The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
Tag Archives: Prayer
After three consecutive scans that were clear of cancer, my husband had his chemo-port removed this week in his fifth fully-anesthetized procedure in a year. Over this past year of chemotherapy, we couldn’t see a clear mission like we had with our other two experiences of cancer in 2006 and 2018. Until, that is, after his treatments were done.
The first contact that mentioned the need of encouragement for another person with a similar cancer to Dan’s 2018 melanoma, was…..
Our relationship with God is not one-sided. He created us for companionship with Him. In the Garden of Eden, He was in the habit of walking and talking to Adam. When sin entered, that fellowship was broken. When Jesus died on the cross and rose again, the chasm between us and God was bridged. As Christians we have that fellowship again, in prayer. In Matthew 7:7, Jesus tells us to “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye…..
At Hezekiah’s request, Isaiah asked God to take the shadow backwards ten degrees as a sign of His healing. And God did it (2 Kings 20:8-11). While it is nothing for the Creator to bend time and reverse solar movement like that, it is a significant demonstration of God’s intent to honor Hezekiah’s request.
The Matthew 6:9-13 Lord’s Prayer includes the phrase “Give us this day, our daily bread.” It is not the specific request for the miraculous that Hezekiah…..
The first time I sang “The Lord’s Prayer” in a high school choir rehearsal, I fell in love with it. The soaring melody lines and close harmonies of the song by Albert Hay Mallotte seemed to capture the beauty and sacredness of Jesus’ words in a compelling way. Even though I had memorized the words as a child, the song gave me a new level of understanding of the prayer found in Matthew 6 and Luke 11. In both passages,…..
Picture this: you are driving in heavy traffic in an unfamiliar city. You see your destination but there is not an empty parking space anywhere. You drive farther along, then circle around each block in between. Still no vacant parking space. What do you do now? Get angry? Circle the blocks on the other side of your destination? Have you ever thought about praying for a parking space?
This may seem an event too small for God to be concerned…..
The envelope arrives in your mailbox telling you that you have “definitely won” an enormous amount of money. Then you read the fine print, “if the number inside is the winning number.” Your interest is piqued and you follow all the directions, send the official entry form back, and pray that the Lord would make you the winner. In the weeks, months, and years to come, you receive a continuous flow of solicitations to enter the sweepstakes, each one more…..
Exodus 25-31 describes the instructions God gave Moses about the building, accessories, and maintenance of the Tabernacle. Moses was told to request willing sacrifices of the people with which to make a dwelling place for God among them: “And this is the offering which you shall take of them: gold, silver, and brass; blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen; goats’ hair, rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins; shittim wood; oil for the light, spices for anointing oil and for sweet incense;…..
A Template For Praise
Psalm 8:1-9 …
“O LORD our Lord, how excellent is our name in all the earth, who has set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings you have ordained strength because of your enemies, that you might still the enemy and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained, what is man, that you are mindful of…..
Psalm 27 is one of my primary go-to passages when I can’t see past the chaos and need encouragement.
Jacob’s Prayer
Many times circumstances have brought me to my knees before God, especially recently. And the prayers that I pray sound a lot like Jacob’s prayer in Genesis 32:9-12.
Having left his understandably hostile brother some twenty years before, Jacob was fearful for his safety, along with the safety of his family, livestock, goods, and servants, as he approached his father’s home. Having been told that his brother, Esau, was coming to meet him with four hundred men, he…..