Praying for My Kids

I pray for my kids every day.

I pray for their spiritual and physical safety.

I pray for their jobs, relationships, finances, and friendships.

I pray they will have courage, wisdom, boldness, kindness, peace, grace, and mercy.

I pray they will find favor in tough situations.

I pray they will step up and do what is right; that they will be honest, good people.

I pray they will draw closer to God.

When they mention something going on in their life I pray about that, too.

 

One thing I never, ever pray, though, is for overly specific things.

I never pray they will work this job or move to that place.

I never pray they will make a decision I think they should make or that they will do it one way or the other.

 

Instead, I pray and ask the Father to speak to their heart about which way they should go.

I also pray they will listen to Him and hear His promptings and follow His guidance so they will be in His will.

 

I try as hard as I can to practice this, even when I see them making foolish choices.

As much as I might want to say, “Lord, tell them No! Make them stop! They can’t do that anymore!” I instead ask Him to open their spiritual eyes, speak truth to their heart, and to help them see the choices they are making are hurtful.

I ask Him to give them wisdom and mercy and to protect them from their own poor choices.

 

Instead of trying to push my ideas, opinions, or choices on them, me asking Him to intervene points them to God and improves their relationship with Him.

It also strengthens both of our faiths because they grow closer to Him while I see Him working in their lives and answering my prayers.

 

When I pray and tell God what to do in their life or how I think things should go, I am setting myself up as god and trying to replace His authority and power with mine.

This is not prayer or help.

This is manipulation.

 

Manipulation – controlling or influencing something or someone in order to serve one’s own agenda or get desired selfish results,. Adjusting things so they turn out to your own advantage.

 

We are not supposed to manipulate.

We are supposed to surrender to God and to trust His perfect will and way of doing things in all things.

He is God and we are not.

He better knows what should happen and when.

Because He is God and can see all things, He sees, knows, and understands infinitely more than we ever can.

He knows exactly what they do and don’t need.

The things we’re asking and telling Him to do might bring our desired end results, but important lessons, opportunities, and blessings could be lost in the process.

Not just for them, but for us and for others in their lives.

So, instead of asking God to make things happen the way I think they should, I step back and look to God to handle things and to bring them about His way, in His timing.

 

This is an important part of faith – trusting God to handle a situation in a way only He could so that all those involved are helped in a way that brings about their good and His glory.

 

The next time you are praying for someone I encourage you to stop and listen to what you are saying.

Are you asking Him to work in their life?

Or, are you asking Him to do what you think needs done so it will turn out the way you think it should?

Which is better?

How can you adjust your prayers so they express faith in the One True God and not in your own ability to problem solve?

 

 

 

Category: Faith, Family, God, Prayer, Trust | LEAVE A COMMENT

Filtering Through Pain

One of the hardest things I’ve had to learn is how to filter my pain through truth instead of filtering truth through my pain.

See, as humans when we’re hurting we often let our pain color our perception of things, people, and actions around us.

We don’t do it on purpose.

It’s that the pain is there and present and in the forefront of our minds so we tend to lead with that and to perceive things from that perspective.

Whether we’ve been disrespected, lied to, betrayed, stolen from, or experienced any other kind of pain, we tend to see others’ actions as potential for that event to be happening again, even when it’s not.

We assume (sometimes without realizing it) that because a person from our past did us wrong this person will, too.

Unfortunately, when we’re expecting and looking for something we tend to see it, whether it’s there or not.

 

God calls us to a higher standard than that.

Instead of filtering our life experiences through our pain, He calls us to filter them through His Word and Truth.

Regardless of how we feel or what we have experienced, we have to put the truth of Scripture first and foremost in our minds and operate according to it and what it says.

 

That can be hard.

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Category: Faith, God, Jesus, Life, Truth | LEAVE A COMMENT

A Woman Died

A woman I know died this week.

Though she was a few years younger than me, she looked my mother’s age.

 

She used to come into the food pantry I served.

I’d tried talking to her a time or two – but she didn’t seem to want to interact.

 

I saw the signs – haunted, darting eyes, gaunt face.

I recognized the smell on her clothes and the sores on her face.

 

She was a meth addict.

 

She was also someone’s mother; someone’s daughter.

 

She was caught up in a hell of her own making.

 

For whatever reason, she never broke free.

 

Now, she’s dead – a victim of her own bad choices.

 

As much as I hated her bad habit, I can’t point a finger.

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Category: Addiction, Death, God, Trust | LEAVE A COMMENT

Pick Up Your Cross…

Have you ever heard the phrase, “pick up your cross”?

It’s part of a verse where Jesus says, “pick up your cross and follow Me,”.

This is a good, important thing to do.

It’s one of the basic parts of being a Christian.

 

To pick up our cross means to pick up the practice of obeying Christ and whatever calling He has placed on our life, to choose to lay our self aside, and to follow Him wherever He leads us.

 

Have you ever read the entire verse?

It’s found in Matthew 16:24 and says,

 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. (NIV)

 

Did you catch that?

It says to deny yourself.

 

Too often we try to follow Christ while still doing things our own way and living life on our terms.

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Category: Faith, God, Jesus, Obedience, Trust | LEAVE A COMMENT

On Being Vulnerable

I recently wrote a post on how I like to journal (read it here).

In the post I mentioned being vulnerable before God.

 

Sometimes, we try to hold back and not talk to God about certain things.

Things we’re ashamed of, embarrassed by, hurt from.

 

Here’s the thing. – God already knows about it!

 

Because God is all seeing and all knowing (omniscient), He knows absolutely everything about everyone and everything already.

There are no thoughts we can think that He doesn’t hear.

There is nothing we can do He doesn’t see.

 

So, when we try to hold things back from Him we are only fooling ourselves.

Not only that, all these things we keep holding back from Him are the very things He wants us to bring to Him.

 

Bringing ourselves before the Lord and laying our hearts open can be scary.

We’re afraid He will be shocked – He won’t. There’s nothing He hasn’t seen.

We’re afraid He will reject us because we are so “bad”. He won’t. He loves us unconditionally, no matter what!

 

Sometimes, part of the problem is, sometimes we don’t want to have to face what we’ve done.

We’d rather turn a blind eye to it, bury it deep within ourselves, and move one.

The problem with that is that not only is it still there, but God sees it and wants us to bring it out and share it with Him.

We might be able to bury it temporarily, but He’ll keep reminding us of it.

The sooner we bring it to Him and face it, the sooner we can get rid of it and stop it from hanging over our head.

The consequences may still be there, but He will walk us through it and comfort us as we go.

 

Another part might be that we don’t realize or we’ve forgotten that He is our Father

As a parent, He wants us to bring our broken things to Him so He can fix them – broken relationships, broken habits, broken thoughts, broken lives.

 

When we are brave enough to go to Him with these things, even if we can only do it one tiny bit at a time, He will begin to heal and restore us.

As He does, we will begin to see and feel His comfort, which will help us to trust Him more.

As we trust Him more, we can bring the bigger things to Him as we open our hearts to Him more.

It’s this heart opening that we do that allows us to be vulnerable with Him.

 

It won’t always be easy.

Sometimes there will be substantial pain.

But, at the end of the day we will be closer to God, relying more and more on His love and mercy, trusting Him and His love more and more.

That’s a pretty good place to be!

 

If there is something you are hiding or holding back from the Lord, I hope you will bring it to Him and ask Him to help and to heal you in that area.

It may be hard, but the peace, relief, and healing you receive will be so worth it!

 

 

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3 (NIV)

 

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10 (NIV)

 

 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)

 

To read my previous post on journaling,, please click here.

 

 

 

 

Category: God, Journaling, Trust | LEAVE A COMMENT

Good Friday 2026

It’s Good Friday – the day we remember Jesus and how He willingly gave up His life to pay for our sins so we can be reconciled with the Father through His precious blood atonement. .

I praise Him for His sacrifice and thank Him for His immeasurable gift!

 

 “He Himself bore our sins” in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by His wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 (NIV)

“We are going up to Jerusalem,” He said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles, 34 who will mock Him and spit on Him, flog Him and kill Him. Three days later He will rise.” Mark 10:33-34 (NIV)

 

To learn more about Good Friday, please visit my post, What Is Good Friday?

 

For more posts about Easter, please visit my Easter page here – Easter

 

 

Category: God, Holiday, Jesus | LEAVE A COMMENT

Easter 2026

It’s almost Easter!

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week.

During this week Christians from around the world will remember Jesus and His crucifixion, as they celebrate His resurrection.

I hope you will take time to reflect on Jesus’ sacrifice and what it means for us as believers.

 

If you would like to know more about Easter, please check out these links to previous posts:

 

What Is Easter?

What Is Palm Sunday?

What Is Holy Week?

 

For more posts about Easter, please visit my Easter page here – Easter

 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Peter 1:3 (NIV)

 

 

 

Category: Death, Holiday, Jesus | LEAVE A COMMENT

What is Salvation?

You’ve probably heard the words Saved or Salvation used by Christians.

What does it mean in this context?

It means saved from our sins.

 

See, back when God first created the world He created a beautiful garden and placed two people in it – Adam and Eve.

They lived a beautiful and blessed life.

There was no sin.

There was no pain.

There was just joy.

Unfortunately, they made a really bad choice that ended all that.

 

When God placed them in the Garden of Eden, He told them about two trees that were there.

One was the Tree of Life; the other was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

God made it very clear they could eat of any tree in the garden except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The enemy came to Eve, disguised as a serpent, to tempt her into eating the fruit of the only tree God had told them to stay away from.

She not only ate it, she shared it with Adam.

When they ate this fruit, their eyes were opened to see the difference between good and evil.

It was at the moment Eve yielded to the serpent’s temptation and ate the fruit that sin entered the world.

Because of this, God made them leave the garden so they would not eat from the Tree of Life.

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Category: Faith, God, Jesus, Trust, Truth | LEAVE A COMMENT

Don’t Look Back

There’s a story in Genesis 18-19 that tells about the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah.

God sent angels to the two towns to destroy them because of their great wickedness.

Just before destroying the cities, the angels sent Lot, his wife, and two daughters out of the area, telling them to flee to safety and not to look back.

Unfortunately, Lot’s wife does look back and is turned into a pillar of salt. (Genesis 29:16)

Why?

Because she didn’t just look back, she looked back with longing.

Instead of looking to the rescue from destruction God was providing her, she looked back at the old life she was losing with desire to keep it.

She didn’t want to let go of the old life she was leaving behind.

 

I wonder how many of us have done that?

Maybe we left behind a job we loved, a friendship that was not healthy for us.

Maybe we’ve had to let go of a bad habit/pet sin we enjoyed.

Maybe we’ve had to leave a ministry we enjoyed participating in or a church we valued.

Maybe we’ve even had to let go of a romantic partner.

 

Whatever it is, God called us away but we are struggling with the loss.

If He’s called us away, He’s calling us to let go, walk away, and move on.

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Category: God, Old Testament, People in the Bible, Scripture Study | LEAVE A COMMENT

Psalm 63:6

I often wake up at least twice a night.

I used to either get up, get a drink of water, and walk through the house wondering why I was awake, or else lie there and grumble to myself about being awake when all I wanted to do was sleep.

Then I came across Psalm 63:6:

On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. (NIV)

I realized instead of being in a foul mood about being awake I could talk to the Lord about things on my mind, or pray about/review Scripture or sermons I’d recently heard..

As I began to do this, my attitude began to change.

I began to look forward to waking up in the middle of the night and having these quiet moments with the Lord.

My sleep began to improve.

i began to wake up more rested than before.

Best of all, I wake up with my mind more focused on the Lord than it has ever been.

 

What I thought was a problem and inconvenience turned into one of the sweetest and best parts of not just my day but my faith walk.

I still have times when I wake up grumpy because I’m awake in the middle of the night, but the moment I look to God and begin talking to Him, the bad mood leaves and peace washes over me.

I relax and feel so much better.

 

If you wake up in the middle of the night I hope you will try this and see how much it can improve your mood, your faith walk, and even your life.

Let me know how it goes.

 

My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises .Psalm 119:148 (NIV)

 

I previously wrote a longer version of this post. You can find it here: Praying In the Night.

I wrote today’s post discussing it again because it is an important topic and it is good to occasionally have reminders.

 

 

Category: God, Life, Prayer, Scripture Study | LEAVE A COMMENT