenges, stress or threats. If we allow hard times to teach us; we will undoubtedly grow closer to God. That’s the goal, right?!

Look at it from this spiritual lens, when times are tough, Satan sees an opportunity to attack us. He walks around like a lion ready to destroy us (John 10:10). Often in the Bible he is called the destroyer (I Peter 5:8). This is why we need Christ’s strength because we cannot endure the devils attacks on our own.

I know for myself when times are tough, I am tempted to sin and do things that I would regret later. It’s in those times I need God more than ever. It’s in those moments that I have no other option than to be steadfast and immovable as wavering is never an option.

Beloved, God calls us to use these times to depend on Him, and to deepen our relationship with Him. If we do, the reward is a crown of life that He promised to us (James 1:12).

In closing, we can safely trust in God and His goodness, regardless of the challenge, stress or threats. I know it doesn’t make it easy, but it does bring solace, peace and comfort. Therefore, we can rest in the knowledge that He holds all of our circumstances in His hands and we can safely trust that even if we stumble, God will remain steadfast-immovable and because He can—-so can we!

Father God, we’re weary and don’t know when all of these “struggles” will end in our lives. We feel like we’ve been running forever, trying to outrun all of these test and trials. We have COVID, social injustices, police reform, escalating heinous crimes, remote schooling adjustments, an upcoming national election, and now another storm quickly approaching the gulf’s steamy waters.

Father, we NEED HELP to strip off these weights that are slowing us down, not to mention our personal sin that so easily entangles us.

Father, give us supernatural strength to run with endurance this race You have set before us so that in the end You get the glory and we are recipients of Your unmatchable love, grace, and mercy!

Abba Father, I know that because of Your hand we will ultimately become victors over all of our trials and circumstances. I know that our current sufferings are not worthy to be compared to glory that will be revealed and I know that without reproach nothing in this world could ever separate us from Your indelible and steadfast love in Christ Jesus. Therefore, please give us a full measure of that love today; give us the strength to endure everything that is going on in our world and because nothing is impossible for You. With that said, in advance we thank You for giving us what we need to continue being strong and moving forward. We thank You for the crown of joy that awaits us forever in Your heavenly Kingdom! As James 1:12 confirms, You bless those who patiently endure testing and temptation and then we will receive the crown of life that You promised to those who love You!

Father God, we choose to be patient and we ask that You move by Your Holy Spirit and have Your way in our lives. You must increase, but we must decrease (John 3:30). Lord, take the reigns, the wheel, and for that matter commandeer the entire vehicle. We release, relinquish, and resign all authority over to You! Have your way O’God and Thank You for never giving up on us, never closing Your eyes, or deafening Your ears to our prayers, petitions or our praise. In Jesus name, we are forever indebted to You, but through Christ’s sacrificial blood that debt has been paid-n-full! Only You could do that and for that, we’re grateful and thankful and we ask all these things in Jesus’ life persevering and restoring name, amen and amen!

Like most of you, I’m a constant work in progress and I’m so grateful that God is not done with me yet! With that said, I’ll be the first to tell you that when things get heated—I get frustrated. In most cases, this reaction is common to all of us because we don’t like to welcome-unwelcome circumstances. Our mind-set almost automatically shifts to the negative which undoubtedly blurs our vision to see the positive in unwelcome circumstances.

However, in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 Paul offers a different perspective in dealing with unwelcome circumstances. He reminds us that, “Our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”

What can you glean from these two passages of text? Our unwelcome circumstances actually work for us and not against us. God uses life experiences—good or bad— to enrich, sharpens, and deepen our relationship and our walk with Him. Unfortunately, in moments of frustrations we fail to see the silver lining and the victory of God’s revealing glory in our unwelcome circumstances. Fact is, we have the tendency to forget that what we believe and speak during difficult times determines the quality of our spiritual life and future. Proverbs 18:21 says, “There is power of life and death in the tongue.”

Beloved, we must not forget that unwelcome circumstances don’t come to stay, they come to pass – they are transient; they are temporal. Every problem has a solution. The fact that we don’t know the solution doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

So, don’t resign to a life of unwelcome circumstances because you can’t see the solution. Every unwelcome circumstance has its own resolution, just like every storm runs out of rain. Don’t ever count God out because at the proper time, God will always find a way to make way for you!

How in the world does God want me to “rejoice always……” (I Thessalonians 5:16), when at times I often feel like lamenting due to life’s many unexpected hurdles, obstacles, twists and turns?

Let’s be honest, some of you have pondered why doesn’t God’s word work for me like it does for others. Well-intentioned friends like Job’s ‘friends’ tell you to keep your head up, but you still can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, rather all you hear is the sound of a quickly approaching train.

With that said, despite the twists and/or turns you’re still able to build up enough spiritual strength to pick up your bible and you turn to the above mentioned scripture that tells you to rejoice always and oh by the way, in everything give thanks! You think to yourself, does God have a sense of humor or what?!

Well, I’ve learned that when it comes to God guiding His children through ominous valleys and challenging times, it’s never a joking matter to Him.

The fact is, however, when life overwhelms you, the last thing you want to do is give thanks, right? Look at this way, God’s grace should always be the the key to unlock godly gratitude. Nancy Leigh DeMoss said, “True Christ-centered, grace-motivated gratitude fits life’s most desperate moments and difficult situations. When there are no answers, it gives hope. It transforms overwhelmed strugglers into triumphant conquerors—gratitude is a hard fought, grace infused biblical lifestyle and [its] transforming power is reserved for those who know and acknowledge the giver of every good gift, and who are recipients of His redeeming grace.”

Boom…grace-motivated gratitude is not for the faint at heart. When we truly understand grace—when we see that God only owes us wrath but has provided Christ’s merit to cover our demerit—then everything changes.

At the end of the day, our motivation to live for Christian ethics is not merely to obey some abstract law or a list of rules; rather, our response is provoked by grace-motivated
gratitude. Jesus understood that when He said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” If I may have the liberty to paraphrase: “Keep My commandments not because you want to be just, but because you love Me.”

Therefore, despite life’s many hurdles, obstacles, twists and turns we must fully understand it’s only through God’s unmerited favor we’re able to live a life centered around grace-motivated gratitude and obedience!

Charles J. Clarke III is the creator of the BOLT personality profile concept. BOLT profiling was mainly created to build better relationships and to develop better interpersonal skills.

The BOLT personality test acronym stands for bull, owl, lamb, and tiger. Today we are going to pick on the owl personality that we all tend to lean on for processing our internal thoughts.

Let’s examine 2 Corinthians 10:5-6 (NLT), “We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.”

We should know by now that sin evolves from our thoughts. Let’s be honest, our minds can either work for us or against us. Our minds can either be in tuned with God’s truth or in tuned with the devil’s lies. When our brain works for us, it helps us to stay consistently positive, reach goals, and maintain a sense of gratitude. But when the stinking-thinking kicks into overthinking it makes us become bitter, resentful, nasty, less focused, negative, and discouraged. All of these factors can potentially lead us to the point of self-sabotage and self-destruction. Hence the reason Paul is instructing us to captive those negative-sin producing thoughts.

Proverbs 12:5 confirms, “The thoughts of the righteous are just, But the counsels of the wicked are deceitful.”

It’s imperative that we train our minds to work for us and not against us. When we line God’s truths up and compare them to the devil’s lies there should be an unequivocal distinction that propels us to the light of God’s will, plan and purpose for our lives!

Beloved, much like we exercise our bodies, we too must train our brains (minds) to submit to God’s truths and by doing so we are able to destroy those ‘obstacles’ Paul is referring to in the above scripture.

Dr. Caroline Leaf, a cognitive neuroscientist, points out that the brain takes 18 years to grow, and a lifetime to mature. Interestingly, while every organ in our bodies are fully formed at birth and got bigger as our bodies grew, our brain actually takes a full 18 years to grow. Not to mention, it continues to develop and matures until the day we die. This simply means no matter how old we are our brain is incessantly evolving.

So to my fellow Owls, don’t be an over-thinker and when you do think make sure what your thinking about lines up with God’s truths and not the devil’s lies! Many of the psalms were written by over-thinkers who were facing danger, emotional unrest, fear, or despair. But they overcame their propensity to overthink by incorporating scripture and prayer into their thoughts.

David gives us an excellent example of this in Psalm 94:19 he said, “When doubts [thoughts] filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer.”

We’ve all heard and have even stated the phrase, “There’s no place like home.” The main reason we feel a connection to this phrase is because we’re most comfortable in own surroundings.

Did you know, this phrase is a quotation from the song “Home, Sweet Home”? These words were penned by John Howard Payne and music by Sir Henry Rowley Bishop, from the opera Clari, introduced at London’s Covent Garden in 1823.

Now let me ask you, where is home for you? For some people home is in a church, their job, a retail store, a restaurant or whatever place or venue they feel most secured and comfortable.

What if I told you this world was not your home?! Some of you seasons saints would start to shout, but for the neophyte Christian this may not soak in very well.

In relation to our want of heaven and abandoning the earthly rewards that we once ran after, C.S. Lewis wrote that it probably will not happen in a day. Rather, he says, “poetry replaces grammar, gospel replaces law, longing transforms obedience, as gradually as the tide lifts a grounded ship.”

In Tim Keller’s book, Prodigal God he said: “Home is a powerful but elusive concept. The strong feelings that surround it reveals some deep longing within us for a place that absolutely fits and suits us, where we can be, or perhaps find our true selves. Yet, it seems that no real place or actual family ever satisfies these yearnings, though many situations arouse them.”

I John 2:15-17 says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”

Oh, but if we could all click the heels of our spiritual Chuck Taylor’s 3x, we sure wouldn’t end up in Kansas, rather we would find ourselves in the glorious presence of God!

Check out this hymn published by Albert E. Brumley:

“This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue;

The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door

And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”

In the the last chapter of the Bible (Revelation), John is merely describing God’s good future of shalom (peace). There is a renewed heaven and earth. The holy city descends and heaven and earth are one. God pitches his tent with us mortals and He wipes every tear from our eyes. And the One seated on the great throne declares that he is making all things new (not all new things).

That being said, this world is not our home unless our home is heaven, but we are called to be good stewards of God’s gifts, talents, time, and treasures while we here are on earth passing through!

In closing, let’s rephrase the old adage so repeat after me: “There’s no place like heaven because there’s no one like God!”