Reflections on Lent: Witness and Praise

When thinking about the challenge the act:s team has put before the community this week, I was struck by the significance of sharing - not just information but your story, not just your cause but your path. Then I read this blog "When Rocks Look Like Shoes" and realized, yet again it goes beyond sharing our story to praising our Lord. 

To share our story with God - to celebrate it with Him - is the best celebration there is. 

When we humbly come before our Creator - the Author of Life - and praise Him for the stories He was written and worked in our lives, we are the one who are blessed. We are the ones who receive courage and strength and joy. 

So share today what the Lord has done with ours but most importantly with your Father.

Reflections on Lent: The Art of Rest

Emily Freeman

Sometime between April of 1977 and April of now, I forgot how to rest. Oh, I can fall on my pillow at night and sleep. I can sit and watch Downton Abbey for hours. I know how to read a book on the beach. But sleep is often different from rest. And lots of times I’m watching Downton because I’m avoiding real work. And when I’m at the beach, I’m on vacation so rest is kind of a requirement.

Over the past year, there have been times when I have felt breathless, never able to catch up, not even sure what I was chasing. I forgot how to plan for rest during hours where I am fully awake, able bodied and not on vacation.

            Read the rest at (in)courage.

Reflections on Lent: Listen to Him

Yes, this week we can think about what we listen to and what informs us, 

but also, find that rest in the voice of the Lord and truth that comes in there. 

I don't know about you, but sometimes when I spend a lot of time in reflection and a season of conviction, I get weary - weary of being wrecked, humbled, stomped down, and sent down roads I don't understand. 

So take a moment with me to rest and trust in the words of our Fathers and replace them with the hurry scurry of life...
 

The viability of our prayers is not contingent on scrabbling the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet into the right combinations like abracadabra. God already knows the last punctuation make before we pronounce the first syllable. The viability of our prayers has more to do with intensity than vocabulary. This is modeled by the Holy Spirit Himself, who has been intensely and unceasingly interceding for you your entire life.

 

  Psalm 32:7 is a must-circle promise. I like the King James Version: "Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance." [For you are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory - NLT]

  Long before you woke up this morning and long after you go to sleep tonight, the Spirit of God was circling you with songs of deliverance. He has been circling you since the day you were conceived, and He'll circle you until the day you die. He is praying hard for you with ultrasonic groans that cannot be formulated into words, and those unutterable intercessions should fill you with a unspeakable confidence. God isn't just for you in some passive sense: God is for you in the most active sense imaginable. The Holy Spirit is praying hard for you. And the supernatural sychronicities begin to happen with we tag-team with God and do the same.

 The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson
Dream Big. Pray Hard. Think Long.

"Even now we believe even then" - we are more than conquers.