As the week came to a close, I breathed a sigh of relief, “We made it through another week!”

Leaving all our opinions to the side, the one thing I have been reminded of is that this is why we are praying for our families and friends this month. Seriously, we have never been more in need of prayer than now.

And so we continued and began the week with reading 2 Timothy 1:7. I learned to pray this verse when I was in my 20’s in the middle of what I truly think was the most painful, and messiest time of my life.  I learned it in the NKJV and no matter how many versions I have read since then, I still quote it in the NKJV .  Let me share it with you:

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

Reading and typing those words, they fall just as powerfully on me as they did all those years ago.

Let’s just get to praying:

Father, we thank You that in these days when it would be easy to give way to fear for so many reasons, You assure us that we have not been given a spirit of fear. You fill us with Your peace and with wisdom, so we are able to navigate these most challenging of times. Make us people who walk through our days in power, in love, and with a sound mind. Help us not to lose our minds. Help us to think wisely, with Your Word in our hearts and minds, and on our tongues. Help us to speak Your Word to others in truth, not twisted to make our points and win an argument. Use our families to be Your Light in our communities – for the glory and honor of Your Name alone. Amen.

How are you praying today?

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“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. For His lovingkindness is everlasting.”
(Psalm 107:1, NASB)

God is always good, always kind, always loving.

Father, we thank you for Your goodness to us, yes, even when we aren’t feeling it. We thank you for Your kindness and Your love, which you pour out on our families continually. Today we thank You for Your guiding hand even when we were unaware You had gone on ahead of us and made a way. Help us to be thankful as we remember Your goodness and to not take You for granted. In Your Name we pray, Amen.

What are you thanking God for today?

~*~*~

We closed the week with reading James 3:17:

“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.” (NASB)

The verse provides a good criteria by which to weigh the opinions and thoughts that surround us.

Any wisdom we obtain must come from God and align with His Word, which alone is Truth. It must hold up to each of these qualities. It cannot be pure but not peaceable. Gentle but not reasonable. It must be yielding good fruit, etc.

God’s wisdom will encompass all of these characteristics.

“The source of true spiritual wisdom is God. To get our wisdom from any other source is to ask for trouble. We do not need to get the counterfeit wisdom of the world, the wisdom that caters to the flesh and accomplishes the work of the devil. We should get our wisdom from God.”

(from The Warren Wiersbe Study Bible)

Dear God, we can get our information from so many sources these days and absorb it into our thinking. Help us, and our families, to get our wisdom from You alone. We need to process world events and opinions through the filter of Your Truth, for this is the way we gain wisdom. We thank You that You tell us “But if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5, NASB). In Your Name we pray, Amen.

~*~*~

Through prayer, we need not live in fear.
Through prayer, we can be filled with thanksgiving.
Through prayer, we can be filled with wisdom.

Photo 1: by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
Photo 2: by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Photo 3: by Geronimo Giqueaux on Unsplash

Today I am joining … Tell His Story and InstaEncouragements .