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Humble Yourself

He is able to humble those who walk in pride (Daniel 4:36) For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke 14:11) During my devotion time this morning, God reminded me to continue my journey through the book of Daniel which I started earlier this month, but I got a little sidetracked until I picked it back up again this morning. All I can say is if you have not read the book of Daniel recently, I encourage you to do so during this dry valley of a season we are …

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A Necessary Repentance

  From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17) The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30) I recently had a “Lauryn Hill kind of day”, where I needed to hear words that I feel but sometimes hard to comprehend. Have you ever been there? Well, I listened to one of her songs from an album that is decades old; a song that I have repeated over and over again before and the following words ignited something within me that I knew eventually …

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Lay It Aside And Rest

This morning I am reminded that although I wear glasses, I don’t keep them on at night. I don’t sleep with them. I remove them and lay them aside. God speaks to my heart. Just as I lay aside my glasses at night so that I can sleep comfortably, so too He wants me to lay aside the troubles, the questions, the concerns of the day. He wants me to sleep well at night and I can’t if I don’t lay it all down. Oh beloved, what have you been wrangling with? What are you carrying to bed with you? …

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Pray with Purpose

      James 5: 16 “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” Bible Verse for Meditation: James 5: 13-16   About one year ago, God began to nudge me to form an online prayer group. I was not sure why and did not feel qualified enough to organize it, but I did so after much hesitation. It started with five and then decreased to four around the fifth month, but then began to pick up great …

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Hole In The Roof

We went riding around for a while yesterday. Danny wanted to see where a tree had fallen on the power lines near our house the night before. He also wanted to check a couple of creeks out to see just how much flooding we had. While driving on one highway I noticed a house that was falling in. We used to know who lived in that house and I was surprised. There was a huge hole in the roof. Danny said he had heard they were preparing to burn it as practice for the fire department. The huge hold in …

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Running Buddies

Perhaps you’ve never ventured into the world of running and races. Maybe you don’t even want to! But even if your toes never see the inside of an athletic shoe, I want to suggest that you make sure you have some amazing running buddies in your life! As the cooler weather descends and the trees unveil their decadent autumn foliage, it seems only right to start turning our hearts toward gratitude. And I, for one, am grateful to the point of being humbled for the group I call my running buddies. Let’s be clear from the start. I don’t actually …

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Pray Like You Know God Will Answer You!

Are you praying to God as if you know Him, or are you just throwing up some requests, not expecting much? If you want specific answers to prayer, make specific requests. Nehemiah 1: 8-9 – “Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell …

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Pure Joy

Stress. That would be the single word that best describes the last few years of my life. So much so that when we rounded the corner into 2014, I began to pray, “Lord, will You please grant me a season of rest?” I was so weary that it didn’t seem like a selfish thing to ask for. I felt like I wouldn’t be able to keep going without some time to re-energize. Maybe I just wasn’t specific enough in my request… ‘cuz I was kind of thinking about several months, maybe even a whole year of rest! And initially, it …

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In the Wandering

Have you ever found yourself stumbling through the dark in the middle of the night? Whether it’s to calm a crying child or to find your way to the bathroom, we’ve all had the experience of feeling disoriented and frustrated trying to navigate through a dark place. Arms outstretched, we feel our way through the dark for something familiar. We hope our eyes adjust while we look for some sort of light. And then it happens. We run into an unexpected wall or we choose a path we were sure was the right way only to find out it didn’t …

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Soil of My Soul

I am going to be honest: I do not really know you that well. I don’t know if you are a 30-something mom, a divorced man, a hurting teenager or a heart broken widow. I don’t know what part of my testimony to offer you and what parts to withhold and keep guarded. So, as I write this I fully trust the Holy Spirit to intercede so that my words reflect God’s heart and encourage yours. Sticking to the theme of honesty, you do not really know me either. I am Katie. I just turned 30. I have experienced the …

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Praise Him through the Storms

I once thought that God didn’t give us more than we could handle but I now believe the opposite to be true…He gives us more than we can handle on our own so we have nothing left to do but cling to Him. We cannot do it without Him. I have learned that He will provide if we just let Him and He will calm us so much during the storms that all we can do is praise Him. Exactly one year ago, my family weathered some storms. The details of those few months will be saved for another day, …

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Becoming a Slave and Gaining Freedom

Freedom is, by definition, the power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Slavery is, by definition, a relationship where one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty and fortune. As a teenager I had been engulfed in a life of sin. I was captivated by its lure and enticed by its stronghold. I was a slave to sin, until freedom pursued me and I began to allow God to draw me to Him. As I entered adulthood, I aspired to be happy. I longed for all the normal …