Obedience-Re-Post

I read on FB this morning about ministry. It reminded me of this post that I wrote over a year ago. I thought it worth posting again......... Ministry........ right in front of my nose..

Hugs

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...........My ministry. I spent years looking for and waiting for my ministry. Many years ago when I was first born-again there was a powerful woman of God that prophesied over me. I will never forget that day and her words resound in my mind on many occasions. I would teach and preach and minister to wounded women. I would be an instrument of God to touch women of no self worth.

......... I think it was the next day that I began looking for that ministry. I studied for hours and hours. I listened with a hungry heart to every word that came out of the mouth of many ministers on TV and in my local church. Years went by and nothing. I cried, I prayed, I begged for God to "bring me into my ministry" I have a passion that burns within me today for the wounded woman but try as I might I could not find my"niche".

........... The years have come and gone and I have gone through very dark times since then and I have gone through many mountain top experiences. I cannot tell you when I came to an understanding of "my ministry" but thankfully I did. When I was first saved I was a mess and I would have been no help to anyone. There were things that the Lord and I had to work through before I could see Him clearly. I had a distorted view of all things of the Lord but knew that He lived within me and I so wanted to know the truth. I studied.

... Over the years I have been a preacher, a teacher, a leader of many women's groups. I have spoke in front of many and I have spoke in front of few. I have laid hands and anointed with oil and seen God heal. I can tell you that I am in my element when I am standing in front of groups of people large or small. But......... (you knew there was a but coming)

....I have learned over the years that our ministry is not in billboard neon signs. We are not all Joyce Myers' or Kenneth Copeland's. If you study the life of Christ you will see His ministry.

.... He moved through His world never staying still in one spot. His world was small compared to ours but He moved through His world with compassion for the few and compassion for the many. His ministry was to minister to the needs before Him whether it be healing or hunger. He was a healer when healing was needed, He was a teacher when it was called for, He was a provider when the people were hungry. He encouraged when people needed to be encouraged. He was all things to all men. That was who He was and that was His ministry. When He was 12 and found in the temple teaching His words to His mother were "I must be about my Fathers business" What is the business of the Father? It is people.

........ I was set free many years ago when He taught me that today I may need to just encourage someone. Tomorrow I may need lay hands on someone and pray the prayer of faith for their healing. If I come upon someone in need of food I will be called on to give "bread'. That is my ministry, and when I open my ears to His voice and keep my heart obedient to His calling then I find my self slap dab in the middle of a ministry that touches lives on a daily basis. Whether it be here in the blog or if it be on the streets of my small town. When I remain obedient to His voice I am walking in the middle of His will for my life. What a sense of freedom it bring to my heart and spirit man as I lay down at night. For me it is the understanding that when the sun comes up the following morning I need do nothing but walk in my world and be obedient and wait with much anticipation for what He will ask me to do today.

.........My ministry is obedience to His voice.......... He is in charge of the outcome.

PEACE PLEASE..............

May today there be peace within.

May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.

May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love
that has been given to you.

May you be confident knowing that you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones,
and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us.

Teresa of Avila

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It is not hard to understand what the world needs now is peace. We go through our days with each of us moving in the paths that we have chosen making the decision both great and small that we will need to repeat tomorrow.

I myself do those things each day, day after day almost in a robotic fashion, but if I stop for just a minute and let myself reflect on the day that has past or the day that is before me out of my mouth come the whispered prayer "just give me peace for this day Father God, I just need peace."

Do you find that is on your lips also. Much more could be requested, but peace is what my heart cries for the most. If only peace, then all else will find rest.

Peace we pray our Father God, peace among the turmoil,

and let us not not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.

THE Heart Doctor

For those of you that read my Broken Clay Pot here in this blog will understand why this morning is a humbling morning for me.

My son Darryl had heart surgery this morning. It was something that was decided yesterday late after seeing his heart Doctor and the scheduled the surgery for today. It was too far for me to go and the new procedure was going to make the surgery possible without going in his chest.
They go up through the vein in his groin to his heart and patch the hole and he will be able to go home today. The miracles of modern medicine.

I was up a lot last night praying and just thinking about my son. The other son Chris that lives here had made the 5 hour trip yesterday just to be there when Darryl saw the specialist. He of course decided to stay when they decided on surgery today. I waited and waited this morning for word of Darryl. That word came about 9:15........

No hole, the hole that was on the scan yesterday was not there this morning. The Dr had no answer for Darryl, he had no idea why the hole was gone and in medical terms they called it a medical misunderstanding or something like that....... What ever that means. They looked and looked while they were in there and just could not find the hole.

We know where the hole went, we know the God that spoke and healed that heart in an instant in the twinkling of an eye. We know.

While standing at the sink a bit ago and washing some dishes and thanking the Lord for the great thing HE has done, the Lord spoke. "I will continue to heal his heart" was what burst forth into my spirit man. I knew in an instant that it was my Father God and I knew in an instant what HE was saying.

I am humble this morning. When we give over to grief and futility of effort in prayer, HE does not and HE is faithful. I will take what the Father spoke to my heart this morning and I will watch the horizon for my son.........

In Christ

Thought For The Day

Peace of mind should not be an objective of life. More often than not, peace of m ind leads to a state of peace without mind. There are causes that should call us; there are cries of help that should move us; there are people who need us; there are conditions that demand us. Floating around in one's own tub of butter should not be a goal for an intelligent life. Let us find tranquility in the doing, not in the being.

Saul Teplitz

Obedience, Better Than Sacrifice

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Our Lord's first obedience was to the will of his Father, not to the needs of men; the saving of men was the natural outcome of his obedience to the Father.

Oswald Chambers

Is that a wonderful statement or what? It is in our obedience to HIM that our ministry is made manifest. No other effort to save a lost world will be as effective as obedience first.

It brings about anointed ministry. Isn't that what we all want?

Have an obedient day.

Broken Clay Pot

2 Corinthians

For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But we have this TREASURE in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

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We are subject to being tired and weary. We have days that it is ONLY by faith we live and ONLY by faith that we move and ONLY by faith have our being. BY FAITH we rejoice and sing, BY FAITH we speak but there are days that I am weary, and my clay pot is subject to be broken.

We were not designed to carry the weight of the world we are clay pots and inside of this destructible vessel lives the indestructible TREASURE of heaven. The very same spirit, THE SAME SPIRIT, that raised Christ Jesus from the dead live IN ME. In my clay pot lives the third person of the trinity. The Holy Spirit HIMSELF. He brings to me council and direction and wisdom if I will stop to hear.

HE gives guidance in all seasons of my life and HE consoles and ministers to me when my clay pot is under great distress. When the world pushes in on me and fissures begin to appear in my fragile exterior HE mends and heals and strengthens from the inside out. HE so loves my clay pot that HE came to take up HIS abode and constantly reinforce the purpose HE has set before me.

BUT...... I am a clay pot.. I weep and I grieve and I break and have need of mending. I struggle to live yet I die daily. I sometimes hold on to this life with a grip of an iron hand refusing to relinquish my hold for the promise of a greater life.

I am a clay pot with the treasure of heaven encased deep within who I am. HE weeps when I weep and when I dance with my red tambourine HE will dance......... HE is all in all IN ME........ but I am a worn vessel subject to the cruel hand of the world coming to chip away at my exterior. I am a clay pot.

Never meant to be strong and mighty, never asked to do the impossible and never expected to toil without tears. We are clay pots and somewhere deep within the mortal clay that will crumble and return each of us to dust, lives the very person in the trinity that when God spoke 'Let there be" HE moved upon the face of the deep and life was, light was.

The very breath of God lives in my clay pot and because of HIS life in me the days that I crack under the pressure I am reassured that HE is the corner stone and HE is the master potter and in HIS hands I am sheltered. HE is the "I Am" and HE moves quickly to shelter me from being dashed upon the rocks.

Today my clay pot was in shambles and broken I sat and cried out to the only one that can mend the broken clay. My fleshly clay pot is weary and it longs for a place in time that I can feel at peace but just for a while..... I weep.

I heard from my youngest son today that my first born son Darryl had a stroke on Wednesday. We were not told, we were not notified. Me his mother is not worthy of knowledge of her very first born son to be at risk of loosing his life.
He has a hole in his heart and will see a surgeon in a few weeks.

I am not welcome to stand by his bed side and kiss his sweet face and pray that my Father God from whom all life flows go before that surgeon and guide the hands that repair that earthen vessel known as Darryl. I have cried more today... Silly me, thinking that the 25 years that we have been estranged would somehow scar over the love that a mother has for a son. Silly me. I weep over lost years and I sob over a son that I need to hold..

I will go to the potter from where my life first started and HE will mend my clay pot from the inside out, and HE will hear the sobs of a mother grieving over a son and HE will go where I am not welcome and HE will keep watch for me........ I know HE will.......

But HE was wounded for my broken clay pot and my transgressions; he was bruised for my broken clay pot iniquities: the chastisement of the peace of my broken clay pot was upon HIM; and with HIS stripes my broken clay pot can be mended and healed.

And within this vessel of clay is place the TREASURE of heaven.