It Is Well With My Soul...not always

I and others had a pretty busy week with raising funds for 91.3 Hope FM.  It was a time of great peace, joy, excitement, and much more. I am very grateful to be part of such a grand ministry of God's.
I recognized I had a control issue and a work-aholic mind set. God showed me a few things about myself during the week and to the end.  I hope that you will allow me to share with you my lesson.
I am always desiring to do God's will and work, I surrendered each day to His desire and did as he led me to do things or not do something.  I believe I changed in the last day. I remember praying God's will be done, but walking away from prayer ready to sit at the computer, punch numbers, make reports,and make changes as needed. I was in the driver's seat, or so I thought. 
At the end of Friday day four, I, and others, were exhausted; ready to pack up and rest.  I got home and found that I couldn't rest.  I was on an adrenalin high. I felt I needed to keep working, so I did a few things on the the computer and then my computer wouldn't let me back on the website. Coincidence? I don't think so.  I believe God wanted to show me that He sits on the throne and not me.
As I started to decompress, thoughts of what I could do to help us reach our final goal began to annoy me. I wanted to get on the the website so bad that I could taste it.  I finally turned my computer off and surrendered. 
Yet, because I was tired and my defenses were down, Satan used it to attack me. I heard how I was the one that was responsible for us not crossing the finish line with the set goal. I had the power to change the numbers by doing things differently.  I listened to the yucky pucky thoughts so much that I was in tears for most of the night and early the next day. I took on the oppression of the devil telling me that I was better off dead than to face the world with what I didn't do. Oh, yes, my friend I was at an all time low.
BUT GOD!
You see, God showed me differently one moment at a time. My spouse and best friend kept telling me that I did what God wanted me to do, I was obedient to him, I didn't have that much power and that God knows my heart. I counteracted with everything he said with "yay but."
I reached out to a friend who encouraged me the same, friends loved on me with a wedding shower where I felt very loved, and I went to a bible study ready to go to sleep, but the Lord showed me his compassion there. He also spoke the words of my beloved through two of my female friends, Chris and Ann Marie. By Sunday morning, I was listening to Pastor Kirby talk about the Holy Spirit and how he works through us. I sat in the teaching with tears streaming down my face because the Holy Spirit was using the Pastor's words like an antibiotic ointment on my heart. I went to the front to ask my daddy to forgive me for thinking I could control things, I handed the numbers over to him, and let him work in our community and on the hearts of others the way He chooses and not me.  The Lord told me himself that "no one is perfect except the Son of God, my Son."  Then I heard again from someone else that repeated the same exact words.
I walked away Sunday morning refreshed and renewed. "It is well with my soul" just as the song says.
Then later that morning, Psalm 86 was read and it was more ointment being spread over my wounded heart. "For great is your mercy toward me and You have delivered me from the depths of Sheol." 
Psalm 86:13
"Humble yourself before the Lord and He will lift you up." James 4:10
Later on Sunday evening, God gave me the opportunity to teach nine youths between the age of 13-17 about Him.  When it was all over, I had the chance to ask the oldest one if there was anything I said that touched his heart, or changed his thought about God.  Chris replied "when you said that God cares about the small stuff in my life like the cereal I eat. This brought him closer to me than thinking he just cared about my week."  "I understood what you were saying too."
You see my friend, if I had not ran to Papa and told him what I did was wrong and surrendered, he couldn't use me to help someone else come closer to him.
I ask you, what are you holding onto that you think you have control off, but really you just need to surrender?  Make it well with your soul, it will do you good.

~Marjorie
91.3 Hope FM is an ongoing ministry on the air waves. If you have not had the opportunity to donate your gift or pledge click on the link provided and do it today. Every little bit adds up to a heap and God will do amazing things with it.  We humbly appreciate your help in keeping our doors open to help others, encourage others, pray for others, and glorify the Lord Almighty daily. Won't you share Jesus with someone today?

I Don't Even Have Leftovers

We all wake up with or end the day with nothing left in us. This morning was my day. I woke up to pray with Rodney and I had nothing to offer; not even leftovers. I am the vessel that is looking at the half empty cup.  I didn't have anything come to me during prayer, not one name, request, or supplication. I expressed this fact in my prayer to God this morning and the fact I have not been this dry in a long time.
I am thankful that I can come to God with my emptiness and He knew it before I did, so he ordains my steps to rejuvenation. I went into another room and picked up a book called "The Word for you Today (out dated too). This book is a book with daily devotions and prayers; a good tool.  I open the book and the heading reads:
"HOW'S YOUR PRAYER LIFE?"  Please somebody shout out::  "God is at work today!" As I read this entry the words jumped off the page and into my heart.  "The place of prayer is where you meet with God to be instructed, corrected, cleansed, loved, built up and prepared to do His will. It can be anywhere, but it must be somewhere! It can be anytime, but it must be a set time. Without prayer, what do you have to draw on? You'll work harder and harder and accomplish less and less because you're operating in your own strength.  But after you've prayed you'll struggle less and accomplish more because your operating in God's strength.  If your spending hours watching television but say you've no time to pray., "it time to seek the Lord." I don't watch television, but I am in a place in my journey that I am seeking the depth of the Lord. I must spend time with the Lord to know His will.  Yet, I have nothing to bring.
      I sat down to sip on my coffee and came across another book "a scripture prayer guide DYNAMIC PRAYING."  I was ready to pray for others when the words, again, jumped off the page:
"Send your Spirit, Who is the breath of life, Who comes like the wind that blows where it pleases.  Bring Him like the breath Who entered the dry, dead bones Ezekiel saw in the valley.  Draw the Spirit as the breath Who will enter them and give them life."   (Revelation 11:11, John 3:8, Ezekiel 37:5,6,9-10)
"Father, this expresses how I feel today." and He replies "I know." I say: "Father this is what I need today" and He replies "I know."
Next, as I open my computer to share this truth with you (because if I feel this way, maybe you do too).
I came across a friends entry on Facebook and it reads:
 "Like Elijah, we need to rest in GOD, recall HIS faithfulness, and trust HIM for the future. GOD remains active in our lives even when it feels as though HE has fallen silent." Dr Charles Stanley
WOW~ this is where I am too and  this is why I am like the dry, dead bones of the valley. 
My calendar is so full for the next few months that will require so many things from me. I'm looking into the future instead of the moment that I am in.  I am questioning God on things I have been taught and I am struggling so much that I have nothing to bring.  


Do you see Him at work here in my life?  Rest assured my friend, He is the same God working in your life. 

God tells us in Matthew 6:27-29 this very thing:

Amplified Bible (AMP)

²⁷And who of you by worrying and being anxious can add one unit of measure (cubit) to his stature or to the span of his life?    ²⁸And why should you be anxious about clothes? Consider the lilies of the field and learn thoroughly how they grow; they neither toil nor spin.
 ²⁹Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his magnificence (excellence, dignity, and grace) was not arrayed like one of these.

Man, if he can take care of the lilies of the field and they grow with the need of nourishment, water, and sun, why wouldn't God take care of you and me too?

Just for today, I am going to trust that God "knows" my heart, schedule, needs and is willing and working in my life to provide all that I can ask for or imagine.
Friend, I hope, no I pray for you to recognize God working in your life. I pray for you my friend to ask God to breath life into your dry, dead bones. Last I pray that you will pay close attention in your daily movements to see God working in your life to change who you were to who you will be in His will.

~ I don't want to leave you, but I have to go have a little talk with Jesus.
Be encouraged, "He knows."