I'm Back!

Well, I have been back for about a week but with lots of laundry and school to do with the girls...we are just not getting back into the swing of things. We had an amazing time in Disney...and my trip to Richmond was AWESOME!

God really met us and led in wonderful ways. God gave us vision, friendships, connections, answered prayers, opened doors, and valuable knowledge that will last a lifetime! I met some wonderful women and pray that God continues to work all over this country and world calling more and more workers to the harvest!

Thank you for praying! Your prayers were answered in mighty and unexpected ways! There are several things I am praying over and processing right now. Please continue to pray for me and Desert Flower Ministries as we have open doors. Jay and I need much discernment as we pray about directions and opportunities in the future with this ministry.

For the next few weeks, I will be sharing some from the new study God has called me to write and it will be followed with practical ideas for engaging in the heartbeat of God as found in Isaiah 58. So...hang on and check back often as we start another journey...hang on for the ride!

Thrive!
Frances

Kingdom Women: Impact Your World

I will be headed to the Kingdom Women: Impact Your World Women's Leadership Dialog today and I would love to have your prayers! I will fly to Richmond, VA to meet up with women from around the nation to dialog about how to engage women in missions. Each woman has a specific area of leadership in ministry and they desire to bring us together to talk about ways we can all work together to engage women in missions.

Please pray for me as I will be one of the session speakers on "Going as Engagement." I will be sharing along with Paula Hemphill about ways we can engage women in going! Pray that God will fill my mouth with the words He desires!

I will then be out of town for the next week with my family on vacation. I'm so looking forward to this time and will not be posting for that time. Thanks again for your sweet prayers for myself and for DFM ministries. Have an amazing week in God's Word!

Thrive!
Frances

Blessed Weeping - Luke 6:21b

"Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.” Luke 6: 21b

This verse really caused me to think today. We don’t really feel like weeping is a blessed thing. Our culture runs as fast as we can away from those things that would cause us to weep. We hate feeling sorrowful, sad, full of remorse, pain, or suffering.

As I thought about this verse this morning…I wondered how it can be blessed to weep. In a culture that tries to insulate ourselves from every pain, suffering, and sadness…do we truly understand and embrace this verse? Do we truly see the blessing in weeping…or do we find ways to flee from its presence in our lives?

Jesus wept. That could be the most famous and most quoted verses in the Bible. But, it’s true. He DID weep. He wept over the rebellion of Jerusalem and His people. He wept over Lazarus and his sisters in their grief. He wept in prayer the night he was arrested. Jesus understood that it was blessed to weep…for one day we shall laugh in joy!

Jesus was not immune from sorrow. His life was filled with hurt and suffering and rejection and denial. Many times in our own daily life we try so very hard to keep ourselves from such things. We don’t want to suffering along with Jesus’ example.

If we do not see the blessing in weeping, then we do not experience the joy in Christ to the fullest! In weeping with others in their times of mourning and pain, we follow Christ’s own example of weeping with Mary and Martha after their brother Lazarus died. Jesus knew he would raise him from the dead…but he wept because he fellowshipped in their pain. He loved them deeply…and when they mourned he did also. He wept because He loved.

In weeping over sin in our lives, we will experience the joy of the Cross fully. We will realize that each moment we rely on a Savior. Jesus wept over the sin and rebellion of His people as He gazed over Jerusalem. In our Christian culture our desire to be happy all the time has insulated from the godly sorrow that leads to repentance. We are truly blessed when we weep over sin because in that godly sorrow we see the worth of Jesus Christ moment by moment in our daily lives.

Weeping is truly blessed in God’s eyes…but this verse also gives us a hope of laughter! Perhaps you will not experience laughter in this earthly life in your particular situation…but you are promised a day when you will have complete joy in the presence of Jesus Christ! His Word is true…His promises answered YES in Christ.

Weeping lasts only for the night…joy comes in the morning. May we fellowship in weeping for it shows that we love like Christ loved, we grieve over sin as He grieved, and that we surrender to the will of our loving Father. Let’s not run from weeping…may we see it as blessed when it enters our lives…knowing that our sweet Savior was very familiar with weeping and He promises laughter one day!

National Day of Prayer

"Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land. My eyes will be open and my ears attentive to every prayer made in this place. " 2 Chronicles 7:14-16

Lord,Today we join with those around the world in prayer to You. We humble ourselves, for the very nature of prayer reminds us that we are completely at Your Sovereign mercy. We come to You knowing that we can not heal ourselves or forgive our sins...or restore our land. We know that You are omnipotent...all powerful.

We recognize today that You are all powerful...meaning there is NO other power. We are powerless and humbled before You. We seek You face because You are our only hope.Hope is never found in our country, government, parents, bank accounts, jobs, IRAs, families, children, the next generation, or ourselves. Hope is from You alone. Hope that flows from Jesus Christ's veins on Calvary. Hope of standing forgiven and right before You...the Holy and all powerful God. Our coming to You alone today in prayer...is a reminder that our hope is in You.

As we seek Your face today, we must also be faced with our wicked ways. For we can not see Your holiness and then look blindly at our own depravity. We deserve death and the wrath of a perfect God. Sweep us up in your mercy today in order that we may turn from our wicked ways. Open our eyes as we seek You...to who You are...and a sobering view of who we are.

Thank You that by the blood of Jesus we have His power to turn from our sins and embrace You as Lord!Thank You for hearing us. Thank You for the awesome relationship we are allowed to have with You through the gruesome death of Jesus. Open our eyes today to see the amazing worth of Jesus. For without His death, burial, Resurrection and rule...we would be a part from You forever...experiencing the focused wrath that sin deserves.

Oh, Father I pray that you will forgive our sins. We are so depraved...every thought is dipped in self-absorption, every deed is motivated in some way by our own agenda, and every moment drenched in rebellion of a Holy God. I am depraved...I am the poster child. Have mercy on me and forgive my sins.Lord, today we turn our thoughts and our hearts to You.

May we see prayer as it is...a declaration of total dependence on the mind and thoughts of You alone. As we surrender our lives to Your sovereignty...may we see our sins as you see our sins, may we be about the "least of these," may we give up the American Dream...for a cross every day.

Father, I ask that You bring those around this world to Yourself. Restore our land...not to prosperity but to holiness. This scripture is spoken of your temple, built by Solomon. Lord, we know today that WE are your temple! We are Your body and your bride. Hear our prayers.

In the Name of Jesus at which every knee WILL bow and every tongue WILL confess He is Lord, I offer this prayer. Amen

Blessed are...

Looking at his disciples, he said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." Luke 6:20

Matthew's version of this text tells us that blessed are the "poor in spirit." I prayed over this small sentence this morning. In America we don't do poor. We don't like to do without anything at ANY time. We use credit cards, loans, and lines of credit to do exactly what we want WHEN we want...we don't do poor...especially poor in spirit.

In our society, we are about rights. We are about equality. We are about...ourselves. No, we don't want much to do with poor...or poor in spirit. We want to be treated like queens by our husbands, admired by our friends, treated with respect by our coworkers, and obeyed by our children. We don't want to be poor in spirit...completely destitute with nothing of our own to claim. We want to be rich in spirit and in our bank account too for that matter.

But, Jesus looks deeply at his disciples where a "great number of people" were gathered around and being healed by simply touching him. Can you just see this? Can you see desperate, sickly, demon-possessed, and the poor of this town desperately clinging to him? Can you see our Jesus there in the midst of all this...living the picture of love...in the midst of the poorest?

He lets them gaze upon him in the midst of this chaos of healing and tells them that the poor are blessed. Um...what? No, no, no, Jesus! WE are blessed...right? I mean, we are the ones who lead Bible studies, who write eloquent words about You, who clean ourselves up very nicely for church on Sunday, who smell nice and have it together. We are blessed...right?

Jesus reminds them that we are desperately poor. On our own we are NOTHING. We don't own our bodies, our finances, our families, our possessions, our spouses, our children, our jobs, our coworkers, our friends, our churches, ourselves...we are dirt poor. But, in understanding and EMBRACING that poverty of spirit...we are blessed!

In embracing the fact that our Father is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords...we are blessed. In the understanding of sin and the cost it requires and knowing that we deserve wrath and death forever and ever...we are blessed. In clinging to grace and mercy that flows from Emmanuel's veins...we are blessed. In taking up a cross, denying ourselves, and following Him...we are blessed.

In our poverty...amazingly we have inherited a Kingdom.

Jesus used the poor to confound the rich. He used the foolish to confuse the wise. He used a cross to give us an inheritance we could never earn or buy...

because we are poor.

When you embrace poverty of spirit in your life, the next action is to reach out to those just like you and share the grace you have been given! It is all His! Ask Him today how you can be a blessing because you have been richly blessed.

Embrace your poverty...because only in that will you inherit a kingdom.

A word from my friend Charles...

Early each morning, I can be found wrapped up in a cozy robe and blanket with a cup of steaming hot Yerba Matte hot tea on my couch savoring precious Words from my Father. After time of study and of prayer, I take time to read a section of Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon. Each day I am encouraged by such an anchor of the faith and one who daily challenges my ways of thinking about life. It is good reading, my friend!

So, today after I read the section for today...I went back to the preface where he introduces the morning and evenings. I wanted to share some of what he says about meeting with God in the mornings...

"Morning devotions have always been dear to the enlightened, heaven-loving souls, and it has been their practice never to see the face of dawn until they have first seen the face of God...The first fresh hour of every morning should be dedicated to the Lord, whose mercy gladdens it with golden light. Morning devotions anchor the soul, so that it will not very readily drift far from God during the day. The morning is the gate of the day and should be well-guarded with prayer. It is one end of the thread on which the day's actions are strung and should be well-knit with devotion.

He who rushes from his bed into his business and does not wait to worship is as foolish as if he had not put on his clothes or washed his face. He is as unwise as one who dashes into battle without being armed. Let us bathe in the softly flowing river of communion with God before the heat of the wilderness and the burden of the way begin to oppress us." - C.H. Spurgeon

These are portions of the preface to Morning and Evening devotions by Spurgeon. I have been in them since January 1st and have truly enjoyed his company in my morning time. I pray that you are finding time to meet with God during that very first hour of your day...before all else distracts you. I pray that you will take time today to savor the Words of your loving Father and allow it to overflow into all the areas of your life. May it truly satisfy your souls...

Isaiah 58

This past weekend God allowed me to share Isaiah 58 with the ladies. The weekend was entitled "Embracing the Satisfied Life" and it started where Satisfy Our Souls leaves off. It walks through Isaiah 58 verse by verse.

This passage shares with us the indicators of a life fully satisfied in God and His Word. It compares and contrasts the kind of worship, fasting, and prayer that we bring to God and the kind of life God wants us to lead. This kind of life will overflow all over this world. It will feed the hungry (I mean the real hungry), it will clothe the naked, visit those in prison, break the bonds of injustice and oppression around this globe and in our own neighborhoods, and much more!

The much more will be found in the follow up study to Satisfy Our Souls..."Embracing the Satisfied Life." I know....I NEVER in a million years thought I would ever write another study. I was fully turned toward Foundation Bible Series doing the book of John. But, God has intervened...again:)

In a matter of 20 minutes early before daylight one morning, God poured 8 weeks of study into an outline (I thought I was preparing for a weekend...but no!) about the indicators of a life that is truly connecting with God. A life that is truly satisfied. I'm surprised, but the words are burning in my bones! I was so excited to be able to share just a small portion of the new study with the ladies this week and that was so valuable to me. They had no idea, but they were my test group!

Then, as if for further confirmation, I read this post on the Living Proof Ministries blog from Beth Moore's daughter Melissa as she in ministering with Compassion in India. I was just smiling because she expounds on the same passage. Do you think God is up to something in this generation or what?

So, check out this link and pray for me as I begin writing the next study...oh mercy I can't even believe those words are being typed...gotta get used to that! I'm pumped and can't wait to share it...thanks for letting me work through it this weekend ladies in Panama City!

http://livingproofministries.blogspot.com/2009/04/gods-shameless-love-for-poor.html

Have a blessed day and try meditating on Isaiah 58 for a while and see what God has to say...watch out...He means what He says!