Peace Costs

“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever for in Yah, the Lord, is everlasting strength.” 

Isaiah 26:3-4

I have often prayed that prayer that God would bless me or another with that “perfect peace”. As Christians, we strive for that greatest level of “peace that surpasses understanding” just like the Bible tells us in Philippians 4:7. We lay our petitions before the Lord and hope that what comes after will be peace. But what we fail to remember is that peace comes at a cost.

The cost of peace is TRUST.

The Lord is wanting to bless you with that promised peace but he needs you to trust Him implicitly. Today is your chance to do just that—to demonstrate you trust for God and receive the peace he has for you. It’s easier said than done but it takes a commitment to leave your situations and burdens on the altar of prayer and not pick them back up. Someone once preached that we must treat those things like they are FedEx/UPS packages coming to our doors and remember that we have the power to say to those distractions and burdens that “we are not signing for that”.

Make that your goal on today!

Blessings,

Andrea

Right Time. Small Wings.

Have you ever watched a butterfly fly come into this world? Knowing that a caterpillar went through a process to emerge as a perfect butterfly is mind-boggling. To think that God takes this thing that was on the bottom of the bottom and raises it up to the point where it’s beautiful and is able to soar to heights far beyond what I will ever see with such little equipment always amazes me. A sign at a nature observatory once explained it further for me saying:

It takes just a few minutes for the adult butterfly to emerge from its chrysalis when the time is right. The butterfly first emerges with very small wings.

I thought about how often we go through our own seasons of being in that cocoon with life’s changes, processes and trials. Sometimes we come out slow but we do come out! We’ve graduated from schools, gone through trainings, survived issues in our marriages, transitioned from singleness to marriage, finally gotten pregnant after years of trying, conquered an illness…all great and wonderful things. But while you are in the cocoon, you have no real idea of the butterfly experience that is about to come your way. I can imagine that the darkness of our situations mimics the darkness in that hard shell. We wait with anticipation laced with a bit of doubt that we will ever make it out. However, Acts 27:25 encouraged me beyond that doubt this week. Paul, in the midst of a storm when everyone else had given up hope, says “…take heart, men, for I believe God that it will be just as it was told me.”

It may take time to emerge from the cocoon of your situation. You may have to break through some things to see the light, but just know that you can take heart. God’s promise to bring you out was not a lie. His promise to enlarge take you flying to higher heights was not your imagination. You may come out with very small wings initially, but you will come out when the time is right! I believe that God will do just as He told you!

Be encouraged!

A New Day For Prayer Points

I AM SO EXCITED! 

Many of you have followed my prayer points for years now. They began as a wonderful gift of discipleship from a friend, Tamara Hunter, in 1996 and have grown ever since. It has been a pleasure to serve you and I do hope that you'll continue to share in this faith journey with me with this new (hopefully more user-friendly and accessible) format. As the times change, I'm trying to change with them. It is my hope that as Lifted Hands Ministries (my new outreach nonprofit organization) grows, these weekly devotionals will grow along with it.

Thank you for making the jump from Yahoo! to here with me. 

Many blessings,
Andrea