I Prayed for You Today

Good morning, sweet friends, it's such a joy and pleasure to be here with you again!


Today is a short blog post, but one that I wanted to send as an encouragement.  Every week in the Creative Worship Prayer Warriors group, a good number of us rallies together to bless the name of the Lord.  Every person there is in turn blessed by the communal support and value of being a sister in the Lord - a sister under One Heavenly Father.

Tim Keller writes something truly amazing about this connection that we have - in Christ - as we lift our voices, crying out to God in this very unique and specialized form of communion:
"When we believe in Jesus, we are united to Him.  We are "in Him" as Paul says repeatedly.  This means that what is true of Jesus is true of us.  Because He has the perfect and secure access of an obedient child to the Father, so now do we."
And more, "When we pray in Jesus' name, therefore (don't you love how Tim Keller writes so eloquently???), we do so with supreme confidence and yet humble dependence on unmerited grace." (Prayer, p. 106)
He's saying that when we pray, there is intimacy with God the Father Himself because of our connection to Christ.  Ones who are written in the Book of Life, engraved on the palms of His hands, have unique and intimate fellowship with Him who created us - Him who spent precious blood for the souls of us all - our Heavenly Father.

We are not just saying words; we are speaking a different language.  This language that can only exist in the perfect connection between us and God.
Prayer is one of the most potent and powerful methods of communication; and we should never stop praying. 

Pray for each other.
Pray for your friends.
Pray for your mailman.
Pray for your neighbor.
Pray for your spouse.
Pray for your kids.
Pray for that one who hurt you.
Pray for that missionary.
Pray for their outreach.
Pray...

"Begin Again"

"In This Together"

Pray.
And don't stop.

"I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.  And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace," (Philippians 1:3-7)

Much love,
Deeds
IG: @mercies_journaled
Youtube: Mercies Journaled

Donut Worry, Trust God's Promises

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Philippians 4:4-7

I was a worrisome child growing up. I worried about anything and everything. I worried about car accidents, and weather, and tests, and sports, and illness - literally everything. I worried about things that were within my control and things that weren't. Finally, when I was in my early teens, I had a talk with my mom about my worrying habits and she encouraged me to spend some time in God's Word studying what He has to say about "peace" and to pick a verse to hold onto when I'm in my worrying mode. I spent quite a bit of time looking through every single verse that discussed the topic of peace and finally settled on John 14:27, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (See my illustration of this verse in my recent Instagram post here.) This verse became my life verse and I still reference it frequently. 

Philippians 4:6 tells us exactly what to do when we are filled with worrisome thoughts -- take it to the Lord in prayer. Don't worry, but take everything (whether big or small) to the Lord in prayer, making your request known to him with a thankful spirit (JRV, Janelle Rodriguez Version 😉). Our all-knowing God already knows each request before we even think it, but He wants us to learn to communicate with Him all our wants and needs. 1 Thessalonians tells us to pray without ceasing. That means an ever-constant stream of communication with our Heavenly Father, sharing every aspect of our life with Him. When we are in constant communication with God, praying about everything, it will become easier to give our worries over to God and trust Him to care for our every need. 💛 

You wouldn't know it by looking at the page now, but this page was a hot mess all week. Seriously. It took me about a week to finish. 😲 I started the page when I had some alone time, but then my teenage boys came home from soccer practice and my house went into an uproar. I should have just set it aside and come back to it, but I didn't - I tried plugging along and ended up smearing and smudging my way through the page. 

I was so exasperated, I finally did end up setting it aside for a few days and came back to it later in the week. (If I could just offer a bit of advice here: if you're working on a page and you have too many distractions or your heart just isn't in it, set it aside and come back to it when you're ready. Trying to force your way through finishing a page takes all the fun out of it, and ruins your fellowship time with your Heavenly Father.)

   

   

There was no fixing my donut smudge, so I prayed about it and tried to think of a way to creatively cover it up and keep with the theme of the page. In comes the texture paste!! 😊 I took a little blob of texture paste, mixed it with some purple acrylic paint and dabbed/smudge it in a couple different spots on the page, with a particularly large dab over my smudged donut. I then splattered the page with a bit more purple ink and positioned my donut ephemera how I wanted it on the page. I taped it all down, added white gel accents to my stamping and called it good. 

When it was all said and done, it turned out fairly decently, and knowing the story behind how the page came to be even further illustrates the verse. Don't worry, trust God, and bring everything to Him in prayer - even if it is something so inconsequential as a smudged bible journaling page. 😉

Have a wonderful week in the Lord!

Janelle
@journalingjoy


I used the Donut Worry and Trust in Jesus stamp sets to create this page. I LOVE these stamp sets! They have so many uses. The Donut Worry stamp set is the September Stamp of the Month and is FREE with your $75 order. While you're shopping, take advantage of the Sweet & Sentimental sale going on through the end of September!