I am finally sitting down to do some writing tonight. It’s 10:30 P.M. and my day has been marvelously full! It started with two prayer meetings and a pastoral care team meeting. Tonight I returned to the church for rehearsal and a leadership development meeting. The opportunities to serve God are growing and the time of answered prayer is coming quickly. Walking in the healings of this season is a must for me and for our church. It is so exciting to see the healing which has taken place in our corporate lives since the beginning of the year. Yet I know God has so much more.

Here is a review of some of the lessons He has begun to work into our lives.

Lent Day 25- On this day I wrote, “The grace of God is here with us right now. That grace is the power of God to do that which we could not do for ourselves. As we open ourselves to it grace trains us, schools us in how to live godly lives and those godly lives are for the here and now. You don’t have to wait until you get to Heaven to have victory over addictions or deep-seated wounds that cause bad behavior. The grace of God is present now to help you in this age. If grace can change me it can change you. Do not give up let His grace work on you a little while longer and you will see a change. You may have been born with a bent to sin but if you let Jesus in He will turn you around so that you have a bent towards righteousness. No one is beyond His reach. No one!”

Lent Day 26-  On this day I wrote, ”

The question is not, “Will trouble or evil reports come?” The question is “What will we do with them when they arrive?”

We have some choices. We can:

1. Receive the evil report and give up. This choice leads us to fatalism…doing nothing  because we believe that the evil thing  is inevitable.

2. Receive the evil report and worry. This choice leads us to fear. With this choice we help the evil report to grow into a monster that consumes all of our life and feeds on our hope until we are nothing more than burned out shells. In this scenario we become paranoid self-fulfilling prophecies of the terrible things we fear.

3.  Hear the evil report but refuse to accept it on the basis of God’s promises. This choice leads us to radical faith that wrestles with God until He grants us a blessing.”

What are you doing with life’s evil reports?

Lent Day 27- On this day I wrote, “All of our hearts, plagued by sin, lead us astray and away from God’s intended purpose; So God weaves a story, a plan, around us that is large enough and tough enough for us to come to life in. We are forced either to run from God or submit to “God’s fierce intention to use both crippling and blessing to redeem us from our self-redemptive and purgatorial stories.” The Sacred Romance P. 66 ”

Have you ever struggled with God’s plan? How did you work through it?

Lent Day 28- This day’s question was, “What area of life if better disciplined will bring you closer to your goal(s)?”

What  here stands out for you?