Cathy’s Corner

 

Borrowed from - TGIF Today God Is First Volume 1, by Os Hillman
08-18-2010

 

Today's Prayer
For every problem, every anxiety, every temptation, every sin in my life, there is a deliverer--Jesus Christ! Thank you, God, for Your sacrifice, Your love, Your way to reach down and pull me up. Please forgive me and help me to stand sure-footed and steady on the Rock of my salvation and not to slip and fall into the mire of the world. Please, be in control of my life...and I know everything will be all right. In Jesus' name, amen.

The Response of Faith
..."Everything is all right".... 2 Kings 4:26

The prophet Elisha often would travel through the town of Shunem, and in that town was a well-to-do couple who extended hospitality to him. At first, they simply offered Elisha a meal when he came through town. Then, seeing that Elisha needed a place to stay and study, they built a room for him above their house so that each time he came through town, he had a place to stay. He was so appreciative of their kindness that one day he asked the wife what he could do for her. His servant Gehazi later informed Elisha that the woman was barren and her husband was old. " 'About this time next year,' Elisha said, 'you will hold a son in your arms' " (2 Kings 4:16). A year later the son arrived.

One day the father was working in the field, and the son became ill and died. The woman ran to meet Elisha to inform him. When Elisha asked what was wrong, she did not panic and react in fear. Her response to Elisha seemed almost unnatural. "Everything is all right," she said. Elisha went to the boy and raised him from the dead. It was a glorious miracle. (See Second Kings 4.)

Faith looks at situations through God's eyes, not the eyes of our limited understanding. This woman did not panic, for she knew something more than the current circumstance. Faith does not panic, but realizes that what looks like devastating circumstances may be God's plan to bring glory to Himself by demonstrating His power. When Jesus appeared on the water to the disciples in the middle of the night, they exclaimed, "It's a ghost!" (see Mt. 14:26) First appearances can bring great fear upon us even to the point of paralyzing us. Find the Lord in your circumstance today. Exercise your faith today and trust Him for His outcome in the situation.

Today God Is First (TGIF) devotional message, Copyright by Os Hillman, Marketplace Leaders

 

How many times do our circumstances seem so overwhelming that we can’t see anyway that God can intervene and change them? How many times can we look back and see when He has? Recently I went through something that I knew there was no way the situation was going to be changed by me or anyone else and I was scared to death. So I fasted for a week and prayed more and more every day. I even went on prayer bike rides praying and interceding for the situation. What looked like devastating circumstances to me was indeed God’s way of bringing glory to Himself. The situation was rectified and some said “it was a sign;” but I believe it can only be explained as “it was God.” His power was demonstrated in such a way that it was obvious He was all powerful. While I would like to say I was completely calm through the entire thing, I was not. But I did trust that God was going to provide and protect and had faith He would work all things out for His good.

 

Have a great day in the Lord!

 

Cathy’s Corner

 

Our lesson today is God is with me when I am afraid and God helped Moses. We learn how God provided for Moses though Aaron and how God was with Moses even though he was afraid. There are many times in our lives that we are in fear and we trust God for protection and provision and to calm those fears. The summer of 2007 our son, J was in Iraq for his second tour of duty. While we think it is hot here, it is usually eight to ten degrees hotter there, and it was no different three years ago. I checked and they are looking at anywhere from 116 to 118 every day this week. In August of 2007 we received a phone call from J; he began telling us one of their men had been killed by an IED two days before. Then he began to tell us about where they were and what had been going on that week. Here is an excerpt from the notes I took from that phone call.

“We are living in a safe house and building the base around it. It has a wall of Bradley’s and trucks around it and on one side is a canal. Yesterday around 11am me and five guys were clearing some reed out of the canal by burning them with jet fuel, which is pretty powerful stuff. The canal has about a 10ft drop from where the water stops, it’s deep and steep. You can’t just walk out of it, you have to climb and crawl. The other guys were on top of the canal. Sgt Robinson was hanging on to me and I had the can of fuel and was flinging it everywhere and we had made a trail with it. Something sparked and all of a sudden you could hear this “whoosh” and the whole canal was on fire. It was a wall of fire. I started crawling to get out and the fire was just chasing me and it caught up with me. I got to the top and ran out and the guys were yelling at me to stop and drop. I was engulfed in flames. They said it was like this wall of fire and all of a sudden I came shooting out. I rolled around and put myself out. I had to throw my Kevlar off because it was on fire. I heard Sgt Robinson yelling and he was running and his legs were on fire. I jumped on him and tried to put the fire out and it wouldn’t stop. I took my shirt off and started trying to smother it and that didn’t work. Then Vega came and helped me throw dirt on him and we got it put out. I heard Scremo yelling “Jones, Jones!” I found him in the back of the truck just frozen with his legs and arms burned. I got in the truck and tore off to the house so the docs could get to him. They air lifted me, Robinson and Scremo to the ER in Baghdad. I burned my hands, oh by the way; I’m in the hospital in Baghdad. When jet fuel flares up it’s a bomb fire. Everyone said I just shot out of the flaming canal. No one knows why it went up either. They said that it just went up and everything was on fire. They knew I was down in it but they couldn’t even see me when it went up and they couldn’t believe it when I came out. No one can believe I wasn’t burned anymore than I was. You know I was holding the can, I was in the canal and I was the one engulfed in flames but I have the least amount of burns.” “You know why? Don’t you?” I asked. “Yes I know why.” J answered.  “There are all of these people praying for you over here and God is watching over you and protecting you.” I said. “I know.” J said. “You know how they cut your pants off when you are at the hospital? Well they started cutting mine and they just fell apart because they were so roasted and scorched. One second I was chunking gas and the next second there were flames everywhere.” He said. “That’s just insane.” I said. He said. “NO! What’s insane are the three holes left from those IEDs. They were huge” I just kept saying thank you God the rest of the conversation and Gary and J would say, “Yep.” 

I can’t even imagine how scared my son was nor if he even had time to be scared. I was scared for him listening to him tell us all that happened. We were so grateful to God for J’s protection. There is a song called Through the Fire and one line says, “If I trust the hand of God, I know He’ll shield the flames again and again.” Just as Moses trusted God and God provided for him, J trusted God and God shielded the flames, and we trusted God to help J and to protect him and God did.

 

Say a prayer today for all our military men and women and their families, after all, freedom isn’t really free.

Have a great day in the Lord

 

Cathy’s Corner

 

            So I started a new diet a couple of weeks ago. The first week almost killed me. I was so tired and exhausted and had no energy whatsoever. I felt horrible and I couldn’t figure out why. I’ve been doing a lot of extra praying asking God to help me stick with it. I realized from reading up on it that my body was in detox. I had to get rid of all of the bad stuff that was in my body, like Aspartame. Now I’m not knocking anyone who drinks diet drinks or uses Sweet N Low in their tea because I’ve done it for years. I’m just sharing my experience. I gave up drinking Diet Coke a couple of months ago, but started drinking more tea and yes I used Sweet N Low as my sweetener. I had no idea until I gave it up how addictive it really can be. I’ve read it before and knew it but I didn’t really believe it. I am a believer now. I’m using Truvia which is a natural sweetener and although it doesn’t dissolve like Sweet N Low it is much better for you. This week I’ve had more energy, I feel so much better than before I started the diet and I’ve noticed a lot of changes overall. Not just the weight loss and the clothes fitting better, but I’m not hurting in places I used to hurt, that’s major. Hopefully by the end of the diet I will have learned to eat healthier and eat smaller portions. Why do we think we need so much to eat and especially when we go to restaurants, they give us way too much food? Gary and I both have noticed that we can’t eat as much as we could when we were younger so why do I still try. Because it’s sooooo good. So I’m trying to eat healthier and take better care of myself because after all, I want to be able to play and keep up with my new grand children.

            So what does my diet have to do with anything? Well, I was thinking about it and we all know what sin is, but sometimes sin is disguised and it looks really, really good to us. Satan wants to get to us and so he uses good things to tempt us and make us sin that we don’t really think are that bad. We know that there are things we should stay away from, like drugs, alcohol, pornography, movies that have bad language and sexual content, going places we know corrupt us, taking a second look at that person who is attractive and the list could go on and on. We know its bad, we read about it in the Bible and it tells us to stay away from such things but we don’t really believe it. I mean come on; I’m not a murderer, or a child sexual abuser or anything like that, so I’m not a bad person. No, but I’m still a sinner when I don’t do what God wants me to do and I don’t stay away from the things He has told me to stay away from in His Word. We feel horrible when we do those things, it weighs us down, it burdens us and we can’t figure out why. When we do realize and we start getting rid of all the bad stuff and allowing our body to detox, it’s hard because our sin nature is naturally drawn to those things and it’s hard to pull away. Some of those things can be addictive. Then we notice we start feeling better about ourselves, and we feel like we fit better in our Christian walk. Changes are taking place like feeling closer to God, and that’s major. Hopefully then we realize that we don’t need those other things and we pray and ask God to help us be strong and resist and stay away from those things. 

 

I Corinthians 6:19 “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which is God’s.”