Soul Sister Time

            It’s the first week of Advent and no one expects you to be ready for Christmas, but if you are not ready for Advent you will miss this amazing spiritual oasis in the middle of a season full of pressure, empty promises and stomach aches.   The Advent Season begins with HOPE.   You light the first candle hoping in the promises of the prophets of old that have yet to be fulfilled—His second coming to rule the world in peace, and the ones that were fulfilled in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus on earth.             If you live your life focused on the words of Jesus, Advent Season might show you that you are ready.   Jesus didn’t create a church calendar.   It was put together by our church fathers who wanted to give us a way to focus on the life of Christ through special Feast Days and Seasons that celebrate Jesus’ life.   We def...

            Forgiveness is the most important subject that I ever write about.   I have never written a book that does not include the subject of forgiveness.   I’m not surprised that a radical format for forgiveness is paramount in the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray.   You can pray it so remotely that you don’t realize what you are praying, but the reality of your life requires that you learn not only to be forgiven but to forgive.   You learn most fully what it means to be forgiven by none other than the act of forgiving.             Have you realized that yet?   When teaching on marriage my husband says : Forgiveness in marriage ought to come as naturally as breathing and practiced almost as often (Dr. Brian Newman).   I would add to that:   Daily forgiveness through the power of Christ ought to become as natural as breathing and prac...

            In the prayer Jesus taught us to pray, He encourages us to ask God for what we need.   He also teaches us what we need.   Of course what we need is far different than what we want.             Most of us learn to pray about what we want.   I can still remember the first time I felt God answer a personal prayer that I had prayed.   I was in third grade.   We were all standing up in a line having a Spelling Bee.   I was so afraid that I would be mortified by being the first one who misspelled a word.   I didn’t know what to do so I turned to prayer.   I had just become a Christian the year before and I guess I had leaned somewhere that when you need something, you can ask God to give it to you.   I was as desperate as any little third grade girl could be over the prospects of messing up first.   I don’t remember how fa...

            God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven seems like a prayer that should flow from the lips of any believer.   And it does.   Those of us who repeat the Lord’s Prayer in unison or in our hearts do so often without thinking.   Perhaps our souls sense that is a good idea for God’s will to be done and we leave it at that.   We ask from a soul that is more aware of the grocery list we need to make after we finish our prayer than the notion that God may have a will for us in heaven.             It’s all fine and good to pray for God’s will until you let your soul really think about it.   If we are honest, most of us ask for God’s will so that we can understand what He has in mind and then choose whether we will go along with it.   That’s not what Jesus is teaching us to pray.   He wants us to pray like He did.   He knows ...

Civilization is God’s idea. Cities are vital to God’s plan for the world. Jesus taught us to pray that His Kingdom would come (Matthew 6:10). Why? How does God want us to love cities and His Kingdom as much as He does? God loves, loves, loves Jerusalem! There is no doubt that the place on this earth most sacred to God is Jerusalem. Jerusalem is still the center of the nation of Israel to this day, though it was hundreds of years after the Israelites went into the Promised Land before they captured this city. What was Chris Tomlin thinking about when he wrote these lyrics? You're the God of this City You're the King of these people You're the Lord of this nation You are … For greater things have yet to come And greater things are still to be done in this City Greater thing have yet to come And greater things are still to be done in this City http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d61LamkXfwk&noredirect=1 Was he connecting to the heart of God for the city? Was he g...

            There’s something very important that we need to remember about God, according to the prayer Jesus taught us to pray.   We need to remember where He is—He is in heaven.               When we pray to God our prayers will fare better if we orient ourselves to God’s perspective.   His viewpoint is from heaven.   Ours is limited to earth.   We have gravity, landfills, wars, rape (dare I go on?) to block our view.   He sees all of that and more, but seeing it does not block His view of what is possible.   He is not limited by gravity, landfills, wars, etc.               When we pray to our God Who is in heaven, we are not praying to a god who is detached from earthly limitations.   He is well aware of the painful realities that He never wanted for us.   They break His...

            Sometimes it is hard to become a fan of God’s decisions.   We don’t always understand them, especially when bad things happen.   There are those times when something that you really wanted went to someone else, but the in the end you can see how you are better off without it.   There are a whole lot of situations in life that just don’t make sense, no matter how you look.                   Thomas a Kempis makes it simple for us.   He writes: It is best if we accept God’s decisions without complaint.   Do not ask him to defend his actions, or to explain why one person is favored and another seems slighted.   The answers to those questions go far beyond our comprehension.   This is true, but it’s hard to get to this place.   It is a place of great confidence in God.       ...