A Thought to Start Your Week // Troubling God

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“…but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God.” -Philippians 4:6

A Thought to Start Your Week // Prayer

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“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

-1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

My Poppy Story

Every time I open my Bible to the Psalms, I smile. Because I see a wine-red, paper-thin flower pressed between its pages.

That flower means so much to me because it represents answered prayer.

I moved to Italy when I was eleven and, for four years, the only person near to my age who was a Christian and could speak English lived two hours away. I rarely saw her and when I did see her, it was only for a short matter of time. Even though I’m not much of a “people person,” I craved fellowship.

I pleaded with God for just one friend. Just one girl who could relate to me. Many tears were shed and God and I had so many conversations about it, which mainly consisted of me begging for a friend. But He did not answer my prayers, at least not in the way I had hopes He would.

Finally, I gave it up to God; I learned to be content with what He had given me.

A few weeks after giving this up, my mom told me a family was considering moving to Florence and they had two girls close to my age. I couldn’t believe it. Never in my wildest dreams did I actually think God would answer my prayers like that.

So for our final year in Italy I had not one, but two friends who lived five minutes away.

On one of their last nights in Italy, they came over to our house for dinner. Grace, one of the girls, handed me a poppy when she came in. Poppies are my most favorite-ist flowers in the world. She told me I could put it in my Bible.

And so I did, to remember that God answers prayers. Even big prayers like asking for someone to get to know me well enough to give me a poppy.

On the page where my poppy is pressed, one verse reads, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever!” Even though I placed my poppy in my Bible at random, it just happened to be the perfect page. My poppy reminds me to give thanks, that God loves me. It also reminds me of something similar that happened to the Israelites.

In Joshua, the Israelites attempted to cross the Jordan, even though the mighty river was in its flood season. Joshua instructed the people to cross the river, explaining that God said “its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.” The people found His words to be true because as soon as their feet touched the water, the river dried up and the everyone was able to walk across it.

God instructed Joshua to take twelve stones, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel, from the middle of the river. The reason for this is explained in verse twenty:

And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The LORD your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God.”

That poppy is my twelve stones, my reminder that my God is all-powerful, yet He loves me enough to listen to my prayers and answer them. I think it’s important to remember what God has done for us, to remember it often and to tell others what He has done for us. So that He can have the glory He deserves.

What’s your poppy story?

Proclaim His Works

This week’s Christmas devotional is on worship. One way of worshiping our Savior is sharing what He has done in our lives. In fact, we are commanded to share God’s works countless times throughout the Psalms and the rest of the Bible. That’s what I want to do today, spend some time sharing with you and hearing from you.

God has answered so many of my prayers and done amazing things in my short lifetime. One answered prayer sticks out in particular to me. For the first four years of living in Italy, I didn’t know anyone living in the same city who was my age and could speak English. I had Italian friends and I had an American friend near my age, but she lived in a different city. I’m an introvert and fairly shy so not having friends to spend time with wasn’t a huge deal. After a while, though, it really started to discourage me. I spent so much time in prayer begging God for just one friend. Just one.

For a long time, God didn’t respond. Finally, after four years, I gave it up. In fact, I wrote an article for this magazine about how content I was with my situation. A week or two later, my mom told me that a family with two girls near my age was considering moving to our city. They ended up coming to Italy for a year. It was so amazing to see God answer my prayer and His timing.

Now it’s your turn. How has God provided for you? What miraculous works has He done in your life? What prayers has He answered?

Praying for Yourself

Do you ever feel like you pray too much for yourself? Maybe you should pray more for your friends? Or maybe God doesn’t care about your small problems?

2 things: 1) God loves you and 2) He wants to listen

And He doesn’t want to just listen to you if you’re sick and need healing or if you need some new friends. He wants to know when you’re depressed, He wants to know how excited you are when you score the winning goal, He wants to know when everything is average, or when you’re really angry. He wants you to talk to Him! Make sure you spend some time doing that today. And every other day too.

“…but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God.” -Philippians 4:6

What’s your vote?

On a different note….Wednesday is See You at the Pole in the US. See You at the Pole is a national day of prayer for your school. Whether you live in the US or not, organize something at your school! There is a lot of power in prayer. For more info, click here.

Pray for Japan

As most of you probably know, Japan experienced an 8.9 earthquake and a massive tsunami this afternoon. When I first found out about it my first thought was, “Lord, what are you doing??” Even though I live very far away from Japan, it’s still kinda scary. Yesterday, I read a really good article about how to respond to all the disrest in the Middle East, but I think it could also apply to the situation in Japan.

I encourage you to read it here and keep Japan in your prayers.

Envelope Challenge

This past summer I went on a missions trip to Ethiopia with MK2MK, a program by Campus Crusade for Christ designed to encourage and equip missionary kids. At the end of the trip everyone was given a sealed envelope and fifteen minutes to pray. Inside the envelope was a challenge and if you felt led to open the envelope, you had to complete the challenge. I chose to open the envelope and I got the challenge of hosting a 24 hour prayer marathon. Here is the story of my challenge:

This summer I went on a missions trip to Ethiopia. At the end of the trip everyone was given the choice to take a mystery challenge back home. If we chose to take the challenge, we were committing to not only doing the challenge, but doing it before Christmas. After praying about it, I decided to take the challenge that lay under my seat sealed in an envelope. I slowly opened it and inside were the words, “24 Hour Prayer Marathon”. At first, I was a tad disappointed. Compared to others, my challenge seemed a little boring and “too” easy. But the more I thought about it, the more excited I got. I loved the thought of people praying for 24 hours straight!

I went back home, excited and motivated but time flew by and before I knew it, it was December and I hadn’t done my challenge yet. Since I live in Italy and there are not too many people here, I decided to host the event on Facebook so that anyone, anywhere could pray. I decided the topic was going to be Italy so I found Bible verses, songs, and topics relating to Italy’s needs and created a Facebook event. I was nervous because it was a week and a half before Christmas and I knew everyone would be so busy. I just kept reminding myself that I’d done my part and I couldn’t do anything else; it was in God’s hands.

God definitely blessed my efforts and I had around forty people commit to pray! It was so encouraging to know all the prayers that were said for the country I’ve grown to love. It was a great experience in learning to trust God! I loved that MK2MK offered this opportunity to help me stretch my faith. I’m so glad I took the challenge.

Like I mentioned above, I’m so glad I decided to take the challenge! I encourage you to take your own envelope challenge. Click on this link to choose a challenge. If you decide to “open the envelope” e-mail me and let me know!

 

Dear God…

Dear God,

Thank you for October!
For candy corn,
For apple cider,
For cool fall days,
For clear night skies full of twinkling stars,
For scarves,
For leaves changing colors,
For acorns,
For pumpkins,
For pumpkin muffins,
For soft kleenexes when my nose is runny,
For fuzzy socks that keep my feet warm,
For lots of pillows and blankets on cold nights,
For hot soup,
For sweaters,
For the olive harvest,
and new olive oil for schiacciata,

Thank you God for October!

Some things to think about…

“And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” -Colossians 1:9-10

If you take anything away from these verses I think it should be prayer and what a healthy walk with the Lord looks like.

Prayer The verse starts off by saying “…we have not ceased to pray for you…” I don’t know about you, but for me it’s easy for me to cease from praying for someone. As much as I don’t want to admit it, it’s hard for me to pray all. the. time. But I don’t think it’s just me. I imagine a lot of Christians have trouble with that. It’s easy to just blow it off, but praying consistently throughout the day is something that we should do. If we have time to text our bff all day, we have time to talk to God all day.

Take a look at the specifics that we’re to pray for others about (awkward sentence I know, I’ve been writing essay non-stop for the past few days and the part of my brain that writes is shot…my apologies): knowledge of God’s will, spiritual wisdom and understanding, and a healthy walk the Lord. Take some time today to make a list of seven people (one person per day) for whom you can pray these things.

Our Walk with the Lord The end of the verse says that if you’re walking in a manner worthy to the Lord you will fully please Him, bear fruit in every good work, and increase in the knowledge of God. Can you see this in your life? And if there is a manner worthy of the Lord, there must be quite a few that are unworthy. Is your lifestyle and walk with the Lord worthy of Him?

Just some things to be thinking about….